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Administratively Adrift: Overcoming Institutional Barriers for College Student Success
The multiple crises of 2020–21 have presented both challenges and opportunities for change in four-year residential colleges and universities. Evidence indicates that the historic structure of administrative and student services is increasingly mismatched to the needs of a diverse and stressed student body born in a digital age. Inspired by his leadership in a university-wide initiative that focused on how students' interactions with both academic and professional staff affect their success and well-being, Scott A. Bass presents fresh insights on the inner workings of traditional nonprofit four-year degree residential institutions. The book describes the influences of history, tradition, and internal and external pressures on the American university, highlighting its evolution to its staid and fragmented structure; it distills voices of students, faculty, and staff; and it explores how successful organizations outside of higher education deliver services, with potential applicability for the academy's ability to meet students where they are.
290 pages, Hardcover
Published June 9, 2022
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February 1, 2023
Scott Bass, the author of Administratively Adrift, argues that higher education is in crisis, not because of the issues facing it but because of the institution’s inability to adequately respond to those issues. Colleges and universities across the country and the world are facing declining enrollments, increasing costs, new expectations and demands of incoming students, among many more. In addition, colleges have been highly impacted by COVID-19, structural racism, political polarization, and a volatile and transforming economy. To Bass, who was the provost of American University from 2008 until 2018, these experiences, are what he calls “crucible experiences” that cannot adequately be handled by the college and university system that was established in the early twentieth century. Bass argues this structure is plagued by structural lag, fragmentation, and siloed departments. Poor coordination, omissions, delays, and lack of authority result in the ability to face these problems head-on and, more importantly, results in growing student frustrations, along with increased costs and time spent attempting to deal with them.
Scott Bass’s book is broken up into ten chapters that center around three arguments outlined in the beginning. According to Bass, the first of these arguments is that colleges and universities are beset by structural lag, which impacts their abilities to meet incoming students’ new and growing demands. The second argument is that in order to change the governance and organization of higher education institutions, we first need to understand it. The third and final argument is that all members working with higher education need to reflect on how to make their institutions more holistic in ways that support students both within and beyond their college experience.
In expanding on these arguments, Bass provides the reader with a well-researched and detailed analysis of the history of higher education. This history includes the growth and development of not only the faculty but all areas of the university, including a highly detailed chapter on student affairs. Bass’s argument is that as higher education institutions grew in size and scope, so did the need to provide more services to incoming students. However, through this growth, departments siloed off from one another, and multiple “pinch points” grew, negatively impacting students, particularly students from marginalized backgrounds.
To alleviate this, Bass argues that colleges and universities need to be better coordinated in promoting a holistic student-centric mission. In other words, colleges need to do better at putting the student first, and reflecting on where they have failed those students. Through a series of surveys and reports, Bass showcases the multiple contradictions and dead-ends students face when attempting to find help. While some of the solutions to these problems can be found in other colleges, including his own, others can be found in other industries. Here, Bass highlights how he utilized strategies developed in Wegmans, a grocery store chain, and the Cleveland Health Clinic to better serve students at American University. Bass ends the book with a series of suggestions to better serve students and their success, along with creating colleges more sensitive to the challenges of today.
Bass provides an extensive and in-depth account of the state of higher education during the post-COVID era. The book is well-researched and does a great job of bringing together the disparate areas of higher education. Moreover, I wholly agree with his argument that the fragmented nature of higher education is not only creating problems for current students but is actively dissuading future students from enrolling. Higher education needs to change, and it needs to change quickly. For Bass, he sees our current juncture, particularly the post-COVID era, as a necessary time to enact such changes. He states, “it is a chance to dismantle outmoded structures and craft a holistic educational experience that meets the needs of current students as well as those yet to come” (3).
Despite the book’s positive contributions to assessing the current issues facing higher education, it is not without its shortcomings. Firstly, this book isn’t unique in its assessment of the problems facing higher education, nor is it unique in the call for a more holistic student-centered approach. These arguments have been the center of a wide variety of books for decades, and I’m unsure what new and unique contributions Bass is adding to the debate. Second, Bass’s book is very similar to the president of the University of Maryland — Baltimore, Freeman A. Hrabowki III’s book, The Empowered University (2019), and the president of Arizona State University, Michael M. Crow’s books, Designing the New American University (2015) and The Fifth Wave (2020). Despite a thorough assessment of the problems facing higher education and strategies to combat them, these books can come off as a sort of self-promotion for their universities and how they led it. In other words, Bass, like these other authors, cannot provide self-criticism as it relates to their roles or the institutions they represent. Third, Bass cannot look past the institution’s response to issues impacting it. While being affected by outside forces, colleges and universities are seen as largely autonomous in their response to them. In Bass’s assessment, only if the gulfs of the university were bridged and better coordinated in the service of the student would the problems of higher education dissipate. There is no exploration of the entangled ways in which public and private, profit and non-profit, institutions are intertwined with larger political and economic structures, along with vast social currents, in ways that don’t just respond to them but instead are also shaped by and reproduced through them. In other words, there is no conversation on how colleges are funded, who sits on their boards, who shapes research, or what larger role they serve to the state, economy, and society as a whole.
