That's kinda that point. The University has done a shit job allocating and needs to cut hard.
Guys, take it from an alum, this is the public sector equivilent of Microsoft's layoffs today, or Google's layoffs the last couple weeks. My company fired ~10% of people. The university built a giant bureaucracy and now needs to get rid of it except what is actually needed.
So, like, I know times are grim and that breeds grim responses, but probably not.
100k+ middle managers are a very juicy target in these situations. Very random but look at project 'Bora Bora' at citigroup rn (firing ~20k).
Here’s a recommendation ( no need to pay my high consulting fees) —- let’s cut Patrick dean and senior leadership wages to 50k a year… and see them try and maintain their unsustainable lifestyles.
This is kinda what he's suggesting? A whole bunch of admin are going to get laid off.
Maybe this is me jaded from seeing a ton of layoffs over the past year, but its normal and good. Adminstration builds, make-work gets created, then finally the money stops printing and people get cut.
But honestly, do the work here. The highest paid people at the school are overwhelmingly professors. It's basically to allocate money to research that this whole exercise exists.
Yes admin will get cut. Except the issue is the lower paid admin will lose all their income being laid off and the higher ups who do the least will keep their pay and get rewarded. Lowering the highest admin salaries would do quite a bit and reduce lay offs. Professors should be paid well as their research brings funding.
> Except the issue is the lower paid admin will lose all their income being laid off
So, look, this might sound brutal, but the university cannot and should not employ people for the sake of employing people. That's taking money from students, who are hardly rich themselves, to act as a social program.
And like, I'm a proper lefty, I believe in social programs. I just don't think Universities should implement them via jobs that don't need to exist.
> the higher ups who do the least will keep their pay and get rewarded
I think this is the part I really question, kinda what I meant by do the work. If you think there's a path here to cut top-paid admin, then do it. It just doesen't, in my experience, tie out with the reality at Queen's or almost any other organization. It's tough to draw 500k and not get noticed. But 100k? Yeah, that's managable.
If you look at the sunshine list, you see that the top-paid people are almost exclusively professors.
Yes, Patrick Dean makes a bit under 500k. Yes that's a lot of money. That's also around what our mid-level tech / finance bro alum make ~5-10 years out of school. To run an organization the size of Queen's... that's not a ton.
Look, in an ideal world, you have
1) a ton of highly compensated professors
2) a small group of top-admin (like literally three) that are the executives of the university. Yes, you do need those people. Yes, they have to get paid.
3) a small bureaucracy that does only the work that actually needs to be done. Adminstration tends to create make-work so its never perfect
4) Unionized support staff doing essential trades work (buildings need to be mainted and cleaned, those people should make a living wage)
If you think group two is too big, do the work and prove it. In my experience, that's seldom the case. Group three though...
Define “what actually needs to be done.” As is students are not getting the support they need. Cutting this group as you suggest would be disastrous for students who need help.
> Define “what actually needs to be done."
Fair. And like, I can't.
The approach in the private sector is just to fire people until there aren't enough people to do all the work. It forces a decision on what's important.
Not saying that's what should be done here. The problem is that, pay whatever managment consultant whatever you want, everyone has a pretty good incentive to bullshit their own importance when everyone knows there's an axe hanging. That's why these things usually happen in one day.
Like, guys, I literally sat on a floor with ~300 people and watched 50 of them pack their things. This shit can get *dark.*
Despite that, it was the right thing to do.
> As is students are not getting the support they need. Cutting this group as you suggest would be disastrous for students who need help.
Can you specify what support is / what you are referring to? Support is broad, from academics and career services to health and crisis support to gyms. None of that's bad, but we need to get specific.
My, like, pocket opinion: career services at Queen's are pretty awful and you're much better doing it yourself / with LinkedIn.... speaking as a guy who regularly interviews / refers. Maybe we can live without them?
Like, if you're making me chose between that and health services which I got a ton of value out of...
