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Want to get college costs in line? Start by cutting the overgrown management ranks.
Matters came to a head in March 2005, when an anonymous whistleblower wrote to the board of trustees accusing the Ladners of "severe expense account violations." An extensive audit subsequently revealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable spending, some personal but most associated with President Ladner's frenetic image-polishing efforts. Over the previous several years, the Ladners had charged the university for $6,000 in club dues, $54,000 in drivers' costs, $220,000 in chefs' services, $44,000 for alcohol, and $100,000 in services from their social secretary.
After months of bruising battles within the AU board, Ladner's contract was terminated—though he and the first lady received a generous severance package. While Ladner mingled with the rich and famous at the school's expense, faculty members had to settle for miserly annual salary increases and students saw their tuitions rise markedly every year.
The expansion of college and university administration has not been coupled with the development of adequate mechanisms of oversight and supervision, particularly for senior managers. University boards, which technically oversee the administrations, are generally not well prepared for the task. One recent study found that 40 percent of university trustees said they were not prepared for the job and 42 percent indicated that they spent less than five hours a month on board business. Many trustees serve because of loyalty to their school and say they have "faith" in its administration. They do not go out of their way to look for problems, and administrators are generally able to satisfy trustees with the rosy pictures of college life presented at weekend board meetings.
Moreover, university boards do not have the same legal responsibilities borne by corporate boards. Most federal regulations establishing management standards for private-sector firms, such as the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, do not apply to nonprofit entities, and state regulation of university administration is spotty. At the same time, while schools have developed many internal rules and standards applying to the conduct of faculty members and students, few if any have established standards governing administrative conduct or established oversight mechanisms. For the most part, senior administrators police themselves.
The result of this lack of supervision is that a number of college and university administrators have, in recent years, succumbed to the temptation to engage in corrupt practices. In 2008, for example, the director of Tufts University's Office of Student Activities, Josephine Nealley, was indicted on three counts of larceny for embezzling more than $300,000 in student activities funds. She allegedly transferred the money to her personal bank accounts and used it for purchases and trips. While acting on an anonymous tip regarding Nealley's activities, university auditors uncovered a second, apparently unrelated case of embezzlement. Raymond Rodriguez, a budget officer, allegedly stole more than $600,000 from the university, which he spent on trips and luxury goods. Rodriguez was indicted on two counts of larceny for his alleged thefts. Both Nealley and Rodriguez entered guilty pleas and were sentenced to prison terms.
In a similar vein, the president of the University of Tennessee was forced to resign when an audit revealed that he had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in university funds on personal trips, entertainment, and purchases. The president's travel at university expense allegedly included trips to Birmingham, Alabama, where he was said to have a "personal involvement" with the president of another school.
Often, frauds go unnoticed for years because the perpetrators are the accountants and financial officers responsible for fiscal oversight. When fraudulent conduct is discovered, university officials often prefer to allow the perpetrators to resign or retire quietly rather than risk a public brouhaha that might upset donors and lead to questions about the quality of the school's leadership. Many professors can point to cases at their own school when crooked administrators were allowed to leave quietly, sometimes even without being compelled to make restitution for their offenses.
When fraud is exposed and restitution demanded, the sums can be considerable. In January 2008, Roy Johnson, chancellor of Alabama's community college system, pled guilty to bribery and was required to forfeit the $18 million he admitted receiving in direct and indirect benefits from companies doing business with the colleges he oversaw. As the U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case observed, "Taxpayers must wonder how many more Alabama students could have been educated had money not been wasted on fraud."
The priorities of the hyper-administrative university emerge most clearly during times of economic crisis, when managers are forced to make choices among spending options. Thanks to the sharp economic downturn that followed America's 2008 financial crisis, almost every institution, even Harvard, America's wealthiest school, has been compelled to make substantial cuts in its expenditures. What cuts did university administrations choose to make during these hard times?
A tiny number of schools took the opportunity to confront years of administrative and staff bloat and moved to cut costs by shedding unneeded administrators and their brigades of staffers. The most notable example is the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine, which in February 2009 addressed a $100 million budget deficit by eliminating fifteen "leadership positions," along with 450 staff jobs, among other cuts. The dean also emphasized that faculty would not be affected by the planned budget cuts. Chicago's message was clear: administrators and staffers were less important than teaching, research, and—since this involved a medical school—patient care; if the budget had to be cut, it would be done by thinning the school's administrative ranks, not by reducing its core efforts.
Unfortunately, few if any other colleges and universities copied the Chicago model. Facing budgetary problems, many schools eliminated academic programs and announced across-the-board salary and hiring freezes, which meant that vacant staff and faculty positions, including the positions of many adjunct professors, would remain unfilled until the severity of the crisis eased.
Perverse administrative priorities were even more in evidence at a number of schools that actually raised administrative salaries or opted to spend more money on administrative services while cutting expenditures on teaching and research in the face of budget deficits. For example, in January 2009, facing $19 million in budget cuts and a hiring freeze, Florida Atlantic University awarded raises of 10 percent or more to top administrators, including the school's president. In a similar vein, in February 2009, the president of the University of Vermont defended the bonuses paid to the school's twenty-one top administrators against the backdrop of layoffs, job freezes, and program cuts at the university. The university president, Daniel Fogel, asserted that administrative bonuses were based on the principles of "extra pay for extra duties" and "pay for performance." The president rejected a faculty member's assertion that paying bonuses to administrators when the school faced an enormous budget deficit seemed similar to the sort of greed recently manifested by the corporate executives who paid themselves bonuses with government bailout money. Fogel said he shared the outrage of those upset at corporate greed, but maintained there was a "world of difference" between the UVM administrative bonuses and bonuses paid to corporate executives. He did not specify what that world might be.
Color me unconvinced. Ginsberg argues that colleges and universities employ too many administrators by comparing current rates to those in effect in 1947 and 1975. His assumption, unproven, is that 35 or more years ago, schools were adequately staffed. However, whatever one may think of the trend, the fact is that today schools are much more actively involved in supporting and monitoring student consumers than back then. There were few, if any, learning disability or other departments providing academic support to students. Today, there are administrators charged with responsibility regarding student life, there are larger financial aid and foreign study administrators, more career guidance and post-school employment support services offered, and, yes, more staffing for fund raising, as well as alumni relations. The view as to what services the school should be providing has expanded and, in most cases, appropriately so.
Ginsberg yearns for the good old days when faculty performed many of these services. Do we really want to go back there? Academic faculty are notoriously bad administrators. Just as professional administrators are hired to run hospitals, so too do colleges hire professionals, not amateurs drawn from the faculty, to administer multi-million dollar service departments.
Undoubtedly, there is waste, corruption and inefficiency that can be found. Ginsberg selectively cites some of the more egregious recent examples of excessive compensation, ineffective financial oversight and wastefulness, but this anecdotal evidence doesn't prove a case.
And, by the way, a strategic review and determination of a strategic mission is a useful governance tool for colleges and universities, as it is for any institution. This sort of periodic review of what the school is doing well and doing badly, and what it should or could be doing to be a better institution, is extraordinarily useful, if not essential, for a school to remain an exciting, relevant academic center. Having recently heard the recently-appointed President of my alma mater speak in a very specific manner about his goals, fashioned after such a review, I believe Ginsberg is just wrong to be dismissive of such exercises.
Two things here.
#1) I think there is some over blowing of the issue. It is undoubtedly true that administrative costs have risen faster than faculty costs, but this is also to be expected I would think.
#2) There are however real problems with university administration.
I think one of the fundamental problems is that these institutions are non-profit organizations that are providing a "product" for which demand is inelastic, which means that prices CAN go up substantially and people will continue to pay.
So colleges can raise prices and generate more revenue, so they do, but they have little real need for it and don't really know what to do with it, and there are no share holders siphoning off profits from the top, so there is nothing to do except waste it essentially. (Note here that I'm saying saying before for-profit would help, only that it would result in leaner administrative staffs).
On top of that there is anther phenomenon at work, which is the value premium placed on education based on price, that is, people (the consumers in this case, students and parents) place greater value on a degree from a college that costs more, so the more that colleges charge the more that the consumers value the education, so in a sense higher prices DRIVE demand, they don't reduce demand, as would normally be the case.
So what happens is that as colleges raise their tuition they actually get MORE applicants, not less. Its the diamond effect. Diamonds aren't really rare and they aren't expensive to produce, but a diamond monopoly and hoarding allows the prices to be driven artificially high, which in turn just increases demand for them. If the price of diamonds were to drop to say $10 a karat, demand would vanish and no one would want them, except industrial drill makers.
This price inflation is sustained in regard to colleges by a combination of government subsidy and consumer debt, by both parents and students.
