<p>Here’s the student affairs structure at my university:</p>
<p>The Dean of Student Affairs is the boss boss boss. Under them there is a senior associate dean, 5 directors, 2 assistant director, and 4 associate directors. (13)</p>
<p>Then there’s the Dean of Judicial Affairs and Community Standards. I think she has 2-3 associate/assistant directors under her. (4)</p>
<p>There’s a Dean of Advising. Underneath him are 3 senior assistant deans (including one for “community outreach”), 2 assistant deans, 22 advising deans and 3 program coordinators. They’re responsible for the academic advising on campus.</p>
<p>There’s a Dean of Community Development and Multicultural Affairs. Within just Multicultural Affairs there’s a director of operations, an associate dean, an associate director, a senior associate dean, and 2 assistant directors. In the Community Development side, there are 2 associate directors, 3 directors and 1 manager (of media, performing arts, and publications). (14)</p>
<p>Then there’s an Associate Dean of Residential Programs. Under her there is a director, and then 7 associate directors. Note that RP is separate from housing at this university, which has it’s own completely different administrative structure. (9)</p>
<p>Lastly, there is Director of Student Financial Advising, who has 1 assistant director and 2 financial advisers under him. (4)</p>
<p>Overall, this is 74 people mostly with the title of ____ dean or director. This is for a campus of 6,000 undergrad students - none of these people serve the grad students attending the university. Those deans and associate deans I am betting making six figures or close; the assistant deans, advising deans, and directors I’m guessing are in the $50-70K range (including housing for the residential ones).</p>
<p>Now, I know and have worked directly with many of these people - they are wonderful, they really care about the students, and they do great work. But do we really need this many administrators to run student affairs for a medium-sized college?</p>
<p>What I found especially sad were the advising deans. At my undergraduate college, my professors were our advisers. At the end of each semester, you perused the student handbook and your student checklist, looked at the schedule and selected some classes for next semester. Then you made an appointment and sat with a professor you selected (or the one assigned to you) for ~20 minutes and they helped you make sure that your schedule fit your requirements and any professional desires you had. It was considered part of their jobs - and part of yours, too; as a college student developing independence you were expected to keep up with your course checklists and decide what would fill requirements the way you wanted.</p>
<p>Not here; the professors are too busy and important, so there are literally 22 people whose full-time job it is to help students choose their classes and ‘deal’ with academic issues like making up coursework when they miss class (I have gotten emails from advising deans letting me know that their student was sick and asking if I would please let them make up their work, as they had the flu. Err? I’m a graduate student, and not especially intimidating; all of my evaluations have commented on how warm and flexible I am, so why students can’t handle this themselves is beyond me). Again, amazing and very accomplished people; most have PhDs and they went into the job because they wanted to advise students. Heck, this is a full-time job <em>I</em> would love to do. But…really?</p>
<p>This is what I mean by administrative bloat. Not that student services is completely unnecessary - I used to work in student affairs and I love it. I love helping undergrads, and I love that someone is willing to pay me to make their lives easier. I’m just not sure that we need 6 separate deans/directors to organize their student groups AND their community service events - at an average salary of $60,000 a piece.</p>
