One of the many things wrong at UC Berkeley
Posted Aug. 15, 2008 by Gabriel Hurley
I wish I could say all the things I'd like to say about the way that UC Berkeley has handled its organizational transitions in the past two years. About the way that the UC Office of the President (the body that manages all 10 campuses) handles their contracts. About all the politics that go on behind the scenes, and how the lowest priority on the agendas of everyone at the top, of everyone that makes decisions, is how their decisions actually affect people.
But I can't, because plenty of the things that go on are not meant to be public knowledge, and troublemakers are quietly done away with.
So in the vaguest sense, this is what I see: Money, turf wars and politics drive decisions. Principles get left behind. The groups that the campus created specifically to oversee these areas are cut out of the picture. Listening to customers is forgotten. Appreciation of the people who use the services provided by the University, and caring about what works for them is irrelevent.
And don't even get me started on "Strategic Sourcing". Apparently everyone at the top missed basic economics. If you guarantee one company a contract for a set timeframe, force everyone to buy only from that company, and eliminate all the competition, you are breaking the market. This is a bad thing. It results in inefficiency, incompetence, higher prices over time, and possibly even corruption. Yet this is the direction UCOP continues to pursue in its mission to get the best possible pricing by leveraging the buying power of all ten campuses. Massive failure.
I wish I could rant about details, because it's the details that drive me crazy. But I can't do that. So the big picture will have to do.
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