This analysis of management at Syracuse University is astonishing:

The report states 211 managers, or 30 percent, have only 1 “direct report,” and another 134 managers have just two people reporting to them. Ninety-three managers have three people reporting to them, it adds, noting the private university employs “too many decision makers.”

Almost one-third of managers manage one person?  I’m sure some of this has to do with the way “managers” are defined, meaning that people with responsibility over others have responsibilities of their own, but it sure seems like a lot of bloat (which, indeed, the analysis suggests it is).

As with my post about part-time professors, yesterday, high numbers of administrators are to be expected when an organization’s central mission changes from the provision of a product (education) to the provision of jobs and customers have relatively low incentive to be demanding about the product their receiving.

I wonder what the numbers are at the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, and the Community College of Rhode Island.