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Speaking of administrative language



'Advancement Officer, Leadership Giving'. I know each individual word in the phrase but can only guess as to what the phrase describes: a forward-moving person, giving away leaders.

For that matter, as someone whose area is not business administration, I don’t really know what “business processes” or “workflows” are meant to refer to. At least, I don’t know how they are used well enough to meaningfully respond to the SFU Vault survey. It appears to be written for administrators, not faculty.

—Suzanna

 

Suzanna M. Crage, PhD
University Lecturer
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Drive
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
Canada

Pronouns: she/her

Office: AQ 5081
Email: scrage@sfu.ca


As faculty at Simon Fraser University, I work and live on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw), Tsleil-Waututh (Səl̓ílwəta
ɬ), Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), and Kwikwetlem (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm) First Nations. I seek to support Indigenous peoples as they work to strengthen their communities and lands.

 


Sent from my phone

On Oct 26, 2023, at 1:56 PM, Nilima Nigam <nigam@math.sfu.ca> wrote:


Dear Suzanne and James
      if one is curious, one can log onto the SFU Directory, and search.  MarComm people are everywhere. The numbers are large. 


And James, to your question: I'm sure searching for job titles and descriptions will yield many synonyms of 'managerial stuff'. The words come from  English, but 
are deployed in novel ways. In the FASS Dean's office, for instance, you have an 'Advancement Officer, Leadership Giving'. I know each individual word in the phrase but can only guess as to what the phrase describes: a forward-moving person, giving away leaders.


best
Nilima

On Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 1:18 PM Suzanne Norman <snorman@sfu.ca> wrote:

Nilima, I am curious as to how many of those admin positions are in comms or PR. Any idea?





Suzanne Norman, BA, MPub

Senior Lecturer, Publishing@SFU

Industry Liaison, Publishing

FCAT Champion, Charles Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship

Treasurer, Indigenous Editors Association

@sdnorman

778 782 5241


From: Behraad Bahreyni <bba19@sfu.ca>
Sent: October 26, 2023 1:15:05 PM
To: Nilima Nigam; Oliver Schulte
Cc: Richard Zhang; academic-discussion@sfu.ca; cs-faculty
Subject: RE: Report on Administration spending at Memorial University
 

That is amazing Nilima.

 

I can tell you that a good portion of those 28 faculty positions were assigned to new programs that the university has created (including MSE and SEE in FAS). The remainder for the rest of the university is probably around half that number…

 

But 500????? I cannot believe this number…

 

Wow

 


 

__________________

Behraad Bahreyni, PhD, PEng      
Professor, School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering
Associate Member, School of Engineering Science   
  SFU  Simon Fraser University

MSE 4176, 250-13450 102nd Ave
Surrey, BC, CANADA   V3T 0A3

T.  +1 (778) 782-8694             F.  +1 (778) 782-7514             W.  http://sense.fas.sfu.ca/

 

From: Nilima Nigam <nigam@math.sfu.ca>
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2023 1:11 PM
To: Oliver Schulte <oschulte@cs.sfu.ca>
Cc: Richard Zhang <haoz@sfu.ca>; academic-discussion@sfu.ca; cs-faculty <cs-faculty@sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: Report on Administration spending at Memorial University

 

I know a lot of us tune out when the word 'budget' arises. But a similar audit of SFU would be grand,

 

Here's why we may want to care. Since 2009, I see SFU has created precisely 28 new tenure-track faculty positions. 

 

In the same period, we've created well over 500 new administrative positions, 100 just last year. 

 

I wonder why we have money for managers, and not to improve TA pay, student learning, or research support, or blanket tuition+bursary support for Indigenous students. 

 

Heck, it would nice to even have a reliable supply of toilet paper in the washrooms of the AQ. 

 

Cheers

Nilima

 

 

 

 

On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 9:48 AM Oliver Schulte <oschulte@cs.sfu.ca> wrote:

Hi Richard,

 

I love the family/children analogy! There was also an interview with the head of the Memorial Faculty Association where he points out that this is also a failure of oversight by the Board of Regents (what we call the board of governors). They are formally the only ones with authority over the President. Also the Universities Act gives Senate some control over the university budget. Senate budget control seems not to have been implemented at Memorial, nor is it at SFU.

 

Cheers,

 

Oliver

 

 

On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 8:36 AM Richard Zhang <haoz@sfu.ca> wrote:

Thanks for forwarding the article, Oliver.

 

TBH, I am not surprised that this is happening at universities at all. What shocks me is the severe lack of accountability when such findings are revealed. It is a gentle tap on the wrist. I'd do more to teach my kids consequences of their actions if they had over-spent their allowance ...

 

--

Richard.

 


From: Oliver Schulte <oschulte@cs.sfu.ca>
Sent: October 25, 2023 8:00:00 AM
To: academic-discussion@sfu.ca; cs-faculty
Subject: Report on Administration spending at Memorial University

 

Hi all, 

 

our colleagues at Memorial U work hard to bring in tuition dollars for the university. There is a new report by the Auditor-General on how Memorial's administration has been spending that money. (Hint: not on hiring faculty and paying TAs).

 

Regards,

 

Oliver

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oliver Schulte E-mail: oschulte@cs.sfu.ca

Simon Fraser University Phone: (778) 782-3390

Professor Fax: (778) 782-3045

School of Computing Science Web: http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~oschulte

TASC 1 Building 9021 Work Schedule: see home page

Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6

Canada



--
 Nilima Nigam
Professor
Dept. of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University