The college staffers, both teachers and administrators, are simply the beneficiaries of this quirk of human psychology, basically getting grossly over-paid for doing little. It's like someone selling placebos for $5 each and doing poorly, while another guy sells the exact same placebos and works no harder at all, but charging $1,000 each and selling millions and getting rich, just because he charges more.
So that's what's going on here I believe.
The only way to resolve this issue is to regulate prices, which is exactly what the government should be doing. It's a perfect example demonstrating why markets don't always work in the real world. Human psychology is flawed, people aren't rational resource allocators, and people aren't more irrational about anything than sex and their children futures, the two things that we have been programmed by evolution to place the most value on (as they are both related basically, one leads to the other, and the latter is step toward guaranteeing that your offspring continue the process).
College tuition should be regulated, period. Markets don't work for everything, not the least of is non-profit institutions providing a product with highly inelastic demand, about which decisions are driven almost purely by paternal emotion.
I have to say in large part that I agree with the author's assessment of the current situation as regards the purely managerial-administrative segment of the university community. In particular I find it disturbing that, as he notes, upper administration has come more & more to believe that they are not only independent of, but actually more important than, the faculty (or students). Where I think he goes to far however is in the line drawn between both administrative AND professional staff on the one hand, and teaching faculty on the other. In my experience there are many professional staff members, in particular library/museum and technology professionals, who are involved in very significant ways on a daily basis with academic functions such as scholarly research, assisting students directly with their studies, and even actual teaching. In addition, a great many of these academic professionals identify far more with the goals and priorities of faculty than they do with those of administration. And few of these para-academic staff members draw anywhere near the bloated salaries common among purely managerial administrators.
Yes, I agree with Jennifer Wood, above, that the article treats too many oranges as apples. Upper-level administrators account for most of the author's anecdotes, but why universities need many more lower-level IT staff, for instance, isn't really addressed. There may well be -- as there is in many other US institutions, from government to banking -- too many highly paid upper-level workers. But to then argue that the lower-level workers aren't doing real and needed work is not persuasive. At the University where I worked, faculty members became more and more unwilling to do advising work -- oh, they liked advising honors students about where to go to graduate school, but most had no interest in helping the average undergraduate choose classes and prepare to look for a job after graduation. Professional advising staff was a good use of tuition funds.
And, while I would be happy to see all of "big athletics" go away, the administrative workers associated with athletics are alas, quite necessary to keep that function of the university going.
Students and parents both want not just faculty interaction and good teaching, they expect and actually appreciate many other campus workers, from those in the dining rooms of the residence halls to those in the writing lab. -
I've never met a faculty member who sought or enjoyed administrative work, or frankly even had time for it. The demands of research and teaching on today's faculty are extreme. Funding is harder to come by than ever; who has time to negotiate contracts with external vendors, ensure that salaries are correctly encumbered in the budget, or coddle an anxious 18 year old and her parents through the financial aid process? Because all these things have to be done by someone, but none of it would help a tenure review case very much. Gisberg knows this, yet without any support whatsoever for his claim, simply says that the reason administrative work is cumbersome to faculty is because of the existing administrators. What kind of odd logic is that?
Of course Ginsberg is right that there are too many ridiculous meetings at the highest levels. And of course he is right that every administrator is not pulling his weight in proportion to his salary. I'm all for reform that will address these things. But Ginsberg's vision of a utopia where faculty takes on the bulk of the day-to-day operations of campus is not only naive, the faculty would revolt within hours if administration was stripped down to its bare bones. They don't have enough time in their day as it is.
It's sad to see so many comments in favor of administrative bloat. At the community college where I've worked for more than 20 years the changes Ginsburg writes about ring true. We have approximately 1,000 full-time employees of which 384 are faculty. That's right two-thirds of our employees don't teach! At a community college - that's just crazy. And those numbers no longer include the housekeeping staff - they've been outsourced. Where just a couple of years ago you could work in housekeeping full-time with a paid vacation, retirement, and health insurance - no more. The new crew are all part-time, no benefits, making $7.25 per hour. So, the kindly dining hall worker mentioned above probably doesn't work for the college any more as a major trend not mentioned in the article is too outsource your non-core functions - housekeeping, dining halls, grounds keeping, even IT and counseling.
As a university employee whose salary is paid by research grant money, I'm curious as to how research personnel are treated in the calculations of administrator-to-student and staff-to-student ratios. It seems to me that only non-research administrators and staff (or non-research portions of FTEs) should be included in the calculations -- is that the case?
I have done some studies on my own University of California and found data showing how Management(not just nonacademic staff) has grown disproportionately over the last two decades. You can see the data in the March 28 posting at http://UniversityProbe.org
Ginsberg overgenaralizes A LOT in this article. The target of most of his (well-deserved, perhaps?) wrath seems to be upper-upper management (Deans, and as he calls it "Deanlets"...wow how clever of you sir), and perhaps they do deserve some censure or restraint. Certainly the examples of corruption he points out needs scrutiny and prosecution. I also agree with his point that there isn't a need for ridiculous, patently obvious administrative fat such as the 'Council For Traditions'...(what would such a Council even do?). But despite these, I have some concerns:
1. Ginsberg only talks about a 'staff to student' ratio, but I think this severely misconstrues what University administrative staff do, who they service, and what that ratio might look like, if more accurately calculated. Students ARE not the only population group supported by administrative staff, nor is the University only populated by faculty and students. Post-Docts, Medical professionals, non-teaching faculty, service personnel (such as individuals who staff University affiliated offices which may not be directly related to teaching and/or research such as the UM's Family Evaluation Clinic), not to mention all the staff that make the University run behind the scenes (janitors, librarians, the lab techs who fill pippettes, residence hall staff, the cafeteria crew at said residence halls). I wonder then, what his ratio would look like, had he taken this reality into account. His ratio ignores the fact that the University population is more than just faculty/student/staff.
2. I wonder what would happen if we were to publish a paper scrutunizing the unneeeded faculty fat in University campuses. Surely, it isn't difficult to imagine some tenured faculty member who has long since stopped being active academically and have settled on receiving mediocre teaching evalutions after achieving the heights of academic success. My point here is not to play a game of 'ya you suck, NO YOU SUCK', but rather to point out that in all professions, certainly professions represented in the University, there will be those who are productive and contribute substantially, and there will be those who will simply ride on the coat-tails of others and not put in their fair share. It seems problematic to paint administrators in the latter kind of paint as a whole. And I dare you Doctor Ginsberg, I DARE YOU, to claim that faculty members HAVE NEVER picked a rosy location for an academic conference. I DARE YOU.
On a related note, Ginsberg should be more careful about differentiating neccessary and unnecessary administrators, and dare I say it, good AND bad types of administrative bodies. A 'Council of Traditions'? Ya, let's trim that fat. But I think Ginsberg would be hard pressed to find a faculty member who would advocate getting rid of the person who keeps track of their books and whether or not flying one airline instead of another might lead to her university losing out on millions of Federal funding because the funding agency REQUIRES one to fly American owned airlines during academic business trips.
3. I am skeptical of Ginsbeg picture of 'faculty as administrator' idea. Sure, perhaps in those areas of administratative matters that ARE directly related to research and teaching (i.e. what courses are missing in our offerings? How can we help our Junior faculty members secure funding? What ares of reserach should our department concentrate on? How can we help improve teaching practices?), faculty members are well-suited for the task. I would even go so far as to say THEY SHOULD be taking on those tasks, as many faculty members do in my own institution. BUT, I think it would be a severe disservice to the University AND the faculty member if we were to force them to shoulder not only the laborious and time-consuming work of producing good science, good teaching AND the administrative minutia that comes with securing researc
..and one other thing. While upper-upper management do get paid a lot of money (maybe they should be paid less, I'm not sure, such decisions are far above MY pay grade)...but your run of the mill administrator (adjusting for their particular institutions)get paid WAY LESS than faculty members. I'm also not privy about how University budgets as a whole are constructed, BUT, I wonder just how much of tuition monies really go into administrative salaries. At least, in my own institutional location, there is such a thing as an indirect cost rate, which btws Doctor Ginsberg, pays for a percentege of University overhead costs. (that would be power, the cleaning, the plumbing, the paper, the pens, and oh yes, the administrative staff). Perhaps this should be also taken into account.
This article is great! Right on the money, so to speak. I do, however, wish it were more frank regarding adjuncts. The low cost of adjunct labor subsidizes the enormous administrative salaries at many if not most colleges and universities.
