However, there are negatives along with positives. Managers could do a better job. There is an increasing level of incompetence and a lack of diversity at the top except for a couple of exceptions for reasons you can imagine. Employees who do the actual work are mostly underpaid and are not appreciated for their efforts. As a result it is difficult to find someone really smart to work with. This truly affects your professional growth. And soon you end up just being another employee.
Their is a lack of commitment to truly increase the quality of learning and education for students or consumers whichever way you look at it. The tenured faculty are a hit or a miss because they are too focused on their own research agenda. It is all about getting grants and writing papers. The IU leadership do not seem to care and the Trustees must take ownership and make people accountable.
I have seen time and time again how petty internal politics and misplaced priorities affected student learning outcomes in my department. This is mainly due to the fact that at the school or college levels you mostly have Deans who are usually not the best leaders, administrators, or managers, and are not necessarily the best people to run a business. Also, if you do NOT have a PhD, then you will not be valued for the great ideas or opinions you have if you are dealing with a leadership that includes professors or associate professors. Leadership play favorites. As a result, things suffer.
I would say this - if you are a minority, you will find it EXTREMELY hard to advance as a staff member unless you are willing to play politics and only care about your job security. Unfortunately, this is also an industry wide trend. The top level management, especially within UITS, is rife with Peter's Principle and will go out of their way to play dirty politics.
I have personally seen incompetent people being promoted in jobs (with great increase in salaries) that I was qualified for. I was being passed over for middle and upper management positions mostly due to my ethnicity even though I am highly competent. It took me time to realize that it wasn't my qualifications or performance that took precedence but the fact that I was different - I looked different, I thought differently, I WAS indeed different. I truly felt that I was a second class employee in some cases. I was paid lower than my peers in same occupations for a few years. I was promoted without a pay increase in one circumstance.
In other words, diversity isn't much appreciated at IU if YOU ARE a staff member. I must say that diversity to me includes diversity in thinking ability, the way you work etc. and it is not only limited to looking differently. There is certainly an unconscious bias against people like me. This is just an HONEST truth in my opinion. It is also the case that people mostly work in silos and there is a lack of collaboration within and across departments. This is probably one of the biggest cultural problems at IU that is bound to hurt long-term.
