Bret Devereaux

I don't feel qualified to speak to athletics except to say "it's a problem with broad negative impacts." Others have done a lot more than me. If you want a good starting point, read J. Smith, "Cheated" (2015). https://www.amazon.com/Cheated-Scandal-Education-Athletes-Big-Time/dp/1612347282 … 40/50

So now you might ask "who the hell is responsible for all of this?" which brings us to university governance. So the president/chancellor/rector/whatever in theory runs the university. In a big state school, it is likely that s/he answers to a 'board of trustees.' 41/50

Sometimes that's a board of governors, or regents, or trustees. Again, each university system is different, often with different names. Most state public schools have their board of trustees selected by the governor. 42/50

By and large it is the board of trustees who make decisions about who the chancellor is and the overall direction the university is going to make. Consequently, if you want reform within the university administration - if you are looking to ditch the business model...43/50

...and its oversaturated administrations, you have to start with the trustees. Typically that means getting the governor to appoint trustees who share that vision - that's why the business model of education started with state desires to engage in cost-cutting. 44/50

Finally I should note that most universities have a 'faculty senate.' In theory that makes the faculty self-governing; in practice the faculty senate can't do anything without approval from the chancellor/president/whatever,who in turn wants to keep the trustees happy. 45/50

Thus even tenured professors mostly (adjuncts don't get represented by most faculty senates; also staff are even less represented, which is not great) have little control over the university's direction. Often their best option is to raise a stink in the local papers... 46/50

...or, I suppose on twitter, like I am doing now. So how do we fix this stuff? There are a lot of little answers. I think the first step is putting leadership back in the hands of faculty, as I stressed before. The business model has to go. 47/50