If you don't know, an adjunct is a professor hired on a course-by-course basis. Adjuncts can be graduate students, retired professors, or just underemployed PhDs. They can also be people from the private sector who teach a course on the side. Most adjuncts I know are underemployed PhDs who want full-time, tenure-track jobs and who only take adjunct work in hopes of staying in academia until that kind of job appears for them. Most will never get tenure-track jobs though, as about half of all professors (and that figure is growing) are temporary or part-time.
When I (a Ph.D.) was working as an adjunct, I made $2000 per course. I was paid well compared to most adjuncts. I could only find 2 available courses to teach.
I by no means had a perfect formula, but I decided to figure out how much each of my student's tuition monies went towards my pay. I came up with $65 per student, which was probably a generous figure. (Each student paid $45,000 in tuition and took about 4 classes a semester.) I think their parents would be rather upset to learn that only $65 of the $45,000 went to pay one professor for an entire semester. Some of those students had 2 or 3 adjunct professors. You do the math.
It's safe to say that if colleges and universities overwhelmingly rely on adjunct professors who make less than McDonald's employees, then parents and students are getting ripped off.
Their tuition payments are certainly keeping administrators and administrative staffers well paid while doing little for the instruction that students are in college to get. All the money that doesn't go towards professors' pay goes somewhere. Given how much administrators make and how many administrative staffers there are, it seems silly to think it's not going to them.
Did making so little money affect my job performance? Yes. I missed a week of class once due to being hospitalized for stress and exhaustion. Working 40-50/week for a grand total of $4000 over four months (I could only find two courses to teach), working extra jobs on top of that to cover my rent and to buy my health insurance, and taking other extra jobs to cover my student loans nearly killed me.
My mother begged me to quit the extra jobs and go on welfare to ease my burden, but I refused.
You can also imagine my mother's sense of shame. You think putting a child through college is expensive? How about all the years my mother spent watching me get a PhD only to see me become a professor who makes so little money that she thinks I need to go on welfare? It broke her heart.
Imagine sending your child to medical school, only to find that physician has suddenly become a lower-status (if judged by pay) profession than McDonald's cashier. I was trained to become a professor and I did everything that I was supposed to in order to become one. And, if teaching counts, I did become one. But I could only use my training for a short time before having to find a job beneath my skill level that paid me enough to live on. There's no amount of money to compensate for that much parental disappointment.
Had I gone on welfare, then the tax payers and the government would have been subsidizing the poor pay that I received. And, some might argue, the tax payers and the government then would have been subsidizing the 6-figure salaries of the countless vice-presidents at my college, in addition to all the academic staffers. Many adjuncts couldn't teach without welfare.
Adjuncts (those who aren't teaching on the side and who were trained to become professors) are also often subsidized by spouses and/or parents. In other words, someone else makes up for what th
A similar problem exists in the lower levels of education as witnessed by the laying off of 1/3 of classroom teachers a few years back in my city while simultaneously hiring 2 new assistant directors of personnel, presumable it takes more directors to handle fewer personnel. Who new? When our soon to be former School Superintendent was described in our local paper has having a highly paid ""entourage". It wasn't far off the mark. When people talk about the high costs of education they seem to assume that this cost all goes to pay teachers. No one even thinks about administration, particularly those in central office to whom students are statistics and the taxpayers don't know exist.
What you said. I am the lowest on the faculty totem pole (adjunct) and haven't got a raise (at all) in 10 years (and it was lamentable pay back then). I get no benefits, no sick pay, no vacation. I get paid by the section, and if a section I've spent a month preparing to teach gets cancelled, I don't get a penny for it.
The full-time faculty get a better deal, but at my school, their salaries and benefits have been frozen for years.However, in my program, there is a "director" and five "assistant directors," each of whom make as much as an assistant professor as well as a complete benefit package. None of us can figure out what they do that a good secretary-- ONE good secretary -- could do. They schedule. They answer email. I presume they're supposed to plan ahead and/or make reports or do research, but they don't do any of that. None of these positions existed when I started ten years ago, saving the director, who was then a faculty member who took this on a part-time (released from one section of teaching) position. These six administrators' salary and benefits account for more than 50% of the annual budget of my program, that is, far more than the combined wages of everyone, full and part-time, who actually teaches.
There is no secretary. We all perform our own secretarial functions (typing, copying, mailing, travel planning).
If in fact the 6 administrators had enough to do, I might not be so annoyed. But we're doing double-time, really, for half the "real dollar" pay we used to get, and no security at all. And they're pretty much splitting one secretary's tasks five ways, for perhaps a total of ten times her wages.
I've worked at four universities (we all work at multiple places to get anywhere close to a liveable wage), and it's this way in every program-- the cost of administration dwarfs the cost of teaching, and to no discernible benefit.
Sorry, very cynical this week, as I've been told it doesn't matter how much I work, I can't claim more than ten hours a class section, which puts my income at just south of minimum wage. Yes. I'd make more at McDonalds, and there have to deal with only one boss. Do you want fries with that?
The administrative sock puppets have plenty of time to read this article, while faculty are actually busy doing work, that is why there is a pro-administration tilt to the comments
Nice polemic.
Lots of collateral damage though, and no analysis that distinguishes among the radical differences in missions, educational formats, funding mechanisms and various challenges based on organizational type (R1 university, small liberal arts school, community colleges, state colleges, public; private etc.)
And the author needs to have a better plan than fire a bunch of administrators and let the trustees and faculty fill the gap. When faculty take on admin work, they drop courses, which are typically picked up by adjuncts. If they go full-time admin, they are added to the admin head count. Not exactly sure how this helps, unless, of course, Dr.Ginsburg makes all the appointments personally ;-)
I have been in university administrative meetings in which a cost-cutting proposal was shot down summarily... on what grounds? on the grounds that it would make the mission of the university harder to achieve? on the grounds that it would make the lives of our students worse? on the grounds that it would degrade the quality of the teaching or research at the university? No, none of these. It was shot down summarily on no other grounds than that it would cost render unnecessary lots of administrative positions. I have seen this happen at many meetings, and heard of it happening at many others, and in each case with which I'm acquainted, no mention was made of the consequences for our university's ability to serve its students well, and at a reasonable price.
Of course, anecdotal evidence by itself proves nothing. But I wonder how many other university employees have similar anecdotes.
The point of the article is that there is no administration "gap" to fill. Most administrative tasks are useless, and can just be eliminated entirely. No one needs to do another strategic plan, or to re-assess the previous assessment. Universities are for researching and teaching. They are not supposed to be a self-perpetuating breeding ground for people who want to pretend they're in the corporate world.
When's the last time you saw a student? If you can't answer this question, and aren't involved in fundraising or diversity, your position can probably be eliminated without leaving any "gap."
@Tim: I would re-read the author's last paragraph, and then realistically project the consequences.
My only real point here is that the article is subjective and polemical. I don't have a problem with that, as this sort of writing has its value. But it basically reads as yet another "professor complains about the number of administrators on campus and their salaries" article, without any added value. And note that Dr Ginsberg could solve this problem for himself by dumping overstaffed, private Hopkins for a nice, small cash-strapped liberal arts school or rural community college.
I feel the temptation (as a faculty member) to advocate hiring folks who can do the sorts of things that need doing but which one doesn't need a PhD, an active research program, and areas of teaching specialization and competence in order to do. And there are a lot of such things worth doing, it seems to me. Administrative bloat often grows out of good intentions--recognition of real problems, where faculty members are often the ones doing the recognizing.
Now, I think I could do most of the work involved in addressing the real problems (though definitely not all of the work) pretty well. Academics are generally very smart and very capable, and we're used to working long hours thinking about complex problems. (You have to have a bit of an addictive, workaholic personality to be a good researcher, I tell my students.) But taking on these "good idea" administrative tasks . . . would take me away from teaching and research. So I sometimes find myself wanting to propose more administrative hires.
This all sounds good in theory, but in practice it's just been a disaster, at least at my university. We hire an administrator to help address problem X. He or she pushes through a program for addressing problem X that, as it turns out, relies mainly on faculty taking on more work (more paperwork, more meetings and appointments, more policies to write, etc.). The administrators who succeed in getting faculty to do this extra work, but not for any additional pay and not for a reduction in teaching load or research expectations, are then rewarded with salary increases. But of course the new administrators are also responsible for keeping track of all this new work assigned to faculty, so they also have to get faculty involved in recording and measuring and reporting on their new activities. And the administrators have to justify their presence, of course, so they do so in part by proposing to address alleged problems Y and Z, which arguably aren't problems at all, or they devise means of addressing them that are downright bizarre in how far they stray from the idea that a university is first and foremost a place for education and research.
It's definitely polemical, but most of the data he cites speaks for itself. And he's not just complaining about administrators' numbers and salaries, but the pointlessness of a lot of the work they do.
