tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post5995979747180900807..comments2023-10-30T12:26:15.822+01:00Comments on Research as a Second Language: The Professorial BureaucracyThomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-77709945275074695962011-09-29T17:20:41.793+02:002011-09-29T17:20:41.793+02:00PS: I've gone with the more conventional spell...PS: I've gone with the more conventional spelling of bureaucracy now. (I don't know what got into me. I've been trying to Americanize a little.)Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-29006976337317318962011-09-29T17:10:03.271+02:002011-09-29T17:10:03.271+02:00Well, neither the security guards nor the special ...Well, neither the security guards nor the special agents of the FBI probably think of themselves as bureaucrats. Just as the worker on the factory floor doesn't, even though they arguably work in machine bureaucracies. The cafeteria worker is a member of what Mintzberg would call the "support staff".<br /><br />The distribution of intellectual and administrative work you mention is typical precisely of "machine bureaucracies". In so-called "professional bureaucracies" the administrative staff (the technostructure) is relative small.<br /><br />Ezra Pound once complained that too much money was spent in universities on building maintainance because the campuses insisted on overwrought gothic architecture.<br /><br />It can sometimes be argued that a large administrative staff frees up the intellectuals to actually think and teach (rather than deal with the logistics of research and teaching).<br /><br />My worry remains: something essential about knowledge is getting lost in the current organization of scholarship. Your image of cordon sanitaire has been useful in thinking about this. Heideggger talked about "the administration of being".Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-76842936156548288012011-09-29T15:51:35.494+02:002011-09-29T15:51:35.494+02:00I don't think of myself as a bureaucrat or as ...I don't think of myself as a bureaucrat or as part of a bureaucracy. Those are the administrators. It is interesting that the number of administrators has no become equal (more or less) to that of "ladder" faculty in the UC system. In other words, there are more people running the bureaucracy than doing the intellectual work of teaching and research.Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com