Kelly in Kansas

Chronicle Careers: 2/21/2006: What Conspiracy?: "To imagine the department heads, the deans, and the provost in a relationship of conspiracy is to fail to notice that every administrator is preoccupied with defending and advocating for his or her own unit -- more often than not over and against other units and their administrators."

I've always wondered about this. I loved a column a few months ago by Dean Dad referring to the "experts" who never want to hold administrative positions yet have all the answers. :-) The dichotomy that exists between working within the system and "against the system" has always puzzled me and some components are relics of the 1960s system that no longer works.