Pros
I can honestly say that my colleagues are fabulous, wonderful, smart, impressive supportive people who I am proud to call my colleagues.
Cons
The bureaucracy is mind-numbing, endless and counter-productive. Constant re-inventing of the same wheels over and over, a general lack of communication, the need for a minimum of 3 to 5 people to sign-off on anything, and requirements that faculty fill-out or create many of the federal forms required for grant proposals means that the University wastes time, labor and money at the speed of light. It makes absolutely no fiscal sense to pay someone a faculty salary to do paperwork which could be completed by administrative staff. The faculty are bad at it, and it takes time away from their main purpose - which is to teach and get grants to allow them to conduct research and train others to conduct research. For a University which requires that a large component of faculty salary comes from soft-money/grants (from 40 to 75%), they sure do make it hard for faculty to do. They are shooting themselves in the foot everyday because of it, with no hope of healing the wound.
