So reports Robert Shibley at FIRE. He writes:
[T]his serves as evidence that the emphasis of the modern university seems more and more to be on regulating students (not just their behavior, but their expression) and correspondingly less on educating them, at least in the traditional sense of the university as a marketplace of ideas where credentialed, highly educated teachers educate through interactions with young scholars. If this trend continues, such interactions will get rarer and rarer, and students will be poorer for it.
NAS has also been keeping tabs on the growing imbalance. Last week we observed that higher education's financial trouble stems largely from such administrative bloat:
There has been a bewildering expansion of supernumerary administrative positions, including diversity officers, identity group deans, directors and staff of women’s centers, sustainability officers, residence life curriculum developers, outcomes assessors, and campus therapists of every conceivable brand.
We join FIRE in recalling why the university exists in the first place.
