The ratio of administrators and administrative staff-to-faculty in public

universities and its implications

CHEN CHAONankai University

2014.3.3

Background

What happened? The jumping development of higher education

is a popular topic in the world, How to measure and review the development? How to balance the scale expansion and quality improvement?

The administration sector had grew quickly with the expansion of higher education. What’s the implications of administration grows or administrative expansion of higher education institutes? especially from the perspective of employ? Is the administration grows means bureaucratization, how to debureaucratizate the higher education institutes?

Research purposes

Puts forward and erects a new measurable indicator in higher education evaluation and statistic；

Empirically analyzes the ratio of administrators and administrative staff-to-faculty of Sino-American public universities;

To find out the implications of administration grows or administrative expansion for bureaucratization of higher education institutes.

Faculty to administrator ratio (latitude)

Student-to-faculty ratio (longitude)

landscape orientation

Vertical direction

Definition

Student-to-faculty ratio

institutes Student/Faculty ratio

year remark

Berkeley 17:1 fall ,2012

Tennessee 15:1 Fall,2013Princeton 6:1 Fall,2013 Undergraduate studentMIT 8:1 Fall,2013Pennsylvanian 6:1 Fall,2013Johns Hopkins 13:1 Fall,2013Duke 8:1 Fall,2013Southeast 16:1 Oct.2013 China

Definition

The ratio of administrators and administrative staff-to-faculty/Administrators-faculty Ratio/The ratio of administrators to faculty

What is it? How to measure and review it? What its implications to universities? How to control it?

Literature review

"the steady, inexorable increases in administrative personnel and services .... " (Duryea ,1973)

"Universities have become top-heavy with a wide assortment of vice-presidents, provosts, deans, directors, and miscellaneous assistants to all of those..." (Lewis ,1975)

Literature review

McGrath's study appears to have been the first serious attempt to trace the development of administrative offices. His dissertation entitled "The Evolution of Administrative Offices in Institutions of Higher Education in the United States from 1860 to 1933" traced the development of the administrative offices then in existence at the major colleges and universities in the United States and concluded that the median number of administrators in 32 selected institutions of higher education ranged from 3 in 1890 to 30.5 in 1930.

Literature review

In a 1969 thesis, Witner reviewed McGrath's study and a similar unpublished study of liberal arts colleges done by Partridge (1934). Witner supplemented the McGrath and Partridge studies by comparing administrative growth during the 1860 to 1933 period with growth in student enrollments and increases in faculty size. He concluded that the growth of administration in universities and colleges had paralleled the general growth of higher education.

Literature review

In 1955 with the help of a grant from the Kllogg Foundation, Terrien and Mills undertook a study of the California school districts which supported the hypothesis that "the relationship between the size of an administrative component and the total size of its containing organization is such that the larger the size of the containing organization, the greater will be the proportion given over to its administrative component" . Most of the subsequent research on administrative size, however, contradicts this early study.

Literature review

In 1965, Boland examined 97 public institutions of higher education and concluded that the number of full-time administrators per 100 faculty members decreased with an increase in size. The study suggested, however, that the relationship may be curvilinear, with administrative size first increasing disproportionately and then decreasing disproportionately with size.

Literature review

Perhaps the most significant study on administrative size in higher education in the literature reviewed was The Organization of Academic Work, published by Peter M. Blau in 1973. This study, based on surveys of 115 institutions, determined that the ratio of administrators to faculty members in the average American academic institution was one to four or 20:80. Blau was able to gather data on the growth of faculty size to conclude that "the growth in faculty appears to correspond rather closely to that in students"

Literature review In 1981, a study was undertaken to attempt data

collection on numbers of administrators followed by analysis of the data. It was hoped that the study would determine, at least in one small segment of higher education, just how valid criticisms regarding administrative growth are: whether administrative growth has been excessive when compared to the growth in the size of faculties and numbers of students. An effort was made to determine increases in numbers of university administrators at four regional universities in Kentucky during an ll-year period (1967-68 to 1977-78) and to determine how these increases related to other indicators of growth, such as numbers of students enrolled, numbers of graduates, and numbers of faculty members. (Alice Brown,1981)

Statistic and calculation

Data source: from official websites of flagship public universities in 50 states(27); 985 universities from China in random(14).

Software: SPSS15.0 Formula: ratio=

numerator/denominator=administrators and administrative staff/faculty

Data presentation (US)Flagship Public universities administrators and administrative staff/faculty

1995-96 2005-06 2012-13

University of Alabama 2817/1012 3096/1148 4303/1731

University of Alaska － － 3014/1042

University of Arizona 10274/2180 2663/585 12276/3022

University of Arkansas － － 3013/1203

Berkeley 17078/1618 18623/1953 19632/2177

University of Connecticut 3782/1107 （ 2002-03） 4015/1200 3028/1377

University of Delaware 2638/964 2666/1077 2803/1128

University of Georgia － － 6995/2879

University of Hawaii 2719/2319 3691/2107 （ 2002-03） 3662/2713 （ 2011-

2012）University of Illinois － － 7801/2548

University of Iowa － － 4827/2996University of Kentucky -/ 1942 10068/2157 （ 2010-1