One thing missing from this article is the needs of the students. In the same period the author references, there has been a dramatic downshift in preparedness. Students show up on campus unprepared to take care of their daily business, to interact effectively with their peers, to make decisions about their academic or social needs. A significant role of these additional staff stems from filling in the gaps that aren't dealt with by parents before students arrive on campus.
Related to that is the increase in expectations of students and parents related to the product they are purchasing. College is no longer merely an academic pursuit. Students expect private living arrangements, one-on-one contact with staff and faculty, and a range of services that were previously not part of what a university would provide.
If you want to cut back on administrative bloat, then it needs to start with better preparing students to be adults when they enter college, instead of expecting college to be the place that makes them adults.
If Mr. Ginsburg honestly believes that tenured faculty, with no incentive to perform, made better part-time administrators than full-time, lower-paid professionals, he sure made a lousy case for it.
I agree that the cost structure of higher ed is broken, but blaming tuition inflation on administrators, rather than the obscene movement to treat students as "consumers" completely misses the real causation.
If you don't have the $5million overhaul to your food court, or your dorm furniture is shabby, or you don't have 500 channels of cable TV in every room, if you don't have shiny new brochures, the best performing arts center, perfectly manicured lawns, full medical/counseling services, etc... you risk falling behind the recruiting curve of your peer institutions.
Colleges cost more because students and parents demanded the amenities and services that make it more expensive. The best illustration of this is the difference in fringe benefits between a typical community college and a typical 4 year school. Check it out sometime.
The fact is that Buffy and Billy (and their parents) want their hands held during college and colleges have only met that need.
At my college we have so pared down faculty numbers and power, while increasing various administrative and staff positions, that full-time faculty are overwhelmed with committee work, teaching and advising loads, and demands to publish, which makes them all the more easy marks for administration to herd and bully (part-time faculty have always felt that way). For example, I recall a senior faculty member being rather dressed down by a twenty-something staff person, who I don't even think had a degree beyond high school, because the faculty member, who has long served in a number of professional organizations, did not turn in some paperwork on time. The PhD faculty have come to amount to little more than staff themselvs and with less power than the lowliest administrative assistant. It's amazing that this has come to pass actually, all while the public and pundits have their eyes trained on the "lazy," overly indulged professors running amok on all the campuses (so goes the popular image). Too bad Ginsberg isn't required reading everywhere.
As each new administration comes and goes every five to ten years, the vision of an educational mission seems to keep getting dimmer and dimmer with each new wave of management. At a certain point the principles of bureacracy seem to dominate geometrically: One is defined by the breadth and quantity of one's responsiblities, budget, and underlings, and the pursuit of that end creates a hotbed for cronyism as each new adminstration weeds out those who do not share its vision and put in place those who do. This just goes on and on. The number of full-time faculty shrinks and the number of itinerant part-time faculty expands because part-timers have no power or say whatsoever.
I agree with Ginsberg: I do not see that the aims of higher education could be served by this manner of institutional bureaucratic self-selection.
Wage concessions from Faculty, Chancellors at the University of California can arrest tuition increases. I love University of California (UC) having been a student and lecturer. But today I am concerned that at times I do not recognize the UC I love. Like so many Alumni, Donors, Legislators, and Californians I am deeply disappointed by the pervasive failures of UC senior management and Regents.
Californians suffers from 19% unemployment (includes those working part time, and those no longer searching), mortgage defaults, loss of unemployment benefits. And those who still have jobs are working longer for less. Chancellor/Faculty wages must reflect California's ability to pay, not what others are paid.
However we also understand that there need to be reasonable limits that reflect economic realities. UC Berkeley (Cal) planned pay raises for generously paid Faculty is arrogance.
UC Berkeley (ranked # 70 Forbes) tuition increases exceed national average rate of increase. Chancellor Birgeneau�s leadership molds Cal into the most expensive public university in the USA.
Can we do better with a spirit of shared sacrifices by UC Faculty, Provosts, and Chancellors?
(17,000 earn more than $100,000)
No furloughs.
18 percent decrease UCOP salaries, $50 million budget cut.
18 percent prune chancellors' salaries.
15 percent trim tenured faculty salaries, increase teaching.
10 percent non-tenured faculty pay decrease, increase research, teaching.
100% elimination of Academic Senate, Academic Council budgets.There is no question the necessary realignments with economic reality are painful.
UC Board of Regents Chair Sherry Lansing can bridge the public trust gap with reassurances salaries reflect depressed California wages. With UC�s shared financial sacrifices, the sky above UC will not fall.
Yours is the opinion that can make the difference, email UC Board of Regents firstname.lastname@example.com
A large number of these comments are simply attacking a straw man. Ginsberg never claims that faculty should take over most administrative functions, or that there isn't important work for administrators to do. It's perfectly clear from the article that he's concerned with administrative bloating--specifically, a proliferation of expensive upper-level administrators and administrative activities that contribute little to an institution's ostensible goals. This is a serious problem, and the consumers have every right to know.
I love the University of California (UC) having been a student and lecturer. But today I am concerned that at times I do not recognize the UC I love. Like so many I am deeply disappointed by the pervasive failures of Regent Chairwoman Lansing, President Yudof and the ten campus Chancellors from holding the line on rising costs.
Californians are reeling from19% unemployment (includes those forced to work part time, and those no longer searching), mortgage defaults, loss of unemployment benefits. And those who still have jobs are working longer for less. Faculty, Chancellor wages must reflect California's ability to pay, not what others are paid.
Pay increases for generously paid Faculty is arrogance.
UC Berkeley (ranked # 70 Forbes) tuition increases exceed the national average rate of increases. Chancellor Birgeneau has molded Cal. into the most expensive American public university.
President Yudof and Chancellor Birgeneau have dismissed many much needed cost-cutting options. They did not consider freezing vacant faculty positions, increasing class size, requiring faculty to teach more classes, doubling the time between sabbaticals, cutting and freezing pay and benefits for all chancellors and and reforming the pension system.
They said faculty such reforms �would not be healthy for University of California�.
We agree it is far from the ideal situation, but it is in the best interests of the university system and the state to hold the line on cost increases. UC cannot expect to do business as usual: raising tuition; granting pay raises and huge bonuses during a weak economy that has sapped state revenues and individual Californians� income.
There is no question the necessary realignments with economic reality are painful. Regent Chairwoman Lansing can bridge the public trust gap with reassurances that salaries and costs reflect California�s economic reality. The sky above UC will not fallOpinions? email the UC Board of Regents email@example.com
Notice that many high level academic administrators demand (and get) a tenured faculty position as part of their administrative package. At some point many of these administrators "return to their teaching and research and students" -- usually at an extraordinarily high salary. How ironic -- as administrators they often disparage the faculty, want to reduce or eliminate tenure, but they lead by their own examples to perpetuate the worst abuses of the tenure system. Good work!
Higher education administrators at work. University of California Berkeley: the need for transparency has never been so clear. Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau ($500,000 salary) displaces qualified for public university education at Cal. instate Californians for a $50,600 payment and a foreign passport.
UC Berkeley, ranked # 70 Forbes, is not increasing enrollment. Birgeneau accepts $50,600 FOREIGN students at the expense of qualified Californians.
UC Regent Chairwoman Lansing and President Yudof agree to discriminating against instate Californians for foreigners. Birgeneau, Yudof, Lansing need to answer to Californians.
Your opinion makes a difference; email UC Board of Regents email@example.com
What the author conveniently fails to mention is that much of the growth of administrative costs is a result of many responsibilities - once held by faculty members - are now the responsibility of administrative staff. Not only have teaching loads have decreased over the past two decades, responsibility for managing the university, and participating in student life (e.g. counselling) have been handed off to lower paid admin staff.
How come it costs 50% more (after adjusting for inflation) for University of California Board of Regents Chair Lansing and President Yudof to provide the same service?
Total expenditures in the UC system in 1999-2000 were $3.2 billion to educate a student population of 154,000. Converted into 2011 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI calculator gets us to $4.3B in 2011 dollars, which comes out to $27,850 per student.
In 2011, the total UC system budget was $6.3 billion dollars: an increase of almost 50% after adjusting for inflation. Enrollment also rose - to 158,000 students, a 3% increase, yielding a cost per student of $39,750.
Costs went up 50% in 10 years. And yet the news out of UC President Yudof is that the UC system is "bracing" for 'another round of budget cuts'!
