Page 272 - Crisis in Higher Education

Reforming Administration and Management • 243

command and control management system. This requires an army
of executives, middle managers, and support staff to microman-
age colleges and other entities within the university. When decision
making is decentralized, the size of central administration, including
the provost’s office, can be reduced. Although some but not all of this
work must now be done by college administrators and faculty, they
are not spending time writing endless and not very useful reports
and creating detailed proposals for why colleges should be able to
replace a faculty member who has left the university. There is less
organizational friction and productivity is likely to increase as col-
lege administrators and faculty see new benefits from their efforts.
2. Existing executives may not be fully engaged: Some executives have
slack in their workweek.
3. There are synergies when work is combined: If work is divided among two
or more employees, time and resources are needed to communicate and
coordinate goals, activities, outcomes, and next steps. When responsi-
bilities are consolidated, some of this work goes away. For example, the
associate vice provost for academic programs and continuing education
listed in Table 11.2 must work closely with undergraduate and graduate
programs. If this position is eliminated and the work is allocated to the
associate vice provosts for undergraduate and graduate education, that
is one less executive and staff to coordinate with.
4. Not all work is value added: Some work is not needed and can be elimi-
nated. For example, this book suggests that universities eliminate out-
reach and engagement initiatives, so the corresponding vice provost
position identified in Table 11.2 and his or her staff could be eliminated.
5. Management tools, training, and information technology (IT) can
increase productivity: Using better management tools and offer-
ing more training in areas such as team learning, quality manage-
ment, and system thinking should enable administrators to be more
effective and productive. In addition, there have been tremendous
advances in the use of IT to do work more efficiently—meaning more
productively. This is more than email and text. It involves developing
decision support systems to gather, organize, and consolidate data
and information to make better and faster decisions. It is also easier
to prepare reports required by the board, state and federal govern-
ments, and accreditation agencies. Higher education is far behind
private-sector companies in the use of IT to create an effective and
productive organization.