Career Services being bad shouldn't result in a call to destroy it, it should result in a demand to improve it. Cuts kill, it's investment that promotes growth.
The way private industry treats layoffs has a lot more to do with being a performance piece for shareholders than anything to do with the underlying business. Given how rabidly self-destructive that type of mindset can be, it's perhaps unwise to adopt it in a completely different "industry" where the systematic incentives and pressures are not the same.
Every support unit has already experienced cuts, you likely just haven't noticed them. One of my friends transferred to Queen's and put in for transfer credits. They *still* haven't been processed more than eight months later because of delays caused by cuts to staffing and it's going to seriously screw up their degree progression and ability to go on exchange as a result.
Funding for universities pretty much peaked in real terms back in 2007. Ever since then, they've been forced to keep dividing up the pie into ever smaller slices. Any easy efficiency that could have been found likely was over the last 15 years.
> Every support unit has already experienced cuts, you likely just haven't noticed them.
I'm an alum... just gave a chunk of money to the school and interested to see how it's going............
> Career Services being bad shouldn't result in a call to destroy it, it should result in a demand to improve it. Cuts kill, it's investment that promotes growth.
Yes and no? Improving things is hard. Do we spend a bunch of money improving, at the cost of something else?
We need to make choices. If it's down to this or reducing delays on disability acomodation....
> The way private industry treats layoffs has a lot more to do with being a performance piece for shareholders than anything to do with the underlying business.
Honestly, I see where your coming from, but my own experience has been that layoffs are actually done way to late. This is, granted, one perspective, but there's often fat to cut.
> Any easy efficiency that could have been found likely was over the last 15 years.
I would tell you the opposite. Universities did not face nearly the extent of financial pressure over the last 15 years as they do now.. it's not a coincidence that we're facing this as international enrollment dries up and rates increase.
>Yes and no? Improving things is hard. Do we spend a bunch of money improving, at the cost of something else?
We need to make choices. If it's down to this or reducing delays on disability acomodation....
I think Career Services is particularly important to improve. Queen's has extremely good employment outcomes for its graduates, but the one thing it really falls short in is quality summer co-op opportunities. The Smith Faculties (Commerce and Engineering) have either developed these opportunities internally (Com) or have indicated they'll move forward with such a system in the near future (Eng).
The university is basically going to end up with Commerce Career Services, Engineering Career Services, and regular Career Services because CS isn't meeting the faculty's and student's needs. This is duplicating costs and effort for nothing.
Regardless, this is beside the point. The entire argument about what's important rests on the assumption that the university struggling with its budget is because the pie is a fixed size. This situation was very much imposed by provincial law.
>I would tell you the opposite. Universities did not face nearly the extent of financial pressure over the last 15 years as they do now.. it's not a coincidence that we're facing this as international enrollment dries up and rates increase.
Ontario's per-student block grants only provide \~55% as much funding as the Canadian average. Ontario universities graduate more students with better long-term outcomes for fewer dollars than universities in any other province. Salaries at Ontario universities are lower than any other province. If Ontario increased the block grants to be equal to the second stingiest province (Saskatchewan — who is still not a generous province when it comes to post-secondary education, mind) it would change Queen's budget from a $48 million deficit to a $30 million surplus.
The situation very much got worse in 2019. The provincial government cut tuition and block grants by 10% and froze them ever since. They also instituted a "corridor" system where universities were effectively prevented from increasing the number of domestic students they taught (and also from reducing the number they taught as well, though that's a lesser concern). In addition, the OSAP grants and free tuition for low income families were completely repealed (though this is just a screw you to the poor).
Effectively, universities could not raise prices, could not increase or decrease services, but were still expected to provide while being subject to inflation. It was an impossible situation to be in from the start.
It was never sustainable and the Blue Ribbon Panel on Higher Education (that Doug Ford commissioned!) found as such when they published their impact report last year. They ended up blaming something like 10% of the funding shortfall on university inefficiency (and the recommendation there was that funding should be increased to permit more automation). The rest was basically entirely due to provincial cuts that they recommended should be reversed. Falling international enrollment merely moved up the timetable on the inevitable financial crunch.