Email opinions to UC Board of Regents email@example.com
I alas feel a mental midget in the company of so many well spoken and obviously better educated individuals as have posted responses in here. That being said I still see a monstrous void in the gap between well schooled opinion and reality.I live in a "College-Town" in Texas and I actually work for one of the larger Universities as a medical professional but the issue in this that seems overlooked from where I stand seems to be the politics.The university I work for is focused on attaining tier one status and it appears this endeavor is at all costs and costs be damned in their effort to buy status with ever higher tuitions that seem to go to support a political payback mechanism for favors rendered or expected. ALL our presidents, chancellors and whatever presumptuous titles they afford themselves these days, have been political appointments as obvious perks of doing something great and wonderful for the particular party they find themselves the recipient of rewards from.(In this case, the state being Texas, it is the gop)Many headlines have made it into print pointing out the excessive perks and benefits (such as a $10,000 moving expense paid to relocate 2 blocks away because the house was not suitable?)There was a flap for a few weeks and some remarks flew back and forth with the usual pap about how these higher ups DESERVE all this because of all the funding they generate. But eventually it all disappeared from print and other media and was forgotten and business goes on as usual. State college is NOT supposed to be for profit, but that would be a hard sell to the growing trend for fancier titles and bigger compensation packages, and those who benefit from the continuation of this process. And while yes I am paid well and make more then a Mcdonalds cashier I do see grossly misguided and confusing managerial decisions made on the part of this group of privileged executive figurehead types that never will make sense to the average of intellect such as I, who admittedly does not have a clue how this works for anyone's benefit other then those at the top. The costs of running a large university can be huge without a doubt but the cost of budget cuts that reduce the workforce to skeleton crews and overworks and abuses them as we watch the chain of command grow ever longer with more separation in wages and responsibility seen daily will always remain an obscenity to me!
The word "consumer" keeps popping up in an alarming amount of these posting! The redefining of words to further a particular agenda or goal is at work here and needs to be addressed. Consumers are creatures like cattle in a feedlot that "consume what is placed in front of them and tolerated without question or debate. Cattle obviously do not gather at the trough and look at the crushed bone and marrow and cotton hulls and such other matter not normally sought out by them as a normal or natural food source and say to each other >What is this? I did not ask for this! I don't recall seeing that on the menu! When did any of us get asked if we cared if out status got changed from CUSTOMER to CONSUMER? After all a customer has options as to where he applies his resources and can discern whether or not he is getting a proper return for his investment where as a consumer just takes what is put in front of them and accepts it regardless of the lack of quality or value. How pray tell do you become a consumer of an education product anyway? I balk every time I see the word "CONSUMER" since I refuse to be relegated to such a low and powerless status without a fight. I pay for my education in real money and expect to walk out with a real product that serves my needs and my families needs by making me a more valued asset to my employer. This can only happen when we confront labels and demand proper treatment in the education system as CUSTOMERS! Words have meaning and power and abuse of these words and the power in them is dangerous. I guess something this simple might seem shallow to more then a few who post and read in here but some bigger problems always usually seem to come about because of seemingly little things that got overlooked, and one of those appears to be allowing our status as customers of an education system to be downgraded to consumer status.
Wonderful article! I am a graduate student lecturer at a major research university in the US and can attest to these alarming trends. We need much more media coverage on this larger trend of administration in higher education... the lack of funding for full time faculty is a serious problem for students and faculty both and the diversion of funds for education to funds for administration (much of it really very 'make-workish') must be addressed!
All of which just goes to demonstrate that bureacratic :BLOAT:: is absolutely strangling yet another segment. I used to think healthcare administration deserved the award for biggest drain, but I can see now that academia runs a very close second.
Some of the comments on this thread are written by admninistrators who are indeed overpaid and overrepresented or by the growing ranks of the PR people employed by the corporate structure.
Virtually everything the author says is true for my institution which evokes fiscal crisis after fiscal crisis to reduce the number of teacher scholars but to increase the number of absurd "veeps" who have little or nothing to do with the mission or research or teaching.
I have been an academic and have never seen so many absolutely useless people feeding off of each other in that upper management. Ridiculous.
Former Faculty - could you explain how decreased teaching loads are a result of increased numbers of administrators? Are the administrators doing the teaching? My experience in a non-US institution exactly parallels those that Ginsburg describes. Growth of administrations and of their salaries, and correspondingly fewer resources going into the academic endeavour. Moreover, more administrators doesn't seem to result in less administration for academics - on the contrary!
"Deanlets" is not an invention--it's in common use. The first decision of any new deanlet is to hire more staff to do the work. This staff then invents things for teaching faculty to do. The farther away "support staff" are from people who walk into classrooms and teach--and sometimes that would be multiple layers--the more the "support" only goes to enhancing their own positions. My department has exactly the same number of tenture-track faculty as in 1984 (triple the number of majors). The Dean's apparatus has grown 500% in the same period.
So there.
It is not hard to see what line of work those reacting negatively to this piece are in. Many things have contributed to crippling the university. And there was fat. But only a fool or charlatan thinks the forests cut down to enable the flim flam of mission and vision statements and the armies employed for the formalistic and instrumentalist assessment of performance has had even the slightest beneficial impact upon education. What has taken place has been a massive transfer of resources away from educators to administrators undertaken in the name of efficiency - never mind the fact that efficiency is not a terribly meaningful concept when it comes to much higher ed. What would a more efficient understanding of the US in International Relations today look like? Or a more efficient reading of The Tempest? Is it efficient to have published a hundred papers in prestigious journals about ideas that eventually turn out to be based on some deeply flawed underlying theory? The idea that more words/books/ papers etc. are better than less, or that acclaim by one's colleagues tells us the value of something is simply not true - acclaim might be an indicator of value, but might is not is.
The quantification of quality has been but one in many false moves behind this transfer of resources.
Ultimately, the ideas upon which this transfer have taken place are all based upon philosophically moribund models of planning and the nature of information and consciousness. What is extraordinary is that the philosophical paucity of a central planning model had been exposed by the break down of soviet styled economies just as an almost identical model of information assessment had taken off in higher ed. That such shabby ideas have created so many economic opportunities for a particular group of stakeholders means that it makes no difference how often one disproves the economic wastage within universities or the damage done to academic work as a whole by this attack upon education undertaken in the name of efficiency. To be fair, the internal damage done in areas such as the humanities by academics themselves through the cultural wars has meant that the administrators were like vultures pecking at the carrion. This, though, does not change the fact they are vultures.
Tyranny is the conscious desire for revolution. Tyranny is a suicide bomber in the minds of those that propagate the restriction of freedom for they, the "masters of tyranny" always know their fate, plan for it, and expect the only result ... which is tyranny and all that the cycle of our human condition defines it by.
Those who create tyranny are the seed of all evil and know, that eventually their end will come, for that is their goal, an end, never a beginning.
Over $1M dollars in administrative, consultant, legal expenses etc is incurred by University of California senior management to pay the $1M pepper spray settlement. University of California senior management shell out millions for their clueless decisions. Hapless UC senior management wastes millions.
Prop 30, 38 funding will be spent by incompetent UC senior management. It is up to the public to vote no on Prop 30, 38 to keep taxpayer funds from the eminently unwise University of California senior management.
Well, this is the post-industrial economy...
Ancient pro football players' joke: NFL = Not for Long.
Most professional administrators are like professional athletes. They're short-term, especially compared to tenure-track faculty, and they consider themselves to be living by their wits alone, subject to continuous assessment, and accordingly scornful of anybody who aspires to, or, worse, is in need of continuing tenure.
Boards are made up almost entirely by people who consider themselves self-made successes. Who determines administrators' salaries? Who approves requests to swell administrations? Toward whom would you expect boards to be generous?
Ancient pro football players' joke: NFL = Not for Long.
Most professional administrators are like professional athletes. They're short-term, especially compared to tenure-track faculty, and they consider themselves to be living by their wits alone, subject to continuous assessment, and accordingly scornful of anybody who aspires to, or, worse, is in need of continuing tenure.
Boards are made up almost entirely by people who consider themselves self-made successes. Who determines administrators' salaries? Who approves requests to swell administrations? Toward whom would you expect boards to be generous?
Are some of you insane? Does anyone honestly think that the administrative bloat is what's necessary to increase the student's understanding of the material? Not one of you have attempted to ask the question, which George Bush couldn't seem to get right, are our students learning? In fact, they're not, not according to the work of the authors of "Academically Adrift," which chronicles the collapse of academic rigor and expectations of the universities. Nealy 1/2 of college students who have been attending for two years have learned nothing, over 40% have learned nothing after four years. The methodology is based on CLEP exams administered to over 2300 students, and the results are unnerving. So what has this roided up college administrative legacy done for students? Not a damn thing, in what matters. Student achievement is falling and it's apparent as more corporations and businesses turn to H1-B/L visas, in order to induce highly skilled/educated foreign workers to take the place of what should be American college grads. That's the real test, but none of the apologists for this bloated, festering boil of administrative flotsam can possibly address that issue. Alas, the tuition bubble is bursting, nearly 1/2 of recent college grads are working at jobs that require no college degree, universities are going to face the consequences of their myopic and self serving demands for more money to buttress a ridiculously unstable business model.
