Our Dean had an administrative assistant, Vicky. She retired last week but the Dean won’t be allowed to hire a replacement because our Chancellor “doesn’t believe in the concept of administrative assistants.” I have no idea what this means. I also have no idea who will do the enormous amount of work that used to be done by Vicky.
We weren’t overpaying Vicky. We were so not overpaying her that she had to get a second job at McDonald’s to make ends meet. Still, we will now save that modest salary by not hiring a replacement.
Our university does, however, have money to build large, hideous, and completely unnecessary buildings. A new building for the School of Pharmacy was recently finished. My friend is a professor there and she says she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when she was shown her new lab and office in that expensive building. Everything is designed in the most stupid way possible. The lab is a very bizarre shape for no reason anybody can identify. In front of the professors’ offices with paper thin doors there’s a large game area for students. The idea that professors might sometimes need to think or write didn’t make it into the calculations.
“We’ve lost a large percentage of our students,” my friend says. “We aren’t filling empty professor positions, so students don’t come. There’s no money for professors and staff. But we have a shiny new building we can’t use.”
“Be grateful,” I said morosely. “We have neither professors nor a new building.”
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