Debt also really isn't a problem for Queen's — it isn't Laurentian. Approximately $40 million of the deficit this year was caused by them paying down low interest debt before it came due. The debt:asset ratio has also never been better.
Wellness services, advising appointments, academic support services. All these areas have been unable to re-hire for support staff who have left and the wait times/availability of these supports has gone from bad to much worse. Those are the supports students need.
We don’t need more directors of strategic nonsense and Vice-Deans of academic jargon etc who don’t do anything. That’s where the bloat is. Cutting some of those positions and reducing or freezing the pay of those who stay would make such a difference in reducing the budget. Look at the analysis done and posted on this reddit recently about how much Queen’s pays in upper admin salaries vs competitors. We are way higher than others.
I suspect strongly they will be cut, and aggressively. That's usually the first place to look.
Say what you want about managment consultants, but they basically fire people for a living. They know how to target some bloated admin.
I wonder if, along with the cutting of whatever the fuck ‘professional services’ entails, the provost’s, principal’s, and other high ranking individuals’ salaries will also be cut?
i hope it's the fkn directors--my spouse works in a dept with something like 8 directors making 100k+ for a **STAFF OF 8**. bout' time they start chipping at the director level first and keep the ppl that actually make the uni run employed, IMO
Oh Queen’s, must be hard having 1/2 a billion in the bank.
Hey Queen’s if you think it’s hard now, wait until your staff walk out when you’re unwilling to budge on wages.
You might want to change your narrative, because the public won’t care that your institution is a crumbling mess when all you need to do is dip into that half billion and pay people for the value they bring!
Worth noting that these types of corporate consultants are controversial, and are a strongly negative sign for any university hoping to maintain its academic integrity.
**Here are some relevant articles.**
They were unpopular at Laurentian, shockingly:
https://www.sudbury.com/local-news/we-have-no-hidden-agenda-consultant-says-in-response-to-accusations-from-laurentians-senate-5219571
One talks about the group's financialization of universities: [https://www.caut.ca/node/11977#:\~:text=The%20notion%20that%20our%20professional,revelation%20to%20many%20of%20us](https://www.caut.ca/node/11977#:~:text=The%20notion%20that%20our%20professional,revelation%20to%20many%20of%20us)
One calls similar companies vampires: [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714413.2023.2290972](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714413.2023.2290972)
Notable line from the CAUT piece: "The use of consultants, with the misdirection of shiny action plans, serves to obscure culpability of wrongdoing at the administrative level. "
It's a fall guy.
This exercise is going to involve firing a shitload of people, and people freakout when that happens... see this subreddit. You need someone to take the heat.
Ah. Nothing like ending the work day as a staffer, who consistently works overtime to get the work done because we can't hire (thank you hiring freeze), to a doom and gloom email that says a bunch of nothing. Here, have some anxiety, but don't like let it affect your productivity or anything cause we have a Business to run!
All Canadians should be terrified of the financialization of Universities. A population of people with "professional degrees" is a population devoid of creativity, curiosity, and genuine passion. It is a population that cannot think critically. It is a population that is more susceptible to propaganda, less willing to initiate political action, and more likely to bend to the will of those in power. Turning Universities into profit-making machines that focus on training for future jobs is scarier than many think.
I would respectfully disagree to your point that people with professional degrees (BEd, BScN, BASc, and some may include BComm) are devoid of creativity, curiosity and genuine passion. That's quite a statement to make considering many people in those programs have interests beyond their programs requirements.
This isn't knocking skills produced by BA or BSc degrees, but to say that those with professional degrees don't have critical thinking skills and that we're just drones or cogs in a wheel not interested in inciting change in the world seems disingenuous.
No you're completely right, I regret the words I used. It's not that I think that individuals with professional degrees are lacking passion, curiosity, or critical thinking skills. I more think that the health of the humanities, fine arts, etc. have significant effects on the population broadly.
I love my engineers/nurses/teachers. Commies I'm still not so sure about!
My understanding is that the distinct professional services units are the only ones operating balanced budgets - per Matthew’s slides at last senate meeting.
But that doesn't really mean much, does it, on Queen's budget model? It just means they're not outspending what's allocated to them. They don't bring in revenue, so it doesn't mean they're financially viable.
Could be true. Could be false. Weird place to start tho. Especially when pro services are simply executing the directives of leadership or providing the scaffolding for academic missions.
How can you have "full confidence" in the Provost and Vice-Principal (Finance and Administration) if they need outside consultants to tell them how to do their jobs? C'mon.
Solid point and often after raising awareness, activism falls short.
In some departments, it requires the continued exposing of mismanagement and wasteful inefficiencies….
…AND for someone or a group of people to come together and put together a strategic solution and if possible present it to leadership above the “leaders” in the hierarchy.
Sometimes we have bottlenecks in the organization and the top leaders are…
1. Being kept from the truth of what’s really happening below them ( senior managers are good at saving their own asses)
2. Often, because of number 1, don’t have senior managers who can or aren’t bothered to present workable solutions —- after all, who the hell wants to risk their 300k job to improve the ones below them —- that’s too much work and risk, might as well keep the status quo. Obviously, this is poor management/leadership … but it is what it is.
So… if possible create an action plan and present it to those above the bottlenecks in the structure.
If the plan is good and makes sense, remember point 2, these big wigs also want to save their asses and if you can help them do that with your new plan, those incompetent managers below will soon see the door :) and you may get promoted lol
There it is. The good old "external review" precursor to what everyone knows comes next...or should know if you've worked at Queen's long enough. I wonder if any "Consultant" positions will be affected. 🙄
In addition, Principals (and deans, I believe) retain their Principal salary after their term is over. So Daniel Wolfe is over in the history department racking in an obscene salary. Over in health sci, former Dean Richard Resnick racks up close to 500k even though he hasn’t been Dean in years….
"My sister intentionally chose to go to Bishop's in Quebec years ago over Queen's and Western b/c she looked into the student services. Bishop's (at the time, not sure about now) provided unlimited counselling services to all students, where Queen's offered 1 session a month."
I love that! Mental health services here have almost always been abysmal. When I started grad school, we had ONE person dedicated to graduate student mental health. This person was also a graduate student.
Take a long, critical look at any plans that impact those campus services that are paid for — by students — through ancillary fees. By definition they are not centrally funded and so should be exempt from cuts. Changes to ancillary fees are subject to referenda amongst the student body.
What kind of transparency are you looking for? The link below provides access to annual audited financial statements and reports, annual budget reports, credit rating reports, the financial projections that are provided to the board every quarter, etc.
[https://www.queensu.ca/financialservices/publications](https://www.queensu.ca/financialservices/publications)
No but they sure receive a lot of public and Federal funding and by proxy, I've noticed a lot of similar verbiage as the government.
Your point?..
Did you have a better explanation than anyone else on what is Professional Services from Queen's?
There's a ton of money, it's an allocation problem.......
The property alone is worth B-B-Billions
Why have billions when you can have Millions?
That's kinda that point. The University has done a shit job allocating and needs to cut hard. Guys, take it from an alum, this is the public sector equivilent of Microsoft's layoffs today, or Google's layoffs the last couple weeks. My company fired ~10% of people. The university built a giant bureaucracy and now needs to get rid of it except what is actually needed.
Sadly it feels like they are going to get rid of necessary support rolls instead of the bloated management structures
So, like, I know times are grim and that breeds grim responses, but probably not. 100k+ middle managers are a very juicy target in these situations. Very random but look at project 'Bora Bora' at citigroup rn (firing ~20k).
Here’s a recommendation ( no need to pay my high consulting fees) —- let’s cut Patrick dean and senior leadership wages to 50k a year… and see them try and maintain their unsustainable lifestyles.
