Very good on The Great University Disaster. Note it's *not* attacking administrators: indeed unis may be *under*-managed. The point is that extreme, inappropriate corporatization and bureaucratization has destroyed their very purpose, like a virus from within. (1/2) academic.oup.com/brain/articl... - ThreadSky

gsoh31.bsky.social • 22 hours ago

Very good on The Great University Disaster. Note it's *not* attacking administrators: indeed unis may be *under*-managed. The point is that extreme, inappropriate corporatization and bureaucratization has destroyed their very purpose, like a virus from within. (1/2)
https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/148/3/687/8058558

Comments

gsoh31.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Note the disaster of university-focused travel agencies burning through everyone's money like there's no tomorrow, a v good example of outsourcing and contract-bound waste at its worst. 🤷‍♂️ (2/2)
https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/148/3/687/8058558

timobetcke.me•22 hours ago

There is a purpose for travel agencies. When I was a PhD student/Postdoc I had to advance huge sums of money to go to conferences and wait for reimbursement. Now we have a simple online booking system with a travel agent and it is charged directly off grant codes. Not everything is bad these days.

gsoh31.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Did you read the article that this costs £3m upfront for Oxford Uni in fees alone? It would be better for the uni to just advance the money.

gsoh31.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Everyone has the experience of the quote costing double or triple booking direct - burning taxpayers' money.

timobetcke.me•22 hours ago

That's not my experience with our provider. Flights and hotel costs are competitive to checking directly on airline/hotel pages.

drbarraoriain.bsky.social•14 hours ago

They charge us a fee on everything we book, so that the cost of a recent conference I attended ballooned beyond my budget. I had to pay the balance.

gsoh31.bsky.social•22 hours ago

No-one has ever said this to me before in the entire sector. In fact quite the opposite.

timobetcke.me•22 hours ago

I read your article. Obviously, I don't know what the purpose is. But I disagree with the statement that outsourcing things like travel is automatically bad. We had a lot of teething problems with our external provider. But it is now working smoothly and easier than in the past.

gsoh31.bsky.social•22 hours ago

It wasn't my article, it was by someone at Ox. And good for you, you're literally the first person I have ever heard that from. I think the vast waste of resource, at £3m pa for just one uni, will not be popular with taxpayers.

timobetcke.me•22 hours ago

Sorry. I meant purpose of the £3m from Oxford. Should have been clearer.

meepmeep13.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Prior to my institution appointing one of the diastrous travel agent policies, we had a simple arrangement of purchase cards recharged to grant codes, so no PhD student in your position would have to advance any money. The chargethrough to grants in no way requires the involvement of a 3rd party.

richardblyth.bsky.social•22 hours ago

This is a lot longer in generation than the millennium. My mum worked in a small college from 1966 to 1981. It was fine until around 1975 when, faced with 'cuts' the colleges response was to create a fairly large senior management team'.

richardblyth.bsky.social•22 hours ago

I asked mum 'what do they do?'
'Manage'.
Oh.

richardblyth.bsky.social•22 hours ago

This I think started in what used to be the 'state sector' of HE. But after 1992 it spread like wildfire.

joolzmadcat.bsky.social•19 hours ago

I was on the board of a large FE college in the mid/late 90's and watched it asset stripped and run into bankruptcy by very very well paid "senior management"

cjhartnell.bsky.social•17 hours ago

They are almost there on this. Gig economy contracts are a step towards an end state where private equity owns smaller universities, outsources teaching to low paid freelancers, sells off & leases back buildings, before eventually collapsing the broken husk down for parts. I give it 10 years.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply