Academic professionals: The changing face of teaching,research,and service in the American research university

Abstract

This exploratory study responds to the criticism that non-instructional faculty or “academic professionals” at American universities are the cause of “administrative bloat.” The purpose of the study was to build from the work of Rhoades (1998) and Kane (2007) to examine whether academic professionals at an R-1 (very-high research activity university) performed core university work of research, teaching, and/or public service. A survey of 1036 academic professionals suggested that many of these individuals were routinely and directly contributing to research, teaching, and public service instead of administrative work, failing to contribute to any notions of “administrative bloat.” In addition to the three areas of core work, academic professionals often had advanced degrees, published in peer-reviewed journals, had specialized skills and bodies of knowledge, applied for grants, and engaged in entrepreneurial activities. The study concludes with a discussion of academic professionals in European countries and the role of disruptive innovation and new professionalism in compelling universities to expand the use of academic professionals in order to produce cheaper degree alternatives and generate new sources of funding .

Introduction

The contemporary American research university, which began around 1920 (Geiger, 1986), has continued to grow and evolve over the 20th century, becoming what Kerr (2001) termed the “multi-university”—an “inconsistent institution” comprising multiple communities with “fuzzy” edges (p. 14). Within this multi-university, the work that faculty members historically performed has evolved from a primary emphasis on teaching to a significant focus on research and public service (Terpstra and Honoree, 2009). However, today’s multi-universities offer many various services and products to both internal and external markets, such as student services and support offices, athletic events to the entertainment market, emerging technologies to the consumer market, and a variety of outreach services to underrepresented communities. As a result of this expansion, Johnson (2020) outlined the development of “administrative bloat,” or the phenomena when more administrators and managers are needed than instructional staff at an educational institution because of that institution moving away from teaching and closer toward providing non-instructional services (p. 2), such as the aforementioned list of non-instructional programs and services.

This “administrative bloat” complicates the expanding mission and resulting shift in faculty work changed the composition of the institution’s workforce. More specifically, categories of employees labeled as “non-faculty professionals,” also called “academic professionals,” perform work traditionally considered the exclusive purview of faculty, such as teaching. Scholars have discussed several explanations for the growth of this group of professional employees, avoiding discussion of “administrative bloat” as it relates to institutions increasing non-instructional services. Both Rhoades et al. (2008) and Sherwood (2004) provided evidence that service and outreach are major components of university work but stopped short of discussing “administrative bloat” to describe this service and outreach. Similarly, Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) indicated that universities are compensating for diminishing state and federal funds by striving to enhance the entrepreneurial arm of the organization, which requires more administration and management—a move away from the instructional and toward the entrepreneurial, and possibly, “administrative bloat.”

Ultimately, this study discusses how academic professionals—those who fall into the category of administrator or manager—contribute to the growth of American research universities in the three core work areas traditionally considered to be faculty work: teaching, research, and service. Filling a considerable gap in the literature, our study answers the following related to the nature of the work performed by academic professionals beyond the administrative and managerial duties of their job:

Do academic professionals conduct research?

Do academic professionals teach?

Do academic professionals perform public service?

Successfully answering these questions, our findings suggest many academic professionals who were hired to administrate and manage do not merely administrate or manage: They make routine and substantial contributions to the teaching, research, and service of the university, rejecting the notion of their contribution to “administrative bloat” of the university. Implications for the future of academic professionals and the purposes of the university (and “multi-university”) are addressed.

Background

Recent data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) detailed the shifting workforce in higher education. The “other professional” category was the fastest growing of the eight categories of employees (Snyder and Dillow, 2011): (a) executive, administrative, and managerial employees, (b) faculty (instructional/research/public service), (c) instruction/research assistants, (d) other professionals (support/service), (e) technical staff and paraprofessionals, (f) clerical and secretarial staff, (g) skilled craftspersons, and (h) service/maintenance. IPEDS describes “other professionals” as “staff employed for the primary purpose of performing academic support, student service, and institutional support, whose assignments would require either a baccalaureate degree or higher or experience of such kind and amount as to provide a comparable background” (NCES, 2021). Currently, NCES (2021) has reconfigured its categories to break up the “other professional” category; however, these categories continue to grow and remain unclear as to how “other professionals” may contribute to the teaching, research, and service missions of an institution.

Historically, from 1976 to 2009, the “faculty” category grew slightly from 34% to 38.7% of American higher education’s workforce. During the same period, the “other professional” category more than doubled in size from 9.6% to 20.7% (Snyder and Dillow, 2011: 373), suggesting that an increase of non-instructional services provided by institutions of higher education may be causing the phenomenon of “administrative bloat” (Johnson, 2020: 2). The numbers associated with the “other professional” category have prompted questions from legislators and other critics (see, for example, Green et al., 2010), giving rise to the application of “administrative bloat” to institutions of higher education.

Literature review

Academic capitalism and administrative bloat

Scholars have found that as faculty focus their efforts more on research, academic professionals have absorbed other aspects of traditional faculty work, even though these academic professionals were hired to administrate or manage (Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004). These scholars have observed that the expanding university mission, which included outreach and entrepreneurship, created the need for academic professionals to administrate and manage the many new endeavors of institutions of higher education. However, traditionally, the mission of the American research university and the work of faculty is to teach, research, and serve (Birnbaum, 1988; Rosser and Tabata, 2010). From this scholarship, teaching is instruction, student advising, and educational assessment; research represents pure and applied research; and service improves the internal university community (e.g., participating on committees) and/or external communities (e.g., running a community clinic) (Calhoun, 2011; Gibbons et al., 1994; Groccia, 2012; Rosser and Tabata, 2010). Yet, as state appropriations continue to decline and institutional budgets remain steady or grow (Johnson, 2020), academic professionals may be asked to perform much of the work of faculty.

Scholarship focused on academic capitalism and new public management has begun to unearth the voices of academic professionals and address how institutions of higher education are or are not administratively bloated. Academic capitalism (Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004) describes the market-like changes to higher education heartily embraced by university managers (but not faculty) in the United States (U.S.). The premise of academic capitalism is that the higher education challenges—for example, rising costs, decreasing public support, and increasing budget cuts—can be solved by turning to corporate practices. These practices include engaging in increased competition, hiring cheap labor, using more technology, developing product differentiation, branding university products into small and highly marketable components, adapting the product to fit the changing higher education market, shifting from academic to vocational programs, and peddling university products, from research to intercollegiate athletics. Nearly all of these corporate practices do not require teaching, research, or service, and instead, require administration and management—hence, a possible increase in administrative bloat and movement further away from the core mission of institutions of higher education, which is to teach (Birnbaum, 1998; Johnson, 2020).

An analysis by Hurt (2012) suggested that Slaughter and Leslie “find the increasingly complex relationship between U.S. higher education and the market forces to be a cause of concern” (p. 127). Marketization has reduced the product of a higher education from a public good to a private good, resulting in students and their families assuming the cost of higher education. In the search for more revenue in the face of declining public funding (which affects all American universities) (Johnson, 2020), the emphasis is revenue generation, no matter how irrelevant the product or service is to the mission of the university. Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) noted that trade agreements have forced research universities to move closer to the marketplace and act more like businesses, requiring more administration and management. In this regard, “administrative bloat” may be necessary to the institution’s fiscal survival.

Rhoades and Kane (2007) indicated that as market-like behaviors increase in the university, the number of less academic professionals (those who are temporary and non-tenure-track staff members who perform teaching, research, and service in lieu of tenured faculty) increased dramatically. Since the 1970s, full-time faculty positions at American universities decreased by 26% and full-time tenure-track positions dropped by 50% as institutions have move further toward non-instructional services. Further, full-time, non-tenure-track faculty jobs increased by 62%, with a 76% increase in part-time instructional staff. Fully 70% of all employees who teach in American universities are now off the tenure track and considered part-time, possibly signaling that the American university’s mission has shifted away from teaching (American Association of University Professors, 2016).

New professionalism and administrative bloat

Akin to academic capitalism, the theory of new public management describes the corporatization of non-profit and public organizations, especially the new professionalism of social workers, teachers, doctors, school principals, police officers, and other public servants (Anderson and Herr, 2015). From here, new professionalism is the result of a “transfer of private sector logic into the public/non-profit sector and the replacement of an ethos of public service in the discipline of the market” (Anderson and Herr, 2015: 3). In this regard, many organizations beyond institutions of higher education have possibly suffered “administrative bloat” because of the changing methods of management and marketplace positions of non-profit and public organizations. Yet, a connecting line can be drawn between the shift toward business-like behaviors of both non-profit organizations and institutions of higher education, primarily that as marketplace conditions change, organizations may be forced to hire program administrators and managers, resulting in a sense of necessary “administrative bloat.”

Moreover, the “new philanthropists,” many of them entrepreneurs, require the embrace of neoliberal policies and practices as a stipulation for outside funding (Hurt, 2012), establishing a public–private relationship that further pushes American universities toward business-like behaviors. In the U.S., higher education has been especially vulnerable to the impositions of academic capitalism and new professionalism, evidenced by increasing numbers of public–private partnerships (P3s), requiring increased levels of program and service administration and management. The result is the highly volatile and changing nature and face of these institutions, quite possibly toward “administrative bloat” (Johnson, 2020) given institutional entanglements with private businesses and increased non-instructional services.

Literature focused on organizational theory and the concept of core work has provided the foundation for developing a framework to describe university core work, akin to how faculty work has been traditionally seen as teaching, research, and service. For instance, Mintzberg (1979) described a hybrid organizational structure for universities with two operating cores (two places where core work is performed). One core is focused and specialized while the other is ambiguous and innovative. In this model, focused and specialized work is performed by faculty, and the innovative ambiguous work is performed by non-faculty professionals. Mintzberg’s organizational theory (1979) offered a view of faculty work that matches empirical descriptions of how university work is performed—perhaps institutions of higher education have split missions with one being teaching and the other being a provision of non-instructional services that requires the hiring of academic professionals (“administrative bloat”) for proper administration and management of these non-instructional services.

Ultimately, it is crucial to understand how academic professionals do or do not contribute to “administrative bloat” through an understanding of these individuals’ core work and whether this work has mirrored the traditional work of faculty members. This understanding will help institutions of higher education ameliorate the tensions between the institution and the public, as the costs of postsecondary education continue to rise as education has been increasingly made a private good whose cost is passed to the consumer. If institutions are hiring academic professionals to survive in a competitive marketplace, members of the public, as well as funding sources and governmental entities, should recognize this shift and acknowledge the dual mission of the modern university: traditional teaching and non-traditional provision of programs and services, necessitating “administrative bloat” to compete in an increasingly competitive academic marketplace.

Methodology

Scope

As mentioned in previous sections, the significant increases in employment of “other professionals” has caused a swift and strict criticism of institutions of higher education, mainly that these institutions suffer from “administrative bloat.” Although some label this increase as an example of “administrative bloat” (Johnson, 2020), university missions have evolved, and employees other than faculty are performing both traditional and evolving university core work—this is the crux of our study and the impetus for its purpose. For the uses of this study, we employ the IPEDS term “other professional” and “academic professionals,” which is used in the scholarly literature interchangeably—both of these terms are meant to refer to individuals hired by institutions of higher education to perform administrative or managerial functions and duties.

Site

The study is limited to one site in an effort to have tighter control over terms and definitions related to university core work of teaching, research, and public service. Lack of clarity and control over these terms relating to non-faculty professionals is a key issue cited by Rhoades (1998). We selected Southmost State University (SSU) as the site because it matches many of the descriptions of organizational structure and work discussed in other studies (Birnbaum, 1988; Johnson, 2020; Rhoades, 1998) and employs large numbers of both instructional faculty and academic professionals. The institution is a Carnegie Classification four-year public R-1 research university with very high research activity (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2011), suggesting that the institution may prioritize both research and teaching, leaving ample room to investigate “administrative bloat” and the role of academic professionals in supporting the institution’s mission.

Methodological approach

The methodological approach included a combination of case study, workforce and job analysis, and survey research. These methods contributed to the comprehensive development of a mechanism for defining terms and classifying university work as it relates to academic professionals and “administrative bloat.” Two analyses were performed to best understand the “other professional” or “academic professional” population of the institution. The first used workforce analysis to examine information from SSU’s human resource database. The second analysis was a survey instrument to collect self-reported work activities and outcomes related to teaching, research, and public service. The Institutional Review Board approved this study prior to our initiating the research.

Sample

At the time of the survey, there were N=4946 full-time and part-time academic professionals employed at SSU. We examined the entire population for the workforce analysis after institutional review board approval. For the survey, we developed rules to protect the anonymity of respondents and improve consistency in data analysis. First, we surveyed only full-time employees to ensure consistency in percentages related to the time academic professionals spent on teaching, research, and public service. Second, to guarantee anonymity of responses, we surveyed only individuals who held a job title with more than four employees, reducing the sampling error.

From the N=4946, 870 were part-time, other academic professionals. We kept 179 of the part-time employees in the study because they held a combination of jobs at SSU that equated to full-time employment. There were 205 full-time employees in job titles that had fewer than four incumbents. We excluded from the sample 25 employees who had no email listed in SSU’s administrative system. These various filters produced an n of 4025 academic professionals out of nearly 25,000 overall employees (both full- and part-time, student and professional) employed by SSU. For comparison, over 50% of institutions of higher education employ a 25% academic professional population (NCES, 2021), and therefore, SSU served as an appropriate site for research, as SSU employed a roughly 25% academic professional population current as of this study’s conclusion.

Survey instrument

The survey had a total of 55 questions, and all participants responded to 13 questions, with an additional four being optional. The remaining 38 questions employed branch logic, which allowed us to direct respondents to different places in the survey depending upon a response. The strategy of branching, which is not visible to the participant, allowed us to focus participants on only those questions related to their current job duties and to reduce the number of irrelevant questions. Moreover, the survey had six sections. The first section asked for details about the individual’s job, job title, job purpose, and whether the individual had dual titles. These questions were asked of all participants.

The second section queried participants about teaching duties guided by the definition of instruction of a class, workshop, or program that had stated learning objectives. Teaching outcomes were curriculum development, instruction, instructional assessment and reporting, and selling instruction and curriculum on the external market. Of the 18 possible questions in the teaching section, four were considered “level-one questions,” which were asked of all participants. The responses from these four questions either opened up new questions or skipped the participant to another level-one question. The four questions were whether the individual performed teaching work, assisted in the design of college-credit courses, had chaired a graduate student research committee, and/or served as a member of a graduate student research committee. The remaining questions asked about the time participants spent performing teaching duties and the specific research activities and outcomes produced.

Section three asked questions related to research work. These questions were guided by the definition of research as work which resulted in new knowledge, either theoretical or applied. Research outcomes included publishing findings in peer-reviewed academic journals, applying for patents and trademarks, or selling new knowledge on the open market. There were 12 questions in the research section, four of which were level-one questions asked of all participants. The level-one questions asked if the individual performed research work, published in a peer-reviewed journal, submitted grant proposals, or collaborated with industry to move research to market. The remaining questions asked about the time spent performing research and the research activities and outcomes produced.

Section four asked questions related to public service, defined as non-instructional services beneficial to individuals and groups external to the university. Work outcomes focused on medical services to the community; preserving, storing, or disseminating information; preserving and promoting the arts; and stimulating participation in and educating the public on the democratic process. The public service section had 12 questions and the query about whether the participant performed public service was the only level-one question. The remaining questions asked about the time individuals spend performing public service and the research activities and outcomes produced.

The fifth section contained five questions related to the participant’s career plans. The question, “how likely are you to be performing the same work in five years?” was the only level-one question. The remaining four questions asked about the type of work the participants aspired to and if they desired a faculty position. Finally, the sixth section asked four, open-ended questions available to all participants. These questions afforded the opportunity to add insights or comments on teaching, research, or public service and any other issues not covered in the survey.

Data analysis

Two analyses were performed: the workforce data analysis and the survey data analysis, both of which employed descriptive statistics. We chose population data for the workforce analysis and computed frequencies and percentages by full-time/part-time employment status, job title, department, and educational levels. The survey analysis also calculated descriptive statistics. Cross tabulation compared multiple question responses.

Academic professionals at SSU held 274 different job titles in March 2012 when the research team generated the population data. To make sense of these job titles, we categorized them based on type of university work. We established a coding system while reviewing the data and allowed codes to emerge from the data as Miles and Huberman (1994) recommended. Fourteen codes and definitions emerged: research, administration, coordinator, information technology, student administrator, service teaching, other, preservation, medical, project management, development, athletics, grants, and writing. Once the codes were established, we assigned a code to each job title. We read the description of each job title in the university system in order to assign the code accurately. An overview of the survey sample by top 30 departments at SSU can be found in Table 1.

Table 1.

Study sample of academic professionals by top 30 departments on SSU’s campus (n=1036)

Rank	Departments	% of sample
1	Applied Research Labs	7%
2	Intercollegiate Athletics	3%
3	University Charter School	3%
4	IPS1	2%
5	Business School	2%
6	CIO/ITS COO Office	2%
7	Economic Geology Bureau	2%
8	University Libraries	2%
9	International Office	2%
10	Development Office	2%
11	Natural Sciences	1%
12	Nursing Research Center	1%
13	Center of Advanced Computing	1%
14	Pharmacy College	1%
15	Computational Engineering/Science	1%
16	Liberal Arts	1%
17	University Health Services	1%
18	Chemistry/Biochemistry	1%
19	Reading/Language Arts	1%
20	Social Work Research	1%
21	Cellular/Molecular Biology	1%
22	Engineering	1%
23	Observatory	1%
24	Law	1%
25	Public Affairs School	1%
26	Art Museum	1%
27	Music School	1%
28	Math and Science Education Center	1%
29	Accounting Office	1%
30	Counseling and Mental Health Center	1%
Total		48%

An overview of the survey sample by education level can be found in Table 2.

Table 2.

Study sample of academic professionals by education level (n=1036)

Degree	% of sample
Bachelor’s	38%
Master’s	32%
Doctoral	11%
Unknown	9%
Associate’s degree	8%
High school	1%
Professional degree	<1%
Certificate	<1%
Medical degree	<1%
Less than high school	<1%
Total	100%

In 2012, the university added the Standard Occupational Classification and Coding Structure (SOC code) established by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010) to all jobs in the university system. Each research code was matched with the corresponding SOC codes. In case of discrepancy, we re-examined the job title’s description in the human resource system, making 52 corrections. NCES and IPEDS excluded postdoctoral fellows as “other professionals,” since postdocs were assumed to be temporary employees in a program to train new faculty members (NCES, 2021). Postdoctoral fellows held 10% of the entire “other professional” population. For this reason, we removed the 57 postdoctoral fellows who responded to the survey from the analysis. Nine hundred seventy-nine non-postdoctoral fellow “other professional” employees completed the survey. In all, 1,036 academic professionals completed this study’s survey, the largest survey of academic professionals at a single institution to date.

