Page 271 - Crisis in Higher Education

242 • Crisis in Higher Education

associates, directors, managers, specialists, and/or staff members who
assist them. Some elements of provost’s office are very large, such as the
vice provost for student life, and others, such as the vice provost for diver-
sity and inclusion, are relatively small.
Dramatically reducing the size of executive leadership is difficult
because they are the power brokers who prepare budgets and allocate
resources. Fortunately, making these cuts is consistent with decentral-
izing decision making. For public universities, it requires (1) state gov-
ernment, supported by students, parents, other family members, friends,
and potential employer, (2) boards of trustee, and (3) presidents to make
substantial and meaningful reductions in executive leadership. The power
of these three entities must drive this change. Hiring faculty from inside
the institution into positions of power and creating and using the FRC to
advise the board and president would facilitate this change.
These reductions must be both symbolic and real. As a symbol, signifi-
cant cuts in executive leadership make it much easier to reduce the num-
ber of directors, professional managers, specialists, and staff members.
Executive leadership cuts can be real. At a research university, the provost
and a dozen direct reports are likely to cost $2.5 million in wages, not
counting support staff. Cutting one direct report in the provost office
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without making any other changes would save enough to hire two tenure-
track assistant professors who can spend time on teaching and research.
It seems reasonable to phase in these reductions. There are many ways
to do this, but consider a five by five plan, which means a 5% reduction
in executive-level headcount and salary each year for five years. After
five years, executive leadership costs would be down about 22% (not 25%
because each year after the first year the base is smaller, so a 5% reduction
for the second year is only 4.75% of the initial budget). As the fifth year
approaches, government, the boards, and the president would reevaluate
to determine if more reductions could be attained. The magnitude of the
increase in executive leadership since the late 1970s would indicate that
even a bigger reduction may be possible.
Skeptics may argue that this is simply increasing the workload on the
remaining executives by an average of 22%, assuming that no new work is
created. They are missing at least five key points.

1. Decentralizing decision making reduces administrative work:
Executive leadership and administration have increased because
universities have implemented centralized decision making and a