Despite these issues, I wholly recommend Scott Bass’s book as a recent account of the problems plaguing higher education, what institutions are currently doing to help mitigate them, and what more needs to be done.
Scott Bass’s book is broken up into ten chapters that center around three arguments outlined in the beginning. According to Bass, the first of these arguments is that colleges and universities are beset by structural lag, which impacts their abilities to meet incoming students’ new and growing demands. The second argument is that in order to change the governance and organization of higher education institutions, we first need to understand it. The third and final argument is that all members working with higher education need to reflect on how to make their institutions more holistic in ways that support students both within and beyond their college experience.
In expanding on these arguments, Bass provides the reader with a well-researched and detailed analysis of the history of higher education. This history includes the growth and development of not only the faculty but all areas of the university, including a highly detailed chapter on student affairs. Bass’s argument is that as higher education institutions grew in size and scope, so did the need to provide more services to incoming students. However, through this growth, departments siloed off from one another, and multiple “pinch points” grew, negatively impacting students, particularly students from marginalized backgrounds.
To alleviate this, Bass argues that colleges and universities need to be better coordinated in promoting a holistic student-centric mission. In other words, colleges need to do better at putting the student first, and reflecting on where they have failed those students. Through a series of surveys and reports, Bass showcases the multiple contradictions and dead-ends students face when attempting to find help. While some of the solutions to these problems can be found in other colleges, including his own, others can be found in other industries. Here, Bass highlights how he utilized strategies developed in Wegmans, a grocery store chain, and the Cleveland Health Clinic to better serve students at American University. Bass ends the book with a series of suggestions to better serve students and their success, along with creating colleges more sensitive to the challenges of today.
Bass provides an extensive and in-depth account of the state of higher education during the post-COVID era. The book is well-researched and does a great job of bringing together the disparate areas of higher education. Moreover, I wholly agree with his argument that the fragmented nature of higher education is not only creating problems for current students but is actively dissuading future students from enrolling. Higher education needs to change, and it needs to change quickly. For Bass, he sees our current juncture, particularly the post-COVID era, as a necessary time to enact such changes. He states, “it is a chance to dismantle outmoded structures and craft a holistic educational experience that meets the needs of current students as well as those yet to come” (3).
Despite the book’s positive contributions to assessing the current issues facing higher education, it is not without its shortcomings. Firstly, this book isn’t unique in its assessment of the problems facing higher education, nor is it unique in the call for a more holistic student-centered approach. These arguments have been the center of a wide variety of books for decades, and I’m unsure what new and unique contributions Bass is adding to the debate. Second, Bass’s book is very similar to the president of the University of Maryland — Baltimore, Freeman A. Hrabowki III’s book, The Empowered University (2019), and the president of Arizona State University, Michael M. Crow’s books, Designing the New American University (2015) and The Fifth Wave (2020). Despite a thorough assessment of the problems facing higher education and strategies to combat them, these books can come off as a sort of self-promotion for their universities and how they led it. In other words, Bass, like these other authors, cannot provide self-criticism as it relates to their roles or the institutions they represent. Third, Bass cannot look past the institution’s response to issues impacting it. While being affected by outside forces, colleges and universities are seen as largely autonomous in their response to them. In Bass’s assessment, only if the gulfs of the university were bridged and better coordinated in the service of the student would the problems of higher education dissipate. There is no exploration of the entangled ways in which public and private, profit and non-profit, institutions are intertwined with larger political and economic structures, along with vast social currents, in ways that don’t just respond to them but instead are also shaped by and reproduced through them. In other words, there is no conversation on how colleges are funded, who sits on their boards, who shapes research, or what larger role they serve to the state, economy, and society as a whole.
Despite these issues, I wholly recommend Scott Bass’s book as a recent account of the problems plaguing higher education, what institutions are currently doing to help mitigate them, and what more needs to be done.
December 20, 2022
We are failing our students with layers and layers of disconnected and complex bureaucracy.
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