Results

Our analysis addressed both quantitative and qualitative responses. This section includes the overall findings; faculty-like work performed by other professionals in the context of publications, committee work, curriculum design, industry collaboration, and grant applications; and the three core faculty work areas of teaching, research, and public service.

The three main questions in the survey were: (a) Do you perform work that is considered teaching? (b) Do you perform work that is considered or that contributes to scholarly research? and (c) Do you perform work that directly contributes to increasing educational opportunities to individuals? Seven hundred fifty-nine respondents (78%) answered “yes” to at least one of the three questions related to teaching, research, or public service. All who answered “yes” to each of the three core work questions reported the percentage of the job devoted to teaching, research, or public service. Moreover, data suggested the majority of the 40% (n=414) either had jobs almost entirely focused on research (62%, n=642) or had jobs with 25% or less focused on research (38%, n=393). The majority of teaching work accounted for 25% or less of the participants’ job.

Research work

Three hundred ninety-two participants performed research work, which represented 38% (N=1036) of the academic professional population. Two hundred eleven (20%) respondents had a job title from the research professional job category. Seventy percent of research professionals conducted background research, ran experiments/gathered original data, analyzed/coded data, wrote up results, and edited publication drafts as part of their job. The analysis of the qualitative data showed that these professionals participated in designing research equipment, acquiring research equipment, and maintaining labs—all duties that fall under the category or research and not administration or management.

The questions related to publications, graduate committee membership, and curriculum design served as a deeper indicator that SSU academic professionals performed duties directly aligned with faculty work. One hundred eighteen (61%) academic professionals had published articles in a peer-reviewed journal, 23% served on a graduate student thesis or dissertation committees, and 17% designed college curricula. These numbers suggest that academic research professionals aligned more with faculty work than administrative or managerial duties.

Trademark and patent activity by research professionals was minimal at 7% (n=72). More substantially, 25% of research professionals collaborated with industry to move technology innovations into the marketplace. Close to half of research professionals applied for grants (46%) and 39% received grant funding. Finally, high percentages of research professionals also performed teaching (39%) and public service (47%), not duties categorized as administration or management.

Figure 1 illustrates non-research professionals who perform research work by job category.

Figure 1.

Non-research professionals who perform research work (by job category) (n=192)

Seven hundred seventy-two (75%) non-research professionals completed the survey, with 25% answering “yes” to the research question. Most non-research professionals (61%) spent 25% or less of their job performing research work. Over half (60%) of non-research professionals who answered “yes” performed background research. At least 30% ran experiments/gathered original data, analyzed/coded data, wrote up results, or edited publications. A smaller number (28%) generated research questions and 57% performed “other” research-related duties. The number of academic professionals performing research divided almost evenly between research (51%) and non-research (49%) job titles. Overall, the results narrated a story of academic professionals as highly skilled individuals, many of whom prepared to become faculty members but were hired as academic professionals. These academic professionals could be seen as contributing to “administrative bloat,” yet these professionals indicated that their work was anything but administrative and managerial in nature.

Teaching

Three hundred eighty-nine academic professionals answered “yes” (98%) to performing teaching duties. The survey defined teaching as “instruction of a class, workshop or program that has stated learning objectives.” Most teaching work was conducted by non-research professionals (79%). For most who taught as part of their job, teaching accounted for 25% or less of the position (74%). Comparatively, 62% of academic professionals who answered “yes” to performing research said it accounted for 30% or more of their job. This suggested that teaching was not a central aspect of “other professional” work but appeared to be part of various job titles, including many research positions (Figure 2). Figure 2 illustrates academic professionals who perform teaching work.

Figure 2.

Academic professionals who perform teaching work (by job category) (n=389)

Most “other professional” employees who answered “yes” to the teaching question taught workshops (62%). The survey defined teaching as “non-college credit classes taught for skill or professional development purposes.” Most of those individuals (95%) developed their own workshop content. Almost 25% of teaching professionals indicated they taught college credit courses. Of those, 71% taught undergraduate classes and 48% taught graduate courses. Most individuals (90%) developed some content for the course with 55% creating at least half of the course. A small percentage taught K-12 classes (10%) and a handful (<1%) taught preschool students. These positions were in the various laboratory schools on campus. Finally, 40% of teaching respondents taught something “other” than the previously mentioned classes/courses. Some respondents provided training on equipment/information technology and lab training. Several participants taught a first-year experience course for new students.