1）University of Michigan 12724/4470 （ 2002） 12818/4780 13494/6682

University of Minnesota 18985/3150 （ 2003） 19113/3169 19376/3553

Data presentation (US, continued)University of Missouri － － 6587/2121

University of Nebraska 5263/1915 5508/1995 6111/2156

Rutgers University -/1906 (2002-03) -/ 1962 5527/2136 （ 2011-12）SUNY － － 43600/19319

University of North Dakota -/ 798 （ 2001-02） 1825/912 2043/821 （ 2011-12）Pennsylvania State University － － 6979/3173 （ 2011-12）University of Tennessee 10545/3230 （ 2001-0

2） 10919/2964 7925/1951 （ 2011-12）University of Texas 12071/2484 14165/2734 14991/3081 （ 2011-1

2）University of Utah 1813/1304 2488/1516

University of Virginia 10939/3298 13185/3346 13932/2887 （ 2011-12）

University of Wisconsin 12761/2236 13071/2210 14105/2173 （ 2011-12）

The ratio of administrators and administrative staff-to-faculty (US)

universities 1995-96 2005-06 2012-03 means

University of Alabama 2.78 2.70 2.49 2.66

University of Alaska . . 2.89 .

University of Arizona 4.71 4.55 4.06 4.44

University of Arkansas . . 2.50 .

Berkeley 10.56 9.54 9.02 9.70

University of Connecticut

3.42 （ 2002-03） 3.35 2.20 2.99

University of Delaware 2.74 2.48 2.48 2.57

University of Georgia . . 2.43 .

University of Hawaii 1.17 1.75 （ 2002-03） 1.35 （ 2011-2012） 1.42

University of Illinois . . 3.06 .

University of Iowa . . 1.61 .University of Kentucky . . 4.67 （ 2010-11） .University of Michigan 2.85 （ 2002-0

3） 2.68 2.02 2.52

University of Minnesota 6.03 （ 2002-03） 6.03 5.45 5.84

The ratio of administrators and administrative staff-to-faculty (US, continued)

University of Missouri . . 3.11 .

University of Nebraska 2.75 2.76 2.83 2.78

Rutgers University . . 2.59 （ 2011-12） .

SUNY . . 2.26 .

University of North Dakota . 2.00 2.49 （ 2011-12） .

Pennsylvania State University . . 2.20 （ 2011-12） .

University of Tennessee 3.26 （ 2001-02） 3.68 4.06 （ 2011-12） 3.67

University of Texas 4.86 5.18 4.87 （ 2011-12） 4.97

University of Utah . 1.39 1.64 1.52

University of Virginia 3.32 3.94 4.83 （ 2011-12） 4.03

University of Wisconsin 5.71 5.91 6.49 （ 2011-12） 6.04

means 4.17 3.86 3.34 3.79

Distribution (US, missed value canceled)

0. 002. 004. 006. 008. 0010. 0012. 00

1995- 1996 2005- 2006 2012- 2013

Total trend (US)

Trend of the average rat i o of Ameri canuni versi t i es

0. 25

4. 17 3. 86 3. 34

0246

Bl au(1973) 1995- 1996 2005- 2006 2012- 2013year

aver

age

rati

o

Data presentation (China,2012/2013)number 985 universities faculty administration ratio

1 Nankai University 1988 1100 1.81 ： 1

2 Tianjin University 3000 1414 2.12 ： 1

3 Peking University 5226 7681 .68 ： 1

4 Tsinghua University 3379 3653 .92 ： 1

5 Beijing Normal University 2100 1200 1.75 ： 1

6 Shanghai JiaoTong University 2873 4387 .65 ： 1

7 Xi1an Jiao Tong University 2686 1770 1.52 ： 1

8 Fudan University 2700 3100 .87 ： 1

9 Southeast University 2402 3273 .73 ： 1

10 Tongji University 3141 1727 1.82 ： 1

11 Sichuan University 4292 7708 .56 ： 1

12 Zhejiang University 3243 4925 .66 ： 1

13 Jilin University 6568 11442 .57 ： 1

14 Dalian University of Technology 2050 1588 1.29 ： 1

Distribution (Chinese 985 universities)

rat i o i n 2012/ 13

1. 812. 12

0. 680. 92

1. 75

0. 65

1. 520. 870. 73

1. 82

0. 560. 660. 571. 29

00. 5

11. 5

22. 5

rat i o i n 2012/ 13

Findings

Big ratio means huge administration expansion;

The average ratio of administrators and administrative staff-to-faculty of US universities is 3.79, and it is in a decrease trend

The average ratio of administrators and administrative staff-to-faculty of Chinese universities is 1.09, and it will be sustainable in a long period;

There is no such concept or indicator in Chinese higher education evaluation.

Further discussion

Is administration grows means administrative bureaucratization?

Bigger or smaller? Which one is better?

How to control the ratio?

Reference

Blau,Peter.The Organization of Academic Work[M]. John Wiler & Sons. 1993.

Brown,A. HOW THE ADMINISTRATION GROWS: A Longitudinal Study of Growth in Administration at Four Universities[J]. Research in Higher Education. Vol. 14, No. 4, 1981.

Ase Gornitzka 、 Svein Kyvik 、 Ingrild Marheim Larsen ， The bureaucratization of Universities[J], Minerva, (1998)36:21-47.

Patricia J. Gumport, Academic restructuring organization change and institutional imperatives[J] ，Higher Education, (2000)39: 67-91.

Thank you!