I think I just fell in love with charlie.
You have to see the university for what it is which is a corporate business and a bureaucracy. The same concept of centralized management and worship of "efficiency" is in effect now at most public universities. It has little to do with teaching anymore, in fact, it's just become about producing widgets as cheaply as possible, the widgets now being degrees. The university has a monopoly on the credentialing process and therefore is going to put the screw to as many as they can for as long as they can, this is the new business model imported in, with the upper level administrators playing the role of the CEO. They care nothing about students or learning, except during photo ops or press releases. The sole purpose is to siphon wealth upward while cutting costs and increasing profit. I've worked in higher ed for then years on the bottom floor dealing directly with students and can say without a doubt, the university has become a deceptive, even sadistic environment. No one on the outside would ever understand. Students aren't even being educated, they are being tracked and processed. It's almost maniacal the attention paid to how date is collected, making the numbers looks good, but almost no one ever asks is what were doing needed or wanted or developing the minds of students. I know that many offices exist only to perpetuate their existence, regardless of whether they are needed. It's mind boggling folks the level of waste and flat out insanity that marks the academic world. The folks at the top are some sick puppies.
For-profit colleges are worse.
Here's how.
90% of the funding that they take in is Government: PELL grants and Federal student loans.The other 10% is GI BILL they take in through veterans.
Most students don't end up graduating. Be it because they realize they were scammed/quality is low or their financial aid runs out. Their credits are actually LOST because the colleges keep them ransom to encourage the student to take out more aid (IF the credits are accepted at all.)
The costs of these rival ivy league but students don't realize it because of deceptive recruitment practices.
Students can't find jobs because employers don't value them because they know the schools are bogus, even if the student doesn't. The only ones finding jobs are those already employed or those with existing connections after college.
Most of the money goes to Marketing and Executive compensation. The scraps left over go to educating students. They also spend a mountain on lobbying/campaign donations.
Students end up with a mountain of student debt and no way to pay it.Most of this money is taxpayer backed money.
The for-profit colleges would rather lobby congress (Rep Kline, Rep Foxx, and others of Education & Workforce Committee) to make more loopholes than raise quality.
$32 billion dollars a year of taxpayer money is going to these scamsters.
One point Ginsburg leaves out: In this business model of college admin, the bloated admin has failed. By their own shallow mission they should be cut.To pretend that bloated admin is working for the college good is fantasy. We have enough fantasy with grade inflation. The anti-Ginsburg comments seem to leave out the numbers he cites time after time.
A large portion of university employees need more to do - indicted by the length of their own comment posts.


text:
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For NHS staff seeking documents related to TWO WEEK REFERRALS, CANCER DRUG FUND, CANCER REGIMENS these are now found on the "information for healthcare professionals" pages of the London Cancer Alliance website. www.londoncanceralliance.nhs.uk/information-for-healthcare-professionals
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subset: commoncrawl


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Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO
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Registered: May 2014
Posts: 8
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by eskil
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Awesome reach!
Heavy, small aperture
If you need a zoom that goes to 500 mm, this lens is a real bargin. It is better and cost less than the Tamron 200-500. The new Tamron 150-600 will give this lens a good run for the money, but it is still cost about $200 more. The AF is fast enough for birds in flight, at least most of the time. Sharpness is excellent up to 400 mm, beyond that it start to get a bit soft, but still very good. If light is low or if you need really fast shutter times, the small aperture will be a weaknes.
I use my lens with a 77 mm step-down ring when I need filters. No sign of vignetting.
Suntoro Tjoe
Registered: July 2011
Posts: 3
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by Suntoro Tjoe
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Very good color, fast and accurate AF and very useful OS
Filter size
The lense produces almost actual color, fast and accurate AF and more importantly for the focal length is useful OS. The lense's sweet spot is at F8.
I have taken birth and animal photos and I am delighted with the result. To view some of fabulous shots, please click the link below.
Registered: September 2010
Posts: 22
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by Tord
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Price, perfomance
A bit cumbersome
I got the 120-400 first, a lens that doesn't impress anyone at 400mm, but the 150-500 does perform a bit better, not least at longer focal lengths than the 120-400 (which is best at 120-150).
The 150-500 is slightly bigger and heavier than the 120-400, but cheaper. Used on my Pentax DSLRs I can either use the OIS, ot the cameras's SR - got a gut feeling the OIS is somewhat better :-)!
But on the whole, nice lens, but not spectaular!
Registered: June 2011
Posts: 2
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by happysnapper
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OS works well, image quality good, focusing good, PRICE
Non given that one knows the maximum aperture etc when one buys it.
One of the best purchases I have made. Image quality is good, not as good as my 80-200 at f4, but good non the less especially at F8. The OS is excellent (ok I can shoot most lenses hand held slower than many) I get very good handheld results from 150th upwards at 500mm (750 on my DX bodies) the moon handheld is a breeze at full reach. I have had good results as low as a 60th at full reach on a monopod and loose head tripod. Given its focal length range it is light, I walk around with it almost every week, it hangs from its strap upside down and I use the tripod mount as handle. Focusing is again well fast enough for the price. I have been usuing this lense very very frequently to shoot (90% handheld, 5% loose head tripod, 5% monopod):
Static Birds
Birds in flight
other wild life
motorsport (both to freeze and pan for motion blur) panning for motion blur at 750 equiv is a challenge because unless the subject is very fast you cannot get the shutterspeed low enough (this however is a feature of the focal length and not specifically this lens.)
Long range landscapes.
I shoot this equally on a D300S and D7000, favouring the D7000 in low light conditions. I think the user should consider the following before buying, not only this lens, but anything in this focal length, especailly on a non-FX sized sensor. How good is your technique hand held ? If you currently struggle with a 200 or 300mm then think again unless you happy to lug about and set up a tripod for each shot, factor this by at what ISO your camera body will produce acceptable output. I have just won a local competition with an image grabbed at 500mm on my D7000 handheld.
Lenses like this often get a bad rep from folks who unfortunately just cannot leverage them.
I do not believe the USD to GBP conversion rate used by the gadet was anything near what is was when I acquired my copy so the USD value is over stated. I paid 770 GBP.
I plan to acquire a Nikon 300mm 2.8 (and converter) but I see that as complementary to this lens as I certainly would not "walk around" with that set-up.
I must confess that given the price differential and performance of this lens that I do not understand why anyone would go the 50-500 route.
Registered: May 2011
Posts: 2
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by iamipa
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Excellent value for money, good image quality, effective VR
Autofocus not always dead accurate
I bought this lens for use with my Nikon D80 for wildlife/nature photography after reading the reviews on SLR Gear and other sites on this lense and on the Nikon 80 - 400 VR.
Compared to the Nikon the Sigma appeared to offer faster focussing speed, an equally effective optical stabiliser, longer reach (the extra 100mm was important) and adequate build quality for my purposes.
Also against the Nikon 80 - 400VR was its age. It is generally considered to be overdue for an update, and I didn't want to buy one then find it superseded by an improved version in the near future!
To guard against possible durability problems with the Sigma, I bought an extended Mack warranty.
The lense has performed fully to my expectations. Handheld, it provides sharp, richly coloured images. It did take some time to develop a technique for carrying and handholding the lense/camera combination, which weighs 2.7 kg all up.
Following the advice of SLR Gear reviewers it is used mainly at f8 and with as high a shutter speed as I can obtain and still keep the ISO sensitivity reasonably low.
I've also used it with a Sigma 1.4X teleconverter, and although focussing becomes super critical, with perseverance it provides stunning images.
As one SLR Gear reviewer noted, the Sigma produces sunstars, particularly when photographing reflections from water, however I find this an attractive feature.
Cons: In tests of the lense carried out on a tripod and with the lense set at various apertures, it appeared that focussing on my D80 body varied slightly from shot to shot. This may be more a characteristic of the camera's autofocus mechanism than any problem with the Sigma. When the focus was accurate, however, the images produced were very sharp.
On a camera with live view and the ability to magnify the image and achieve fine focus, I would expect consistently sharp images.
Conclusion: An excellent lense and very good value for money.
Registered: November 2009
Posts: 21
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by lightknight
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Cost, weight
focussing reliability, poor OS/IS/VR
This is a qualified yes - read on to see why.
I traded this lens with another photographer in exchange for my excellent Sigma 150mm Macro - is a shame to give this lens a negative review as it is a "try hard" attempt but there is no getting away from the issues. my main problem is that is it almost impossible to focus on a moving object at 500mm....the point at which most people will want to use it.