Public service

Four hundred sixty-two participants performed public service, defined as “non-instructional services beneficial to individuals and groups external to the university.” The majority of individuals who did public service work were non-research professionals (79%). Public service received the highest number of responses of the three areas of research, teaching, and public service. Figure 3 illustrates academic professionals performing public service.

Figure 3.

Academic professionals who perform public service work (by job category) (n=462)

The survey asked individuals the type of public service they provided. The five types of service were (a) providing educational opportunities to underserved communities, (b) providing medical services, (c) promoting the democratic process, (d) preserving and disseminating information, and (e) preserving and promoting the arts. The highest concentration of responses was preserving and disseminating information (75%) and providing educational opportunities to underserved communities (73%).

Public service had the highest response rate from academic professionals and the second highest concentration of time devoted to a job. The participants’ descriptions revealed the external populations served by university work. For instance, these descriptions included tasks focused on communicating and informing the public of research conducted by the university. Other public service activities provided access to information and the arts. Overall, data in this study suggests that academic professionals often teach, conduct research, and perform public service, even though these individuals were hired as administrators or managers, bringing into question the appropriateness of the labor performed by these individuals and whether “administrative bloat” must be reconsidered as it relates to academic professionals.

Discussion

Deeper analysis of the three areas of core university work provided some contextual information on the work activities of academic professionals. Most research professionals (73%) said that research accounted for more than 50% of their job. Conversely, most non-research professionals (61%) performing research work said that these duties accounted for 25% or less of the job. For most non-research professionals, research was but one aspect of the job, suggesting that individuals at universities may be hired as researchers, but the nature of their position trends toward the academic professional and often requires other forms of labor for the institution.

Additionally, teaching emerged as less significant than research or public service work for academic professionals. Only 15% of those who taught replied that such work accounted for more than 50% of the job. This suggested that teaching work was an aspect of academic professional jobs rather than a primary focus. Some teaching respondents (24%) taught credit-bearing courses. The job categories associated with college-credit teaching were research professional, coordinator/project manager, and student administrators. The main teaching duties performed by academic professionals was workshops (62%). All participants who taught collected data for reporting to grant, national, state, and accreditation agencies, rendering many individuals hired as teachers actually performing many research and reporting functions, a potential effect of the necessary “administrative bloat” required of programs with mandatory reporting requirements at the national, state, or local level. Here, individuals hired in teaching positions may need to understand that their work may shift toward research or reporting, a possibly unforeseen job duty and one that may be perceived as “administrative bloat” by those who do not understand the nature of university teaching positions.

Almost a third of public service respondents indicated the duties accounted for over 50% of the job. This suggested that public service was central to the duties of academic professionals. Most public service work provided educational opportunities to underserved communities (73%), and/or preserved and disseminated information (75%). Qualitative responses showed a variety of public service activities ranging from social services, to outreach activities focused at attracting future students, to specific areas of study in science and technology, to the preservation of and access to information. Finally, many participants reported researching and reporting public service work to grant, federal, and state agencies. Again, academic professionals hired in positions requiring public service may need to understand that their position will require research and reporting to accreditation or funding bodies for the fiscal health of their position, a potentially unintended consequence of “administrative bloat” for academic professionals.

In summary, the survey data provided contextual and descriptive information about academic professionals or “other professional” employees. A large portion of these employees performed work more closely aligned with research and public service than administration, although members of the public, other organizations, and government entities may view these professionals as contributing to “administrative bloat.” As a result, academic professionals may need to communicate with external entities and communicate the nature of their work, lest these professionals be criticized for contributing to “administrative bloat” when the true nature of their work is mission-driven.

Do academic professionals act in supportive, administrative positions or are they assisting with the production of research, teaching, and public service, thus contributing to the commonly accepted mission of countless institutions of higher education? Much of the survey data suggested that a large number of academic professionals engaged in work that was less like administrative support and more like work supporting or directly producing research, teaching, and/or public service. Here, it is important for academic professionals to be aware of the mutable nature of their work and how teaching, research, and service may all be required of a position that is advertised or classified as administrative or managerial.

Discussion

Implications for faculty members

The effect of academic capitalism, as Rhoades (2014) argued, is about the structural and political changes in U.S. colleges and universities. More managerial control over service, research, and instructional activities results in fewer permanent, tenured faculty members and reduced academic freedom. Such appointments offer academic managers substantial control. Since contingent appointments in the U.S. are for as little as one course in one quarter (10 weeks) and pay less than the equivalent wage for a tenured or tenure-track faculty member, contingent employees cost much less. Here, the changing nature of faculty job availability and the repurposing of academic professionals for teaching work will continue to be troublesome for both aspiring and current faculty members seeking teaching- or research-focused positions.

