This article from the 22 November New York Times is a follow up to this one from 17 November.
I am glad to see that some of these bosses of higher learning are tightening their belts a bit, relatively speaking. I only wish that more would. Look, I know that big universities have to attract big leaders, and there are only so many to go around and they must be attracted with big paychecks. It's just the market mentality I have a problem with. When it is taken too far we lose the focus from what education and the Academy should be.
Of course my own alma mater raised some questions when it hired a non-PhD with a high profile. Some faculty members were disappointed that he was not one of their own. Others were troubled that he was offered tenure. At any rate, he wasn't paid as much as some of these guys; instead his monetary criticism came for things like taking time out of the year to serve on a few corporate boards, and to camp out at the Bohemian Grove. For better or worse, he has since moved on.
His predecessor, by the way, apparently turned down a raise from his beloved Washington State. He of course went there for love (it was his alma mater).
University management is an important issue. Obviously it has to exist, but under what form? What should its goals be? I need to learn more before I can really discuss it in depth, but like any bureaucracy it will struggle with misappropriation, waste, red tape, and innumerable human errors.
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