Higher Ed Is a Land of Dead-End Jobs — from chronicle.com by Kevin R. McClure
Colleges have done a spectacularly bad job of managing talent.
Excerpt:
It’s hard to conclude anything other than that higher education has done a spectacularly bad job of managing talent. Campuses have evolved over centuries and dedicated resources to perfect the art and science of human development, while largely outsourcing or ignoring the professional growth and learning of their employees. Rather than draw upon their own experts to develop and retain workers, institutions let employees burn out, and then replace them.
When I floated the idea of dead-end jobs in higher education on Twitter, I was floored by the volume and breadth of responses.
From DSC:
Having worked half of my career in the corporate world and the other half within higher education, I would agree with the main points of this article. There are very few job pathways within the world of higher education.
Looking at the one pathway that I’ve seen…it surprises me to think that faculty members who have taught in the classroom and/or served as department chairs or deans for X years are then put into the Provost position and expected to know how to do that job. There is little — if any — training on project management, how to think more strategically and with greater vision, change management, managing budgets, and managing/motivating people.