But the tone of the OP (and the article as well) isn't to get rid of all managers or tear down higher ed entirely (not to say that opinion isn't alive and kicking on HN, just I don't see it in the article or OP's comments). It's asking whether there's justification for the current ratio of upper management vs. faculty.
Yes, there are important things that need to be done and handled, and I'm glad there are people with the talent to handle those (I know I'd be incapable of defusing faculty politics at a University scale), but is it really necessary for staff at the top tier grow at 10x the rate as staff at a lower tier? I always imagined the makeup of a business to be generally a pyramid, so you add multiples more elements in the lower ranks than elements at the upper ranks to sustain the pyramid shape.
Maybe the issue could use restating. I feel that we're really at a loss as to how to justify these positions. If you take janitors, you can justify their count by num-buildings vs. reasonable-amount-for-one-janitor. If your janitors outnumber the trashcans they need to empty, you know there's a problem with the formula. With teaching faculty, it's num-students-or-classes vs. desirable class size. With research faculty, it's grants-obtained-and-publications-and-grad-students vs. salary-plus-lab-costs. Perhaps upper management can't be explained in such simple terms, but is it really that much harder to justify? So hard that most student/faculty that have been in your vicinity for 4 years are still unable to understand what your value is?
Yes, there are important things that need to be done and handled, and I'm glad there are people with the talent to handle those (I know I'd be incapable of defusing faculty politics at a University scale), but is it really necessary for staff at the top tier grow at 10x the rate as staff at a lower tier? I always imagined the makeup of a business to be generally a pyramid, so you add multiples more elements in the lower ranks than elements at the upper ranks to sustain the pyramid shape.
Maybe the issue could use restating. I feel that we're really at a loss as to how to justify these positions. If you take janitors, you can justify their count by num-buildings vs. reasonable-amount-for-one-janitor. If your janitors outnumber the trashcans they need to empty, you know there's a problem with the formula. With teaching faculty, it's num-students-or-classes vs. desirable class size. With research faculty, it's grants-obtained-and-publications-and-grad-students vs. salary-plus-lab-costs. Perhaps upper management can't be explained in such simple terms, but is it really that much harder to justify? So hard that most student/faculty that have been in your vicinity for 4 years are still unable to understand what your value is?