Likewise, American research professionals replace permanent faculty members by designing and performing research, writing and publishing journal articles, making presentations at academic meetings, and writing and administering grants. This activity frees up permanent faculty members to build partnerships with industry, and seek foundation, corporate, and government research contracts, contributing to academic capitalism (Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004). In other words, faculty must garner money and prestige to continue their existence. “Superstar” faculty researchers command large salaries and expensive laboratories (Burgan, 2006: 141). In return for multi-million-dollar startup funds for laboratories, superstars must generate funds yearly, usually between five and ten times their annual salaries. With these requirements, superstars spend more time chasing grants, and leaving the day-to-day research operations to the research professionals. Hence, institutions must hire more academic professionals to perform this work that critics of the institution simply may not understand.

Another space that U.S. academic professionals occupy is student support services. American universities have two key student mandates. The first is increasing access to higher education, especially for first-generation, low-income, and minority students. Second is the legislative mandate (state and federal) to increase dramatically graduation rates, especially at public universities. These mandates combined with the more residential nature of U.S. college life require a small platoon of counselors, tutors, instructors, residence life, and other student services professionals to support students. In turn, institutions must hire more academic professionals to support these mandates, resulting in a perceived “administrative bloat” that may only be serving to maintain the institution’s compliance with any number of these mandates.

Academic professionals in other countries

Although academic traditions and laws differ in other countries, many universities expanded the use of academic professionals—this work can inform how U.S. institutions can manage criticism related to “administrative bloat.” Gornitzke and Larsen (2004) expressed concern about the professionalization of administrative staff in Norwegian universities and rising administrative costs. The authors challenged classification of university staff as academic or non-academic as the dichotomous “… 0/1 perception” (p. 456). Gornitzke and Larsen (2004) discovered a 66% increase in administrative staff members between 1987 and 1999. This amounted to a “biennial annual growth rate of 11%” (p. 457).

The researchers conceptualize “profession” as “… linked to production and articulation of knowledge and expertise … ,” while professions have status and the power to self-regulate (p. 462). Gornitzke and Larsen (2004) asserted that unlike the research on academic professionals in the U.S., Norwegian academic administrators draw clear boundaries between themselves and faculty members (p. 465). However, research participants indicated they were undervalued and could foresee a larger role for themselves in the future—in these scenarios, individuals may be able to advocate to take on larger or expanded roles that better fit their skillset or professional ambitions which may or may not be seen as “administrative bloat” if they are not hired in an easily understood position like a faculty member.

Enders (2005) noted the transformation of German doctoral training from a Humboltdian to a professional model, with consequences on the career choices of the graduates. Overall, 25% of graduates go to work in universities, 25% go into research outside universities, and 50% go to work in other positions in government, private industry, and not-for-profit organizations (p. 22). With only 25% of PhDs working in higher education, academic professionals play a smaller role than at U.S. universities. However, German and other European universities face some of the same issues as their counterparts in America and may face financial pressures in the future to employ doctoral graduates as academic professionals rather than as regular faculty members. In these cases, academic professionals may indeed have faculty aspirations, but these individuals may be relegated to the role of academic professional. What these professionals may not understand is that they are taking on roles that require much teaching and research, work that is often what faculty do. From here, academic professionals may find satisfaction in doing the work traditionally associated with faculty work, possibly retaining these professionals in their roles and reducing the administrative burden of recruitment and hiring.

Technological disruption

During the current political cycle in the United States, politicians focused on the affordability of a college education, with several proposing “no-debt” or “no-frills” degrees. However, reducing either the debt load or the cost of higher education requires substantial cost-cutting, a much larger commitment of public funds, or both. The idea of technological or innovative disruption advocates cheaper options with the help of more academic professionals and fewer full-time, tenured faculty members—in this case, fewer full-time faculty members may be misconceived as “administrative bloat” when, in reality, the administrative work is necessary for the functioning of the institution and contributes to a continuing trend toward academic capitalism.

Technological disruption is the latest management trend that encourages a greater use of academic professionals. Christensen and Eyring (2011) used the term “innovative disruption,” defined as “selling of a cheaper, poorer quality product that initially reaches less profitable customers but eventually takes over an entire industry” (LePore, 2014: 30). LePore (2014) described Christensen’s focus on failed companies as “… not so much a problem missed as a missed opportunity, like a plane that takes off without you except that you don’t even know there was a plane, and had wandered onto the airfield, which you thought was a meadow, and the plane ran over you during takeoff” (p. 29). Moreover, LePore described disruption as “a theory of history founded on the profound anxiety about financial collapse and an apocalyptic fear of global devastation, and shaky evidence” (p. 30). She added that innovative disruption was “a chronicle of the past” (p. 30). Here, the work performed by academic professionals may be viewed as “administrative bloat,” yet leaders of institutions of higher education may be demanding such “innovative disruption” that requires administration for that innovation to be truly disruptive, a hallmark of academic capitalism and the 21st-century institution of higher education.

