Numero tre

Torino, 4 gennaio 2012 - Numero tre

In tempi di cambiamenti nelle università italiane, e al Politecnico di Torino in particolare, può essere utile leggere con attenzione il libro di Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fall of the Faculty. The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters (New York : Oxford University Press, 2011). Si riporta nel seguito uno stralcio dell'intervista rilasciata dall'Autore a Dan Berrett e leggibile per intero in internet nel sito http://www.insidehighered.com

Q: In your book, you refer frequently to "deanlets and deanlings." Can you please tell me a little more about what you mean?

A: I wanted to emphasize a major shift that’s been underway for several decades. Deans have an academic background. Years ago, they were part-time and always part of the faculty. This is extremely important because, like the faculty, they saw the university as an instrument of teaching and scholarship. Today, we have a cadre of professional administrators. I called them deanlets to give emphasis to the difference. They either have no faculty background or they decided early in their careers that their talents lay elsewhere. To them, what used to be the means is now the end. Instead of an institution serving teaching and scholarship, teaching and scholarship serve the institution.

Q: Many administrators do, in fact, come from an academic background, including some presidents who have been locked in bitter disputes with faculty. And if these academics-turned-administrators change, some might say it's because they are confronted with decisions that they didn't necessarily face as faculty members. In your view, what's the dynamic? Is it a case of the wrong people going into these positions, or is the system itself bad?

A: It’s both. Years ago, administrators tended to be a bit older. The typical administrator was someone who had been an academic for a number of years and saw administration as an honorable way to close out a career. The administrators today tend to go into administration at a much younger age -- often they are people in their 30s who either have not had an academic career or whose academic career was unsuccessful and they now see an alternative career path. The first set often accomplished a lot in their lives. The second set have often never done anything. It’s not their orientation; they’re bureaucrats. That’s not all of them; some of them are quite good. Even those who are good are often reshaped by the system. This would probably happen to me. We are all easily led astray. Even someone with the best of intentions, if they commanded a legion of deanlets, they would find themselves pursuing bad ideas.