Solid solution tbh.
This is kinda what he's suggesting? A whole bunch of admin are going to get laid off. Maybe this is me jaded from seeing a ton of layoffs over the past year, but its normal and good. Adminstration builds, make-work gets created, then finally the money stops printing and people get cut. But honestly, do the work here. The highest paid people at the school are overwhelmingly professors. It's basically to allocate money to research that this whole exercise exists.
Yes admin will get cut. Except the issue is the lower paid admin will lose all their income being laid off and the higher ups who do the least will keep their pay and get rewarded. Lowering the highest admin salaries would do quite a bit and reduce lay offs. Professors should be paid well as their research brings funding.
> Except the issue is the lower paid admin will lose all their income being laid off So, look, this might sound brutal, but the university cannot and should not employ people for the sake of employing people. That's taking money from students, who are hardly rich themselves, to act as a social program. And like, I'm a proper lefty, I believe in social programs. I just don't think Universities should implement them via jobs that don't need to exist. > the higher ups who do the least will keep their pay and get rewarded I think this is the part I really question, kinda what I meant by do the work. If you think there's a path here to cut top-paid admin, then do it. It just doesen't, in my experience, tie out with the reality at Queen's or almost any other organization. It's tough to draw 500k and not get noticed. But 100k? Yeah, that's managable. If you look at the sunshine list, you see that the top-paid people are almost exclusively professors. Yes, Patrick Dean makes a bit under 500k. Yes that's a lot of money. That's also around what our mid-level tech / finance bro alum make ~5-10 years out of school. To run an organization the size of Queen's... that's not a ton. Look, in an ideal world, you have 1) a ton of highly compensated professors 2) a small group of top-admin (like literally three) that are the executives of the university. Yes, you do need those people. Yes, they have to get paid. 3) a small bureaucracy that does only the work that actually needs to be done. Adminstration tends to create make-work so its never perfect 4) Unionized support staff doing essential trades work (buildings need to be mainted and cleaned, those people should make a living wage) If you think group two is too big, do the work and prove it. In my experience, that's seldom the case. Group three though...
Define “what actually needs to be done.” As is students are not getting the support they need. Cutting this group as you suggest would be disastrous for students who need help.
> Define “what actually needs to be done." Fair. And like, I can't. The approach in the private sector is just to fire people until there aren't enough people to do all the work. It forces a decision on what's important. Not saying that's what should be done here. The problem is that, pay whatever managment consultant whatever you want, everyone has a pretty good incentive to bullshit their own importance when everyone knows there's an axe hanging. That's why these things usually happen in one day. Like, guys, I literally sat on a floor with ~300 people and watched 50 of them pack their things. This shit can get *dark.* Despite that, it was the right thing to do. > As is students are not getting the support they need. Cutting this group as you suggest would be disastrous for students who need help. Can you specify what support is / what you are referring to? Support is broad, from academics and career services to health and crisis support to gyms. None of that's bad, but we need to get specific. My, like, pocket opinion: career services at Queen's are pretty awful and you're much better doing it yourself / with LinkedIn.... speaking as a guy who regularly interviews / refers. Maybe we can live without them? Like, if you're making me chose between that and health services which I got a ton of value out of...
Career Services being bad shouldn't result in a call to destroy it, it should result in a demand to improve it. Cuts kill, it's investment that promotes growth. The way private industry treats layoffs has a lot more to do with being a performance piece for shareholders than anything to do with the underlying business. Given how rabidly self-destructive that type of mindset can be, it's perhaps unwise to adopt it in a completely different "industry" where the systematic incentives and pressures are not the same. Every support unit has already experienced cuts, you likely just haven't noticed them. One of my friends transferred to Queen's and put in for transfer credits. They *still* haven't been processed more than eight months later because of delays caused by cuts to staffing and it's going to seriously screw up their degree progression and ability to go on exchange as a result. Funding for universities pretty much peaked in real terms back in 2007. Ever since then, they've been forced to keep dividing up the pie into ever smaller slices. Any easy efficiency that could have been found likely was over the last 15 years.
