In the 1970s, Ohio University employed two faculty members for every non-teaching/non-research staffer, Vedder writes. Today, administrators outnumber faculty — and inflation-adjusted tuition costs have more than tripled. “Students are paying to finance an army of apparatchiks who neither teach nor expand the frontiers of knowledge.”
He especially objects to “diversity, equity and inclusion” bureaucrats who “reduce freedom of campus expression that is the heart of the intellectually examined life.”
Research is a legitimate university function, but much of it is a pointless waste of resources, Vedder writes. Professors teach less to produce journal articles nobody will read. It would make more sense “to expect all faculty members to carry a full teaching load but to reduce it if outside parties want their research badly enough to buy their time.”
College sports is a money loser at most universities, writes Vedder. There’s no reason “ball-throwing, batting, and kicking contests” have to be affiliated w