Having an FX full frame means I really want good performance at 500mm to make up for the lack of a DX crop factor. The fact is that it though that it performs worse than my nikkor 80-200 with a Tamron x2 on it, both in image quality and focus speed and most people are well aware that teleconverters do little for image quality and focus speed.
Yes it DOES focus at F6.3 and 500mm and yes it will focus on a moving object but only until it gets to about 25-20 metres but after this it gives up every time.
initial trials shooting Gannets in New Zealand were very disapointing and a Nikkor 80-200 on a d300 (even with a TC) just blow it away, although I will concede that the lens does seem to perform reasonably well from 150-300.
My main issue besides focus speed is that the image quality on shots taken at 1/1600 are poor even when the camera autofocus has locked on. This contrasts with test images shot with MLU on a tripod which seem to lack nothing. The conclusion here is that either handholding this lens is a waste of time even with OS, or, that the lens never quite catches up with what the auotofocus is asking it. To make the point, I can get sharp shots indoors handholding at 1/50--1/100th @ 400mm but its a world of differenece in the field trying to keep the target in focus even with the otherwise fantastic 3D tracking on my d700/mbd10.
Despte the impressive looking shots on show with other reviewers there is the world of difference in showing on a monitor at 72DPI and a full clour print, so let me also say that my main criterion is that I expect to be able to print my images at A3 or A3+ and feel satisfied as a potential purchaser.
So conclusions are that if you dont need fast reliable autofocus on moving subjects this lens might well ring your bell. Otherwise be prepared to be disapointed.
Having had a chance to use this on wildlife that move a bit slower, I can say that my feelings have improved a little. Its quite clear that it IS possible to get good IQ - see -
I think this supports my view that IQ is very dependent on the speed of focus: give it a chance to really lock on and when the subject doesnt move much, and at less than max zoom its capable of good results.
Registered: May 2010
Posts: 1
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by Emilclick
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Price, focal lenth, OS, HSM, AF speed, handling
AF don't work with TC
Always I'm looking for a supertele. I'm a Nikon gay, new in photo and looking to this wonderful Nikkor lenses make many wishes about, but the price make me forget it.
This Sigma 150-500 OS was a big oportunity for me and I buy it. I'm very happy with, from about one year.
I don't want to tolk about specifications data and laboratory testing. Is many reviews very good and precisely. When read specialist reviews you can see the lens have CA but is not anusual. The lens have flare, but I like it very much. The lens is not sharp enough in the corners, but I don't need that.
I use it for outdoor sport. For mini football is perfect in the far fase, about 30 m. For nearly fase is not wide enough. For nearly fases it must to use the second lens, with the second camera too. For nearly I use Nikkor 18-200 VR. Here I think 50-500 is perfect, bat have not OS for handhold.
I was angry last month when Sigma anounce 50-500 OS but I must ignore it because is double the price of my 150-500 OS. But I'm sure this 50-500 OS is perfect for all the fases in sport, nearly and far.
I use Sigma 150-500 OS in birding shot and is very good for flying bird. Very good OS in panning in motor sport auto and cycling too. But I'm very satisfied when I go to shot people portrets in public places like garden, park. The people walk arround and don't know her faces are in my camera. Well here is a problem with lens dimensins. Is not very discret but it work.
The big issue with, is 150-500 OS create dependence.
I have not many lenses but my favorite was nikkor 18-200 VR everytime. The dimendions, sharp, AF speed, versatility from macro to sport and street is perfect.
But after use one day Sigma 150-500 OS, I can't retorne to Nikkor 18-200 VR. Is to short.
In conclusion is a very good supertele lens at a afordable price.
I recomad it with all my heart.
Registered: January 2008
Posts: 1
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by ZXzealot
Review Date:
Would you recommend the product?
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More versitile than multiple fixed lenses
Slightly lower quality than fixed lenses
Sometimes I need more than 300mm. Wanted to wait for a new Nikon telezoom but needed something now. SLR Gear didn't have any test results to help my decision, but I bought one anyway.
The Sigma is better than I thought. From 170-400mm the images are good. Around 200-350 is its sweet spot. Best shots are f8. BUT I have good results wide open in the lower range, and at 500mm f8 the images are acceptable. Biggest issues are: chromic abberations and flare. The CA are correctable in most shots, but the lens seems to lack good coatings on the inner elements so there is some flare and glare. Color richness is better with my Nikkors but in post processing increasing saturation helps the Sigma. At f22 there is a strong starburst when shooting point light sources.
The lens is handy... it goes in my backpack. The image stabilization is very good, after it locks on. It takes a bit longer than most other lenses but allows handheld shots at 500mm. The trick is to get the lens started about a second before you want to take the shot. It's also good when tracking moving subjects. It's a bit noisey but acceptable. Overall, I'm happy the Sigma has found a home in my camera pack. It's not a professional quality lens but if you can use a 1-off lens, then the Sigma is your best bet.
Registered: November 2007
Posts: 3
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by darrinlingle
Review Date:
Would you recommend the product?
| Total Spent:
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best bang for the buck, solid build, sharp when stopped down, stabilizer
soft wide open, f6.3
after seeing many pics with this lens, i bought one for my nikon d300. very impressive with and without a teleconverter IF stopped down to f8-f11 w/o TC and f11-f14 with a TC. then i put a tamron SP series 1.4x teleconverter on it and when stopped down to f11-f14, AMAZING shots :
Registered: October 2007
Posts: 82
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by lextalionis
Review Date:
Would you recommend the product?
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A lot of bang for the buck!
Maybe 10% less IQ over the double-the-cost Canon 100-400L
Really good alternative for save some $$. Not as quiet and fast focusing as the Canon EF 100-400mmL lens, but the $$ savings justifies it for many.
Samples Photos taken with a Canon XTi and Nikon D300
Registered: January 2009
Posts: 8
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by johnmh
Review Date:
Would you recommend the product?
| Total Spent:
| Rating:
Good performance for the cost. OS/VR and faster AF
Slowish lens - You'll want good light
I got this lens as a smaller, easier to carry 'long' lens (as an alternate to my Nikon 200-400). Gave up waiting for an AF-S version of the 80-400.
This lens gave me my money's worth and does what I wanted it to do. I use it on my last two trips - Montana and Colorado. Was a good lens for wildlife - on trails and in the car. I left this lens on a second body - and grabbed it off the rear seat when needed. Can't do THAT with the 200-400 or larger prime lens.
I wish Sigma had put another $500 or so into this lens - upping the IQ or making it a little faster but it fills a niche where there's little competition. A woman using a 170-500 was blown away when I lent her this lens. The OS works and gave me better images hand held than she got on a tripod.
I ended up with a Nikon 80-400 and did some comparisons. Wide open at 400mm the Sigma matched or beat the Nikon in sharpness - though the balance tips as you step down. IMO, this lens is a better value than the current version of the Nikon 80-400. Longer reach, faster AF and 2/3 the price.
Note - You'll want a manual focusing screen if you try using TC's on this - and you will lose IQ. Have shot with both the 1.4 and 2.0 using a Katzeye screen.
All in all I've been pleasantly surprised by this lens. Does it match my 200-400? No, but it cost 1/5 the amount and gives me 4/5 the result in a smaller, lighter package. It's easier to carry backcountry, to get through airports and I'm less paranoid about it as well.
From other reviews, it DOES seem as if there were some early problems and there are sample variations so make sure you can exchange if you have problems.
Registered: October 2008
Posts: 1
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by greggan
Review Date:
Would you recommend the product?
| Total Spent:
| Rating:
Zoom range, price, quality impression, Optical stabilization, zoom lock, not to bulky for the zoom range
Bulky, heavy, a bit noisy OS, not as sharp as a qualiy prime
I bought this lens for a trip to Svalbard.
The reason I went for this particular lens in favor of its competition in the stabilized tele zoom group the Nikon 80-400VR , Sigma 80-400OS and Canon 100-400IS because:
1. The Canon can't be used on a Nikon camera and I'm a Nikon guy :0)
2. Nikon 80-400VR had bad reputation for being slow focusing and are starting to get rather old now.
3. Sigma 80-400OS is also outdated (and now also discontinued) + sharing the Nikon reputation of slow focusing but still a bit faster than the Nikon.
The 150-500 also have a bit better reach than the competition and since nothing new was seen in the crystal ball from Nikon I decided to get the 150-500 OS
Look and feel is just the same as the EX series lenses from Sigma.
A new "Nikon style" lens cap has been developed and is now much better than the old Sigma caps.
OS function rely works and make it possible to shoot at about the same shutter speeds that would have been possible with a non OS lens and a monopod.
Image quality and sharpness is good as long as you don,t expect prime lens performance.
