Over the past year, UBC instituted a series of austerity measures, including a hiring freeze, in various faculties to correct deficits. As a result, some academic units have been downsized or stagnant. For instance, the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy has had only three tenure track faculty searches in six years, a stagnation that has done serious damage to faculty renewal and in effect, academic integrity.
Comparatively, the appointment of assistant and associate deans in the Faculty outpaced tenure track appointments in this Department. With the at whim appointment of directors added to the mix, the appointment of middle managers outpaced tenure track appointments by 3:1.
It has been frustrating and troubling that the University’s hiring chills and freezes are wink wink (i.e., preferential and selective). Hence, a request made in June to the Provost, pro tem to implement a hiring freeze on middle managers to curb the administrative bloat across the University system, Okanagan and Vancouver, was rejected out of hand. A hiring freeze on these middle managers would create a form of parity that might suggest the senior administrators acknowledge the mess they’re in.
Under the old and still current regime at UBC, a hiring freeze on middle managers was a pipe dream and dismissed with no discussion. But now, with the crisis of administration exposed by the resignation of President Gupta, it’s due time President Piper to put a check and balance on these at whim admin hires.
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See Mark Mac Lean’s post on the removal of associate deans from UBC’s Faculty Association for additional background. https://blogs.ubc.ca/accidentalpresident/2015/03/23/governance-associate-deans/
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