FIRST, FIRE ALL THE DEANLETS.

The tenured faculty are stewards of the university.  Years ago, their recognition of that point might have come too late for dropout factory Chicago State.  "Do the working conditions and the academic environment have to deteriorate to the low estate of Chicago State before the faculty push back?"  I've been calling attention for a long time.  Perhaps those diversity hires who embarrassed themselves in Congressional hearings should have listened to their dissident faculty.  Some dissident faculty might be rediscovering their responsibilities.  Let the reckoning continue.

I don't care who gets the credit, as long as it gets done.  There are two sources of the current problem, first, the replacement of much of the tenured faculty with contingent lecturers and instructors, second, the faculty shares the sensibilities of the student affairs types, and went along with the early administrative usurpations accordingly.  Thus we find ourselves at the pass where Claudine Gay is no Drew Faust who is no Henry Rosovsky.

The punishment will have to continue, if Inside Higher Ed contributor Peter Eckel, associated with Penn's graduate school of education, is representative of the best and the brightest.

Higher education doesn’t give enough intentional attention to the variety of jobs of faculty governance.

Most of the talk about faculty governance, instead, centers on roles and responsibilities (stay-in-your-lane discussions, faculty handbooks), relationships between faculty and administrators (how to make them better), and power dynamics (how to change them or overcome them). But by focusing on the work itself, institutions will be able to construct more comprehensive and meaningful agendas for faculty governance.

Lots of management babble, seasoned with the therapeutic, and no recognition that it's the administrative usurpations that have demoralized faculty whilst doing nothing to make the students any smarter.

Does it come as any surprise, dear reader, that he treats the most important role as an afterthought?

There are three operational jobs that faculty governance should provide their institutions—supporting academic work, advocating faculty priorities and advancing institutional objectives—and one cultural job, the stewardship of institutional values. Faculty leaders should be intentional about the balance of time and effort expended across these domains. Time is finite, and leaders must make wise and intentional choices among priorities.

Read on, dear reader, and note how that "stewardship of institutional values" comes in only as an afterthought to "faculty governance should be about doing the administrators' bidding."

The first domain of work is to support the academic functions of the institution. This work should be familiar to most involved in faculty governance and includes areas such as curricular reviews, course approvals and teaching evaluations; academic policies such as academic integrity, grading and academic leave; research; and faculty appointments and the likes of promotion and tenure.

Get the affirmative action and student affairs types out of hiring and grading and watch faculty morale improve.

It gets worse from there.

The second area of work focuses on advocacy work on behalf of faculty, but also staff and students depending on the institution and its governance approach and culture. Examples include compensation and working conditions, professional development, and faculty roles in decision-making. A watchdog function, when warranted, can also be part of this work, holding the administration accountable for its decisions and asking for justifiable rationales.

That's the consequence of the faculty abdicating their stewardship role, and letting career deanlets in Student Affairs take the role of Dean of Students that used to be rotated among senior faculty.

The cherry on top is the complete capitulation to the administrative mind virus.

The final area of work is advancing institutional priorities that benefit from faculty perspective and capacity. This work includes strategic planning, accreditation, input on budgets and capital projects, or perspective on co-curricular experiences or athletics. It includes work on timely and emerging issues such as free speech and student protest policies.

All of these are areas of interest where campus politicians can posture and deanlets extract free labor, punishing faculty members for being cooperative.

It gets better from there.  Use your imagination, dear reader, the following paragraph might be a talking point from some denizen of Official Washington explaining why Major Hegseth oughtn't screen for Defense or Colonel Gabbard for Intelligence.

As for the third domain, advancing institutional priorities, faculty leaders often are bothered by the fact that they seem to be reacting to administrator priorities rather than getting out in front. There are institutional issues on which faculty have taken the lead, but more likely than not they are responding to administrative agendas. This tension can be explained by a number of factors: Faculty are primarily focused on their disciplines, classrooms and labs. Those are their areas of expertise, interest and engagement. They are busy and committed. Administrators, on the other hand, spend the majority of their time on the institution and the higher education sector. Their job and its associated networks and sources of information (including Inside Higher Ed) provide them with a view and depth of expertise on administrative topics that most faculty typically don’t have. For example, financial administrators will know more about the budget and things financial because of their training and education, their long professional experience, and their professional networks and ongoing professional development opportunities. Faculty who are doing faculty work don’t have the same time, knowledge or access.

Note the conjuring trick.  Hire a competent controller and a competent fund-raiser and budgeting doesn't look that hard.  It's all the other changing administrator priorities that make faculty cranky.  And rightly so.  Is it really necessary that each time a new president, provost, or chancellor takes office that there be new rounds of strategic planning, perhaps with new logo marks and new taglines?

Fewer deanlets, less busy work from the administrators, better faculty morale.