The Chronicle-Herald Opinion, Wednesday, May 4, 2011, p. A11 Admin costs an issue at Dalhousie W.d. Smith Following recent criticism in The Chronicle Herald, Dalhousie president Tom Traves circulated a memorandum to the university community regarding "the size and cost of Dalhousie's administration." He spoke of "ill-informed public commentary," and made an oblique reference to an article I wrote for Macleans, in January 2010, expressing similar concerns about administration costs at Canada's leading universities. Dr. Traves thinks the criticism is unwarranted at Dal. I disagree. He dismissed the notion of a national problem by citing a controversial article (judging by the comments it attracted) written by someone who has consulted for the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada - "the voice of Canada's universities." The central theme of my Macleans article was that undergraduate education has fallen in priority at leading Canadian universities because top administrators are focused on pursuing global academic status. This is fuelling skyrocketing administration costs and taking money away from the classroom. Dr. Traves and I use data from the same source, the Canadian Association of University Business Officers, but reach very different conclusions. My detailed analysis covers 22 years and I stand behind it. Dr. Traves stated, "The proportion of our budget allocated to administration costs has risen from six per cent in 2003-04 to 6.7 per cent in 2008-09." That's correct, but he neglected to mention that there's another element of central administration cost - external relations, which covers some of the status-focused activities. With this rapidly-growing cost included, the movement was from 7.6 per cent to 9.1 per cent. He also failed to mention that this occurred while the proportion allocated to instruction and non-sponsored research (which includes undergraduate teaching) declined from 64.2 per cent to 60 per cent. Since 2003-04, Dal's expenditures on instruction and non-sponsored research have risen by 21 per cent, while central administration costs have increased by 54 per cent - up from $18.5 million to $28.5 million in just five years. If that $10 million didn't come from bigger salaries at the top and more bureaucracy, where did it come from? And why did university-wide non-academic salary expense increase by 29.8 per cent while academic salary cost rose by just 22.2 per cent? These numbers portray a different picture to the one painted by Dr. Traves, and it worsens if we go back further. Administration cost certainly is an issue. It's easy to view small percentage changes as inconsequential, but they're not. If Dal spent the 7.6 per cent of 2003-04 instead of the 9.1 per cent of last year, it would have spent $4.6 million less on central administration in 2008-09. That would have meant $4.6 million more for the classroom - or $4.6 million less in tuition fees. Is it any wonder that undergraduates and faculty are frustrated with increasing costs, budget cutbacks and declining quality? All this information is public if you're willing to dig. There's much more, including troubling data on investment performance, where Dal also fared poorly. In one way, though, Dr. Traves is correct. Dalhousie is better than many peers in some areas (including central admin costs), but that might not be as reassuring as it sounds. The argument that "we're good because we're not as bad as others" is used across the country, but it's not a credible paddle in a sea of troubling trends. No, this isn't just a Dal problem, and it's evident in more ways than dollars. In a December article in University Affairs, Pierre Zundel and Patrick Deane, presidents at Sudbury and McMaster respectively, correctly argued, "It's time to transform undergraduate education." They referenced a major AUCC workshop "designed exclusively for university presidents and vice-presidents, academic, who are encouraged to attend as a team and to bring a student to the dialogue." Sadly, only 24 of AUCC's 95 member-schools bothered, including just eight of the Top 25. Of those eight, only five brought a student. Most elected student representatives weren't even told about it. Just one Top 25 president (Deane) attended the March workshop in Halifax - five fewer than the number who took in AUCC's "mission to India" last November. These facts are as insightful as the numbers, and they tell a story of misplaced priorities in some of our great national institutions. When presidents view a trip to India as more important than a much-needed review of undergraduate education in Canada, it's easy to see why concern is growing - no matter what we're told by well-funded campus PR machines. Universities are hypersensitive when it comes to public criticism, but it's going to keep coming until they leave denial behind, stop trying to defend the indefensible, and start addressing these critical problems. If top administrators are unable or unwilling to do that, their boards of governors must do it for them. W.D. Smith worked with students and university administrators for 25 years before retiring in 2008. © 2011 The Halifax Herald Limited. All rights reserved. Document number: news·20110504·HH·0May4new_txt0143 news·20110504·HH·0May4new_txt0143 This certificat is issued to Dalhousie-University for personal and temporary display. Date of issue: 2011-06-10 The present document and its usage are protected under these international copyright laws and conventions.