In writing about the “innovative university” Christensen and Eyring (2011) analyzed the Harvard University founded by theocrats in the 17th century to conclude that “the modern university includes a mix of face-to-face and online learning” (Christensen and Eyring, as cited in LePore, 2014: 31). For the latter they recommended Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). They also advocated a “heavyweight innovation team” (as cited by LePore, 2014: 31). She identified the analysis as historically flawed, the recommendations as having little reality to the current operation of the university, and the solution as more appropriate for an entrepreneurial startup company. However, startups are structurally and philosophically very different from academia, yet many universities may now resemble these startups and hefty administrative or managerial positions. However, three out of four startups fail, and the management and staff of these companies stay a year or two and then leave to disrupt other organizations. It is difficult to imagine a process less suited to a university that requires some sense of continuity—academic professionals may be working to maintain that continuity while the educational marketplace and labor force continues to change, evidenced by the emergence of academic capitalism and new professionalism.

Such a system, LePore (2014) argued, is completely inappropriate for universities, yet disruptive innovation is very much in vogue in American universities. There are conferences, networks, and programs in disruption and a small army of disruptively transient disruption consultants. Further, academic professionals and contingent faculty with their transience, diminished loyalties, and lower salaries can be easily manipulated into providing the cheapest academic degrees possible by replacing tenured and tenure-track faculty. Unfortunately, this shift also serves as a double-whammy for academic professionals who may be hired to perform what results to faculty work yet are criticized for “administrative bloat”—does disruptive innovation simply disrupt traditional faculty and staff roles while necessitating “administrative bloat?” Data from this study suggests yes, and academic professionals may be unfairly critiqued for simply doing the work that their institution is asking of them without any of the protections of the promotion and tenure process for faculty or the long-term job security.

Future research

This exploratory study of academic professionals at Southmost State University has limitations in the scope, response rates, survey questions, and statistical analysis. The study was limited to one university to define and refine how to best assess core university work and whether academic professionals contribute to “administrative bloat.” Future research could utilize the survey tool and job categories at other institutions of similar size and mission to gain a more comparative view of the “other professional” category of employees in American research universities. Such an approach would allow institutions to better define roles for all employees and communicate those roles to external entities to both form strategic partnerships and stem public criticism and scrutiny over perceived “administrative bloat.”

A second limitation to the study was the survey response rates. Future research could offer incentives and construct targeted messages to each job category. In addition, future researchers could monitor responses by job category and send targeted reminders to job categories with a low number of responses. These strategies could improve the response rate. Moreover, while the survey tool provided meaningful information related to research, teaching, and public service work, the study could have benefited from more data on teaching work. The main teaching question was whether individuals taught classes, with no follow-up questions about other types of teaching activities. This reduced the nuance in defining teaching duties of academic professionals. The qualitative responses on employee contributions to the university’s teaching mission suggested that “other professional” employees were involved in learning outcomes design, assessment, and reporting. Future research should consider adding more questions that explore other aspects of instruction. Follow-up questions could ask about learning outcomes design, assessment, and reporting activities.

Overall, our study contributed to the discussion of the growing “other professional” category of employees—referred to as academic professionals—by providing a mechanism to catalog and categorize work. The study used job analysis techniques to build a job analysis tool. We used definitions of core university work from scholarly literature associated with faculty work. Population analysis provided useful information to develop core work categories. Finally, the survey tool produced descriptive information about the work of “other professional” employees at SSU. The result was a sizable number of academic employees in this study at SSU performing university core work of research, teaching, and/or public service—this result provides ample evidence that “administrative bloat” may be misunderstood or misused when referring to academic professionals who perform work essential to an institution of higher education’s mission.

Summary

This study of American academic professionals revealed extensive and growing use of this type of employee to meet the needs of the modern research university. The accountability demands, pressures to replace lost public revenue with outside funding, providing a relevant education to competing constituencies, increasing diversity of the faculty and student body, and cutting costs all suggest that academic professionals will continue to play a large role in accomplishing these competing objectives. All institutional stakeholders should understand these important, and often disturbing, changes to the academic work of the university and to the balance of power between faculty and administration. Additionally, university leaders routinely practicing academic capitalism should acknowledge criticisms of “administrative bloat” and better communicate institutional goals and missions to external entities. Such an act would position these leaders as supportive of the system—and the role of the academic professional—that they themselves helped create in the first place, redefining the modern research university and reintroducing the academic professional to the education industry and general public.