You may not be surprised to know that I first observed this behavior in Georgia. I don't consider it misguided. It's a deliberate exercise of power for the worst of all reasons: Because they can.
Yes. No fear of consequences, which says in turn: I really don't care about whether we're doing right by the students or the community that supports this place.
It's all about their own money, position, and power for them. Those of us who taught in low-prestige places saw this first, but we were dismissed as irrelevant nobodies when we mentioned this: Of course it's dreadful at Podunk State! Now it's everywhere, and yet most faculty continue to allow them to maintain the fiction that they're leaders with moral authority, rather than masters with no integrity and iron fists.
In some places, the difference between the tinpot and the pretty-ok is the tinpot is just woefully bad at hiding the iron fist--unable to muster the insincerity required to disguise their avidity and ego, or to cultivate ambitious underlings who can serve as insulation for them. It's gotten to the point where I think most faculty would settle for a power-seeking leader if they only were slightly artful about it.
You may not be surprised to know that I first observed this behavior in Georgia. I don't consider it misguided. It's a deliberate exercise of power for the worst of all reasons: Because they can.
Yes. No fear of consequences, which says in turn: I really don't care about whether we're doing right by the students or the community that supports this place.
It's all about their own money, position, and power for them. Those of us who taught in low-prestige places saw this first, but we were dismissed as irrelevant nobodies when we mentioned this: Of course it's dreadful at Podunk State! Now it's everywhere, and yet most faculty continue to allow them to maintain the fiction that they're leaders with moral authority, rather than masters with no integrity and iron fists.
In some places, the difference between the tinpot and the pretty-ok is the tinpot is just woefully bad at hiding the iron fist--unable to muster the insincerity required to disguise their avidity and ego, or to cultivate ambitious underlings who can serve as insulation for them. It's gotten to the point where I think most faculty would settle for a power-seeking leader if they only were slightly artful about it.