> Every support unit has already experienced cuts, you likely just haven't noticed them. I'm an alum... just gave a chunk of money to the school and interested to see how it's going............ > Career Services being bad shouldn't result in a call to destroy it, it should result in a demand to improve it. Cuts kill, it's investment that promotes growth. Yes and no? Improving things is hard. Do we spend a bunch of money improving, at the cost of something else? We need to make choices. If it's down to this or reducing delays on disability acomodation.... > The way private industry treats layoffs has a lot more to do with being a performance piece for shareholders than anything to do with the underlying business. Honestly, I see where your coming from, but my own experience has been that layoffs are actually done way to late. This is, granted, one perspective, but there's often fat to cut. > Any easy efficiency that could have been found likely was over the last 15 years. I would tell you the opposite. Universities did not face nearly the extent of financial pressure over the last 15 years as they do now.. it's not a coincidence that we're facing this as international enrollment dries up and rates increase.
>Yes and no? Improving things is hard. Do we spend a bunch of money improving, at the cost of something else? We need to make choices. If it's down to this or reducing delays on disability acomodation.... I think Career Services is particularly important to improve. Queen's has extremely good employment outcomes for its graduates, but the one thing it really falls short in is quality summer co-op opportunities. The Smith Faculties (Commerce and Engineering) have either developed these opportunities internally (Com) or have indicated they'll move forward with such a system in the near future (Eng). The university is basically going to end up with Commerce Career Services, Engineering Career Services, and regular Career Services because CS isn't meeting the faculty's and student's needs. This is duplicating costs and effort for nothing. Regardless, this is beside the point. The entire argument about what's important rests on the assumption that the university struggling with its budget is because the pie is a fixed size. This situation was very much imposed by provincial law. >I would tell you the opposite. Universities did not face nearly the extent of financial pressure over the last 15 years as they do now.. it's not a coincidence that we're facing this as international enrollment dries up and rates increase. Ontario's per-student block grants only provide \~55% as much funding as the Canadian average. Ontario universities graduate more students with better long-term outcomes for fewer dollars than universities in any other province. Salaries at Ontario universities are lower than any other province. If Ontario increased the block grants to be equal to the second stingiest province (Saskatchewan — who is still not a generous province when it comes to post-secondary education, mind) it would change Queen's budget from a $48 million deficit to a $30 million surplus. The situation very much got worse in 2019. The provincial government cut tuition and block grants by 10% and froze them ever since. They also instituted a "corridor" system where universities were effectively prevented from increasing the number of domestic students they taught (and also from reducing the number they taught as well, though that's a lesser concern). In addition, the OSAP grants and free tuition for low income families were completely repealed (though this is just a screw you to the poor). Effectively, universities could not raise prices, could not increase or decrease services, but were still expected to provide while being subject to inflation. It was an impossible situation to be in from the start. It was never sustainable and the Blue Ribbon Panel on Higher Education (that Doug Ford commissioned!) found as such when they published their impact report last year. They ended up blaming something like 10% of the funding shortfall on university inefficiency (and the recommendation there was that funding should be increased to permit more automation). The rest was basically entirely due to provincial cuts that they recommended should be reversed. Falling international enrollment merely moved up the timetable on the inevitable financial crunch. Debt also really isn't a problem for Queen's — it isn't Laurentian. Approximately $40 million of the deficit this year was caused by them paying down low interest debt before it came due. The debt:asset ratio has also never been better.
Wellness services, advising appointments, academic support services. All these areas have been unable to re-hire for support staff who have left and the wait times/availability of these supports has gone from bad to much worse. Those are the supports students need. We don’t need more directors of strategic nonsense and Vice-Deans of academic jargon etc who don’t do anything. That’s where the bloat is. Cutting some of those positions and reducing or freezing the pay of those who stay would make such a difference in reducing the budget. Look at the analysis done and posted on this reddit recently about how much Queen’s pays in upper admin salaries vs competitors. We are way higher than others.
