While it was not the focus of the Faculty Welfare Committee's (FWC) report on salary discrepancies released last week, the document shed new light on an increase in administrative staff and the increased workload for faculty during the past 10 years.
The report, which was presented to the university senate April 17, explains the number of administrative and clerical positions has been rising faster than growth in number of professors at Miami.
As an example, the report reveals "the Farmer School of Business (FSB) had a dean, two associate deans and an assistant dean in 1997-98, but now has dean, a senior associate dean, an associate dean and three assistant deans".
According to Alan Oak, assistant dean for external relations for FSB, the report is correct, however, both of the new positions were reclassifications of current staff.
"The dean level appointments in the Farmer School moved from four to six from 1997-98 to current, and in each case they are both re-classifications," Oak said. "One re-class was for the chief divisional adviser, Marty Kyger, who retained her responsibilities and her classification was moved to assistant dean, which was consistent with her counterparts in other divisions, and then the other reclassification is my position."
Oak also said he believes the report is somewhat misleading when it argues clerical positions have been on the rise.
"My sense would be if we went back and calibrated the number of support positions for the six deans relative to 97-98, it (has) probably gone down by a position because we've consolidated within the Dean's Office," Oak said.
According to Provost Jeffrey Herbst, the rise in administrative positions has been based on the need to manage a more demanding workload.
"We staff for administrative positions according to their functions," Herbst said. "For instance, there has been a very significant increase in the amount of external grants received in the time between 1998 and 2007-08, and that's why we increased the number of deans in the graduate school (and) the Office for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship because we can't manage the kind of increase in grant activity that we've had without more managers."
As changes have been made during the past ten years, Herbst said he believes each new position has been added to address specific issues at Miami.
"The other positions have been created as we've had to deal with other institutional challenges," Herbst said.
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According to Sante Matteo, chair of the FWC, this issue does not change the ultimate goal of the report.
"I don't think it changes the thrust of the report," Matteo said. "I want to make it clear that we're not out to accuse, or criticize the administrators, I personally think that we have excellent administrators and that they serve us well, but I think we also have excellent faculty and we want to make sure the reward structure at the university is focused on the appropriate things."
Along with the rise in administrative positions, the report also argues workload for faculty has been on the rise during the past 10 years.
"For faculty, on the other hand, there has been a concomitant increase in workload," the report stated. "More of the work of governance has to be done by fewer faculty, with less time and for less pay."
According to Oak, the faculty data is harder to judge because of the multiple types of faculty and their specific roles.
"The faculty numbers get complicated because of the different mix of faculty that you have, so that would take a fair amount of work to do that analysis," Oak said. "I suspect that the (FWC) did that. I'm sure that they did that and they did it carefully."
However, Herbst disagreed that faculty workload has been on the rise.
"We now have a faculty workload norms document which provides a set of norms on workload, so I would disagree that there has been a change of workload," Herbst said. "There's no data reported in (the document) so it's very hard to comment on it."
According to Matteo, the lack of data is a concern, but also demonstrates faculty members are overworked.
"I think the lack of data is a problem," Matteo said. "It's sort of a circular argument. The fact that faculty is overworked means that when we serve on these committees it becomes more difficult to devote the necessary time to do full justice to what we're doing, to gather all the data and process it all."
According to Matteo, the main goal of the report is to represent faculty concerns and present them to the Miami community, not to make accusations.
"The purpose of this is not to accuse the administration that they're being unfair, I think it's just to make certain trends more visible," Matteo said. "My suspicion is even the administrators haven't done this kind of analysis and they don't know these trends and these figures, so its really an attempt to get transparency and make everyone aware of what the situation is."
Matteo said the report ultimately helps reinforce the primary goal of an institution like Miami.
"I think the point we make in the report is that the two most essential ingredients, as we see it, for an excellent education are having excellent professors and excellent students," Matteo said. "It's a relationship between faculty and students that creates education and everything else is in support of that including administration, bureaucracy, marketing to attract good students and good faculty."
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