I feel that handheld or on a monopod the OS funktion and this lens would outperform many optical sharper lenses in the regards of actual catched sharpness in most cases and for most people.
Read more by surfing to my full review:
Registered: October 2008
Posts: 4
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO review by bobrock
Review Date:
Would you recommend the product?
| Total Spent:
| Rating:
good quality and portability. price good. stabilization is very effective. sharpness and tones outstanding
need good light in order to get quality image
Have used the lens for some wildlife and sports photography. Been using lens on canon mark III and the results are very good. Was able to compare pictures with a canon 500 f4 used on the same wildlife outing and found the images to be comparable in sharpness and tone but a bit off in color compared to canon. It is much lighter and portable than the canon and has the advantage of zoom. I am happy with it and would buy it again. I enjoy wildlife and sports photography but have never considered spending all the money it would take to get the canon lense. This one is great and i think you would have to do some very close scrutiny to tell the difference in the photograph produced.
Even though it is smaller than the canon lense, it is still the biggest lense i have by far. It is heavy and will take some getting used to. I am able to shoot very clear photos at 500 with a shutter speed of 200 and perhaps even slower. I took some sample photos to compare image quality with my canon 135l and 70-300 4-5.6. You just cant compare with the 135 but it appeared better than the 70-300 at comparable ranges.
If you like to take photos from a long ways off, get this lense, you will have fun with it
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Colours Seine Venetian Blind (W)180cm (L)180cm
This Colours PVC seine contemporary venetian blind is ideal for providing privacy and reducing glare and is ideal for use in bathrooms, kitchens.
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Brand | Colours |
Range | Concordi |
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Width | 180cm |
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Style | Contemporary |
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Star Tracks
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For hands, and use all over naked bodies. Get sudsy in the bath and shower. For optimal longevity, keep LUSH soap in a well-drained soap dish (away from water) between uses.
3.5 oz.
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Fresh lemon suds with a sunny disposition
When LUSH gets lemons, we make our simple, but beautifully effective mind-clearing lemon soap! A customer and inventor favorite for years, the palm-free soap base and lemon oil are perfect for cleaning and toning the skin. Lemon juice is a natural astringent, perfect for oily skin and to balance skin's moisture; no more troubled skin! Named for creative types, the bright, uplifting citrus scent is meant to stimulate creative streaks. It certainly helped us create this sudsing masterpiece.
- Inspiring citrus: Our lemon soap is for artists, poets, and skin with a tendency to be on the oily side.
- Not just for furniture: We blend in lemon oil to tone and cleanse the skin.
- Simple, but effective: Our palm-free soap base gets you clean, and lessens the impact on the environment.
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"When life gives you lemons, you make a soap out of them and save lives.
I, like many others before me and many after me, suffer from annoying back, chest, and shoulder acne. My skin isn't even oily and I have tried pretty much everything and nothing really worked -
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Follow Paige25-year-old Female living in Adelaide, SA Australia
Hi all! My name's Paige! I am 22 and live in Adelaide, SA, Australia. I love travelling and am constantly thinking about where to go on my next trip. I have done 2 contiki trips so far- and they were both the time of my life!! Can't wait to do more!! Winter Wanderer Jan 2010 Berlin to Budapest Feb 2011
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Mini PC - Intel® NUC Board D53427RKE
Currently shipping
A revolution in ultra-compact device design, Intel® NUC packages a fully scalable computing solution in the smallest possible form factor, complete with the Intel® Core™ i5 vPro™ processor. This new generation computing device provides a flexible, customizable engine to drive digital signage, kiosks, and intelligent computing for small spaces, or anywhere else you can imagine.
Intel® NUC also has triple display1 capabilities for multiple monitoring and display, along with Intel® vPro™ technology, which lets your IT service provider remotely manage or repair your system. With that kind of power and size, you'll rethink what's possible. Because the only thing more amazing than Intel® technology is what you'll do with it.
Features and Configurations |
Form factor |
AA# (altered assembly) |
BIOS ID string |
Processor |
3rd generation Intel® Core™ i5 processor 3427U (soldered down) with active fan heatsink |
Memory |
Two SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 16 GB of 1333/1600MHz DDR-3 memory |
Chipset |
Intel® QS77 Express Chipset |
Graphics |
Dual Mini DisplayPort* 1.1a ports High definition multimedia interface (HDMI*) port supporting 1.4a Supporting triple independent display capability |
Audio |
Intel® High Definition Audio2 subsystem in the following configuration: 8-channel (7.1) digital audio via HDMI 1.4a output and via one DisplayPort 1.1a connector |
LAN support |
Intel® Gigabit Ethernet Controller |
Peripheral interfaces |
One USB 3.0 port (front panel) Two USB 2.0 ports (back panel) Two USB 2.0 ports (internal headers) |
Expansion capabilities |
Full-sized mini PCI Express* (PCIe) with mSATA support Half-sized mini PCIe |
Included in the box | Fan heatsink (integrated onto board) Intel Core i5 logo |
Warranty |
1. Requires two Mini DisplayPort*-capable monitors.
2. Intel® High Definition Audio (Intel® HD Audio) requires a system with an appropriate Intel® chipset and a motherboard with an appropriate codec and the necessary drivers installed. System sound quality will vary depending on actual implementation, controller, codec, drivers, and speakers. For more information about Intel® HD Audio, refer to www.intel.com/design/chipsets/hdaudio.htm.


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- Skip the Organizational structure panel
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Zwilling J.A. Henckels Pro Bread Knife
- Special Offer
- Summary
This serrated blade slices effortlessly through the crispest crusts without compressing the soft interior of the bread. Our new Zwilling Pro collection offers ultimate comfort, security and precision in the hand, thanks to a special arched bolster designed by architect Matteo Thun that promotes a perfect thumb grip. A contoured ergonomic handle enhances your comfort.
- Each knife is precision forged using Zwilling's Sigmaforge process, resulting in an exceptionally hard yet flexible blade.
- Zwilling's Friodur ice-hardening technique results in a harder, sharper blade that is corrosion resistant and highly elastic.
- Precise lasers are used to ensure each blade's edge is at the optimal cutting angle for maximum sharpness.
- Arched bolster perfectly supports the thumb for ultimate comfort, safety and precise handling. Also allows the full length of the edge to be sharpened, from tip to end.
- The sleek ABS resin handle is triple riveted to the blade and contoured for a secure, comfortable grip.
- Made in Germany by Zwilling J.A. Henckels since 1731.
- Dimensions & More Info
- 8"-long blade.
- 5" handle.
- 6.5 oz.
- Made in Germany.
- Use & Care
- Always use caution when handling sharp objects.
- Avoid cutting on hard surfaces such as stone, metal or glass.
- It is not advisable to use any knife but a meat cleaver to cut through bone, as other blades can be easily damaged.
- Hand-wash with warm water and a mild detergent. Rinse and dry immediately.
- Sharpen your knife at home using a sharpener specifically designed for a serrated blade, or have it sharpened by a professional.
- Store knife in a safe place to protect its edge and prevent injury.
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Shipping Information
This item is shipped from our warehouse by UPS to arrive within five business days of our receiving your order.
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The shipping rate varies depending on your order total and shipping destination. View Shipping Options and Charges.
Next Day Delivery
For an additional charge of $17.50 per address, we can expedite delivery to most destinations. This service is not available for some oversize items, items shipped directly from the supplier (including perishable and custom-manufactured items), out-of-stock items and items to be shipped outside the contiguous 48 states.
Orders recieved by 9:00 p.m., Eastern time, Monday through Thursday will arrive the next business day; orders placed Friday thorugh Sunday will arrive on the following Tuesday.
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At Williams-Sonoma, we take great pride in the quality and craftsmanship of our products. Attention to design, materials, safety and construction are our priority. Upon receipt, please inspect your purchase and notify us of any damage; we will arrange for a prompt replacement.
If within 30 days, you are dissatisfied for any reason, you may return your purchase for a refund of the merchandise value. An original receipt or gift receipt is required for all returns and exchanges. Returns with a gift receipt will be refunded in the form of a Merchandise Credit for the amount indicated on the gift receipt. Returns with original receipt will be refunded in the original form of payment, cash and check refunds over $100 will be issued as a company check (may take 14 business days from time of request).
We cannot accept returns on monogrammed, personalized, special-order items, custom upholstery, items shipped direct from the vendor, or on items damaged through normal wear and tear. Final sale items ending in .97 or .99 cannot be returned.
For returns of items purchased from your Williams-Sonoma Gift Registry, we will gladly provide a refund or exchange for the merchandise within 90 days of your event or within 90 days of purchase, whichever date is later. View Full Return Policy.


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