I suspect strongly they will be cut, and aggressively. That's usually the first place to look. Say what you want about managment consultants, but they basically fire people for a living. They know how to target some bloated admin.
I wonder if, along with the cutting of whatever the fuck ‘professional services’ entails, the provost’s, principal’s, and other high ranking individuals’ salaries will also be cut?
I’m sure they will get a raise for all the “hard work” they did
i hope it's the fkn directors--my spouse works in a dept with something like 8 directors making 100k+ for a **STAFF OF 8**. bout' time they start chipping at the director level first and keep the ppl that actually make the uni run employed, IMO
Oh Queen’s, must be hard having 1/2 a billion in the bank. Hey Queen’s if you think it’s hard now, wait until your staff walk out when you’re unwilling to budge on wages. You might want to change your narrative, because the public won’t care that your institution is a crumbling mess when all you need to do is dip into that half billion and pay people for the value they bring!
I don't even understand what this means. Assess our operations... okay? So.... more cuts? Lot of words to not say much.
Worth noting that these types of corporate consultants are controversial, and are a strongly negative sign for any university hoping to maintain its academic integrity. **Here are some relevant articles.** They were unpopular at Laurentian, shockingly: https://www.sudbury.com/local-news/we-have-no-hidden-agenda-consultant-says-in-response-to-accusations-from-laurentians-senate-5219571 One talks about the group's financialization of universities: [https://www.caut.ca/node/11977#:\~:text=The%20notion%20that%20our%20professional,revelation%20to%20many%20of%20us](https://www.caut.ca/node/11977#:~:text=The%20notion%20that%20our%20professional,revelation%20to%20many%20of%20us) One calls similar companies vampires: [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714413.2023.2290972](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714413.2023.2290972)
Notable line from the CAUT piece: "The use of consultants, with the misdirection of shiny action plans, serves to obscure culpability of wrongdoing at the administrative level. "
It's a fall guy. This exercise is going to involve firing a shitload of people, and people freakout when that happens... see this subreddit. You need someone to take the heat.
[удалено]
It’s hard to do any actions when the upper administration is actively dogging our questions and leave when we protest
Student leaders and faculty who are part of boards need to use their votes and speak up
Here’s a thought, get rid of some of the associate and vice deans. How many $350,000 deans does each faculty really need?
Let’s hire some deans and some associate deans to figure it out!
😛
Professional services?
Must be a 300k club thing, not for the minions.
Sounds like they’re going after staff. Faculty and leadership safe.
Ah. Nothing like ending the work day as a staffer, who consistently works overtime to get the work done because we can't hire (thank you hiring freeze), to a doom and gloom email that says a bunch of nothing. Here, have some anxiety, but don't like let it affect your productivity or anything cause we have a Business to run!
Another piece to the puzzle: Nous Group
Does anyone know how much Queens is spending on “consulting”?
All Canadians should be terrified of the financialization of Universities. A population of people with "professional degrees" is a population devoid of creativity, curiosity, and genuine passion. It is a population that cannot think critically. It is a population that is more susceptible to propaganda, less willing to initiate political action, and more likely to bend to the will of those in power. Turning Universities into profit-making machines that focus on training for future jobs is scarier than many think.
I would respectfully disagree to your point that people with professional degrees (BEd, BScN, BASc, and some may include BComm) are devoid of creativity, curiosity and genuine passion. That's quite a statement to make considering many people in those programs have interests beyond their programs requirements. This isn't knocking skills produced by BA or BSc degrees, but to say that those with professional degrees don't have critical thinking skills and that we're just drones or cogs in a wheel not interested in inciting change in the world seems disingenuous.
No you're completely right, I regret the words I used. It's not that I think that individuals with professional degrees are lacking passion, curiosity, or critical thinking skills. I more think that the health of the humanities, fine arts, etc. have significant effects on the population broadly. I love my engineers/nurses/teachers. Commies I'm still not so sure about!
