The Chapel Hill weekly., 1958-10-30
A. B.-'Academic Bureaucracy
From the New York Times Magazine
(First Installment)

AANADAANACiJ l8bNNs COllil SANAA@-
mesis is the nom de guerre Of profes-
sor who has spent years in leading uni
versties. He declares he has no profes-
sional axe to grind and adds that the
'bureaucrats' will understand the reason
for the pseudonym" The first Of three
installments of the article is as fol
lows:
The most striking change in Ameri-
can higher education during the past
generation has been not the increase
in the proportion of young people go
ing to college (although this seems
little short of miraculous), nor the in
creased number Of imposing buildings
and other physical facilities (even
though some Of them are breathtaking),
nor the proliferation of courses diff
cult as this may be to justify in view Of
our goal Of a well-rounded education to
develop the individual potentiaD. Tow
ering over all has been the phenomenal
growth of administrative personnel.
This largely nonteaching bureaucracy,
which has shot up like a child with
abnormal glands, today equals, at some
institutions, the number and cost of the
teaching staff.
Statistics have little meaning in ex-
amining the facts of this growth, for
so much depends on how one defines
the unit of count Some illustrations
are more to thes point! Consider Uni.
versity x. Twenty-Five years ago. one
definite part Of its administrative work
was done by one person, aided by a
secretary. Ten years later, with no
change in the size of the job there were
a director, an assistant, a reception
lst and two secretaries. Today, still with
no basic change, there are director,
and associate director, an assistant to
the director, receptionist and three
secretaries. Or, take Division K in an
other university, which has had fixed
enrolment for many years. Twenty
years ago, the administrative forces Of
the division consisted of dean and
secretary-a Today, besides q
dean, there are two associate deans, two
vice deans, and battery of secretaries
and assistants.
Then there is the business side of
the university. Consider so simple a
matter as the purchase Of a typewriter
ribbon for departmental USE Two tele-
phone calls and a written requisition
flour carbon copies, please), properly
coded, speed the request on its way.
After being returned twice for detail
ed changes and amplifications, the re-
quest is approved A week later, mes
senger appears-but with four ribbons
and of the wrong color. Two weeks of
negotiation follow and after several
more forms are executed four carbon
copies, please) one ribbon as originally
ordered is delivered
This, of course, should close the mat
ter, but comes the sixth of the next
month and the department is charged
with five ribbons. This includes the four
returned. Two months and eight letters
later, that matter is cleared up. Mean
time, labor-saving machine has rend-
cred a mid-monthly sheet TO inform
one that five typewriter ribbons have
been purchased, and at the end of the
month another sheet arrives indicating
the total expenditures for ribbons and
how much is left for ribbons for the
balance Of the year. This continues for
several months until the machine be-
gins sending corrected statements on
all of these matters. Estimated total
cost for one typewriter ribbon: $85.
Examples could be multiplied ad
infinitum and ad nauseam. The parti-
cular facts vary from one institution
to another, but the trend is obvious.
Juts as an article in Fortune magazine
once revealed how seven employees can