Disturbing news from The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Boomers' Retirement May Create Talent Squeeze

With 6,000 administrative jobs to fill per year, institutions are finding that the usual recruitment methods are not enough

This is, indeed, a shocking development. To further investigate the crisis, your trusty reporter managed to catch up with an academic administrator who had time for a brief interview.

“The younger generation of academics, all these … teachers,” he said, shaking his head of silvery-coiffed Executive Hair sadly. “They just don’t have the necessary experience and mental attitude to successfully fill my eminently admirable administrative role. Why, I hear that some of them actually think the purpose of a university is to teach students!” he said, with a pleasantly roguish chuckle.

Yours truly inquired further. What accomplishments of the current generation of academic administrators should an aspiring younger generation seek to emulate?

“Why, just look around you!” he said. “We’ve succeeded in raising both tuition rates and administrative pay to record high levels, while replacing substantial numbers of full time teaching faculty with part-time adjuncts. (Trust me, it’s much easier to run a company... er, I mean university... when you can pay people subminimum wages without benefits and fire them on a whim.) The amount of money spent on large, high-status building programs has skyrocketed, and we’ve managed to successfully inculcate the idea that universities don’t need cost centers like libraries.” He shuddered slightly, and winced. “Nasty things, libraries. Cost money. Not like students. They represent your revenue stream. Of course, it’s better if you don’t have to have the silly creatures actually hanging around the campus after their tuition payments have cleared, which is why we’ve made great strides in introducing online education…. But that’s another story, for another time. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get moving. We’ve hosting a very exclusive corporate fundraiser at the University Presidential Palace this evening, and in the meanwhile, I have a tenure bid to deny, a library system to dismantle, a tuition raise to justify, and a faculty union to bust.” He shrugged charmingly. “I’m swamped!”