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Princeton prof talks administrative bloat, the role of faculty, and campus free expression
In a recent feature for Tablet magazine, Princeton University professor John Londregan, along with colleagues Sergiu Klainerman, Michael A. Reynolds, and Bernard Haykel, argued that “Academic Administrators are Strangling our Universities.” The authors argue that the increasing number and authority of nonacademic administrators has severe implications for free expression and academic freedom, call on faculty to take on an increased role in institutional governance, and advocate for key policy reforms. I was curious to hear more of the authors’ perspectives, and John Londregan, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, kindly obliged.
Interviews are conducted via email and are lightly edited for length and clarity.
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The rise of higher education’s administrative class and the increased university involvement in the lives of students (and faculty) outside the classroom figures into a lot of critiques of higher education today, and FIRE is among many who have observed this trend and its effects on, among other things, the culture of free expression in higher education. What’s your view on why that transformation happened in the first place?
Well, just as a shark needs to keep moving forward not to suffocate, so the bureaucracy craves growth; this is sometimes known as “Wagner’s Law.” At the same time, colleges and universities see what looks like a bargain — free up their relatively expensive faculty for teaching and research by delegating residential life and even course selection to administrators. Once the administrators are in the system, Wagner’s Law pushes them to expand their mission. On top of that, the administrators who select into higher education often come with a yen to influence the young. Adding to the mess, concerns about sexual harassment have left everyone gun-shy of faculty involvement in residential life. While our institutions have abandoned our traditional “in loco parentis” role, the conditions of everyday life nevertheless have a huge impact on the formation of our students. Control over that aspect of higher ed had largely been turned over to administrators.
You talk of a “hostile takeover” by administrators, but I wonder if you see faculty having played a role in that trend as well. Were faculty too complacent as their role in institutional governance was watered down?
Yes! What we call “departmental service” may get a little bit of weight in internal retention and promotion decisions, but from a careerist perspective it simply doesn’t “pay.” Your reputation depends on the visible part of your work, so we have been only too happy to delegate unrewarded activities.
Will recovering their role require a dramatic change among faculty in how they view their institutional duties?
Indeed it will. We are right now receiving a painful lesson in the costs of delegating “administrative” tasks. Will enough of us wake up in time to reverse the process? We shall see.
One of your many recommendations to institutions is that institutions adopt the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report, which would generally commit them to remaining neutral on matters of politics and public affairs for the purpose of maintaining an atmosphere of unfettered discourse among students and faculty. How do you imagine this would look in practice?
So nobody would be allowed to speak in the name of the institution: Just as none of us can speak in the name of “the people” or “science,” without appearing ridiculous, so too nobody would be able to weigh in on politics in the name of the university. By analogy, some of the faculty make contributions to political campaigns, and a quick look at the public record indicates that there is a substantial imbalance in whom we choose to support as compared with the leanings of the general public. However, the universities themselves do not make campaign contributions. The Kalven Report would simply extend this to policy pronouncements.
The Kalven Report doesn’t wholly counsel against institutions taking public stands, and makes allowances for instances when a university’s fundamental educational mission comes under threat. There’s widespread disagreement over what would meet such a threshold, of course, so how would you advise institutions thread this needle?
George Stigler was a member of the committee that wrote the Kalven Report, and he voiced his exception to the exception — he thought the university should stay out of the fray, period. He was right. We should heed Stigler and keep the university from taking positions in the political scrimmage.
Is there a point, though, where the institution risks damaging its long-term credibility if it stays out of the fray as its core functions are being attacked?
Of course, without a small measure of common sense, no policy can work in practice, and that includes even the Stigler version of the Kalven principles. Building a new parking lot, or designing waste disposal for laboratories, means the university is involved with local authorities. Likewise, if the federal government tries to defund our research or to deport our students the university needs to speak up. On the other hand, support for Ukrainian independence or for human rights in Iran may be appealing positions to take, but we should do so in our own names as public citizens rather than converting the university into a political microphone, no matter how worthy a policy might appear to be. In areas where investigation and politics collide — fetal tissue research, working with ancient human remains, cloning — the university would have to tread with special care. The need to apply common sense on the boundary between politics and the core functions of the university is not an argument against adopting the principles of the Kalven Report; It is further reason to promote careful rational thought.
I feel like faculty and students used to be a fairly reliable check on administrative power, but more recently they’ve diverged. Compared to a few years ago, students seem more inclined to support additional administrative control over more aspects of their educational experiences. What do faculty need to do to find common cause with students on this issue, if a model centered on faculty involvement like the one you propose is to succeed?
The faculty need to be involved in admissions. Right now the admissions department has a sweet tooth for conformists — that is, for people who suss out and espouse evaluators’ principles. When one takes a ride-for-hire it is impressive how effective drivers are at divining one’s views on current events, then to reflect them back in the quest for a better tip. Bright energetic college applicants have much more at stake than a tip. The faculty need to be part of undergraduate admissions to put a thumb on the scale for independent thinkers. Also, with the Kalven Report in place, a signal will be sent that holding the “correct” political views is not a reliable shortcut to getting in.
The entire system has a tendency to evolve into a soulless factory.
More unstructured time in which faculty and students converse would be healthy. For example, faculty could join students for dinner on a weekly basis, departments could have daily coffees. As it stands, the entire system has a tendency to evolve into a soulless factory, with faculty staying focused on their latest projects, while students are loath to take even five minutes away from study, at least during the day.
Of course, there is the other problem that universities sell themselves simultaneously as (1) vital launching pads for one’s career, and (2) party islands to rival Ibiza. The actual process of molding character and preparing habits of hard work and habitual inquiry requires unstructured time and a margin for reflection. Faculty should be part of this, as a part of our central educating mission. That it would also create greater solidarity in defense of academic freedom would be a welcome lagniappe.