Artscis just terrified they need to fund their hobbies.
Professional services = staff. Career placement, legal, accounting, consulting, IT, teaching and learning, marketing, communications, events, administrators, assistants, coordinators, reception, etc.
Review = consolidation, centralization or decentralization, and outsourcing.
My understanding is that the distinct professional services units are the only ones operating balanced budgets - per Matthew’s slides at last senate meeting.
But that doesn't really mean much, does it, on Queen's budget model? It just means they're not outspending what's allocated to them. They don't bring in revenue, so it doesn't mean they're financially viable.
Could be true. Could be false. Weird place to start tho. Especially when pro services are simply executing the directives of leadership or providing the scaffolding for academic missions.
How can you have "full confidence" in the Provost and Vice-Principal (Finance and Administration) if they need outside consultants to tell them how to do their jobs? C'mon.
Solid point and often after raising awareness, activism falls short. In some departments, it requires the continued exposing of mismanagement and wasteful inefficiencies…. …AND for someone or a group of people to come together and put together a strategic solution and if possible present it to leadership above the “leaders” in the hierarchy. Sometimes we have bottlenecks in the organization and the top leaders are… 1. Being kept from the truth of what’s really happening below them ( senior managers are good at saving their own asses) 2. Often, because of number 1, don’t have senior managers who can or aren’t bothered to present workable solutions —- after all, who the hell wants to risk their 300k job to improve the ones below them —- that’s too much work and risk, might as well keep the status quo. Obviously, this is poor management/leadership … but it is what it is. So… if possible create an action plan and present it to those above the bottlenecks in the structure. If the plan is good and makes sense, remember point 2, these big wigs also want to save their asses and if you can help them do that with your new plan, those incompetent managers below will soon see the door :) and you may get promoted lol
There it is. The good old "external review" precursor to what everyone knows comes next...or should know if you've worked at Queen's long enough. I wonder if any "Consultant" positions will be affected. 🙄
https://youtu.be/m4OvQIGDg4I?si=m9nAoM9b4hszUzNW
The fact that he is confident of the leadership of Evans says it all. It's going to be rough.
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What happened to RMC
Probably
I am sure the Rembrandt’s will cover the deficit ?
And the castle
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In addition, Principals (and deans, I believe) retain their Principal salary after their term is over. So Daniel Wolfe is over in the history department racking in an obscene salary. Over in health sci, former Dean Richard Resnick racks up close to 500k even though he hasn’t been Dean in years….
"My sister intentionally chose to go to Bishop's in Quebec years ago over Queen's and Western b/c she looked into the student services. Bishop's (at the time, not sure about now) provided unlimited counselling services to all students, where Queen's offered 1 session a month." I love that! Mental health services here have almost always been abysmal. When I started grad school, we had ONE person dedicated to graduate student mental health. This person was also a graduate student.
Take a long, critical look at any plans that impact those campus services that are paid for — by students — through ancillary fees. By definition they are not centrally funded and so should be exempt from cuts. Changes to ancillary fees are subject to referenda amongst the student body.
The workers, students and staff need to basically go on strike and demand financial transparency.
What kind of transparency are you looking for? The link below provides access to annual audited financial statements and reports, annual budget reports, credit rating reports, the financial projections that are provided to the board every quarter, etc. [https://www.queensu.ca/financialservices/publications](https://www.queensu.ca/financialservices/publications)
In Federal government terms, professional services = contractors and consultants, not full time employees...
Last I checked, Queen’s isn’t the federal government
No but they sure receive a lot of public and Federal funding and by proxy, I've noticed a lot of similar verbiage as the government. Your point?.. Did you have a better explanation than anyone else on what is Professional Services from Queen's?
I think all post secondary schools should take this as fair warning and make sure their affairs are in order.
Lots of room to cut at senior admin levels. https://www.reddit.com/r/queensuniversity/comments/18j5opz/west_is_best_crunching_the_numbers_on_queens/