Bureaucracy blocks efficiency at WU

By Johnathan McFadden

They’re everywhere; absolutely everywhere, yet they’re hardly seen.

They lurk in the dark, gloomy halls of Tillman, creating policy and regulation that will undoubtedly change the very livelihoods of Winthrop’s students.

They sit in offices of Dinkins, which seem to always capture the smell of subs and grilled food from At’s Café.

A lot of them are reachable, but there are those few who remain incognito and leave this writer wondering if they are even real.

You can only catch a glimpse of some of them when on a stroll around campus or maybe through an e-mail explaining more budget-cuts, more state appropriations and less rooms for rising juniors and seniors.

They’re university administration and they run our school. Sometimes, they do it well. Other times, they’re more like an inflated bureaucracy that is beyond any student input or control.

Saul Pett wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning story in 1982 that examined America’s bureaucracy and some of its problems. He didn’t go on the typical harangue of unfair taxation or unwise government spending.

Instead, he talked about how big the government had gotten. That was in the 80s during the Reagan Era. Now, in 2010, we have all kinds of small little governments popping up everywhere; many of them so big that they can barely control themselves.

It takes years to get anything done. The average citizen has to go through wads of paperwork, wait for excruciatingly long minutes on the other side of a phone line or express their concerns to a computerized voice rather than talk to an actual human being when dealing with these federal offices.

Pett died in 1993 but his ideas haven’t.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column asking “What is the State of WU?”

Now, I’m posing another question.

Has Winthrop become too bureaucratic?

Perhaps these two questions are one piece of a messy, bureaucratic puzzle.

I’ve been here four semesters and, in that time, I’ve seen the university make some shifts in its administrative departments—mainly due to budget cuts. This is to be expected, after all it’s happening everywhere.

I’ve seen cross-campus construction that has periodically created blockades throughout campus. This is bearable, for the most part.

I’ve heard the complaints of friends who have been given the run-around or have just plainly been snuffed by certain departments and were made to feel as if their problems didn’t matter, or were too insignificant in the grand design of Winthrop’s universe.

This isn’t too acceptable.

During Preview Day and Winthrop Day, it was made a point that Winthrop is the kind of school that knows and identifies with its students. There are no barriers in adhering to student concerns. The higher-ups in office were dedicated to being a real presence on campus that the students could turn to and trust.

For the most part, that is true.

Personally, I’ve encountered some of these “higher-ups,” professors included, and have found that they really are concerned about the students at Winthrop. Unfortunately they themselves are stuck between a rock and a hard place, as they are forced to abide by the regulations of even higher-ups in the hierarchy that entails running a university.

So, with this hierarchy, how are things supposed to get better?

Students shouldn’t have to sit down and accept the fact that things are changing and happening because that’s the way things are done or because it is in the best interest of the students.

I don’t remember filling out any surveys asking for what I thought was best for me.

Distracting students with the glitz and glamour of a campus center that will include a Popeye’s and Starbucks (almost makes me salivate), doesn’t cover up the truth.

With the current state of WU, it’s starting to resemble more of a business (the well-seasoned moneymaking machine that it already is) than a down-to-earth university that gives students a real voice in the matters that affect them.

After all, the students help make Winthrop what it is today. How can the college improve if the students are alienated, their opinions used only for quick entertainment value and their concerns and issues not.