[vk5tu]

Then this is to misunderstand the customer. Administration in universities is a service to the teaching and research faculties (or departments, names vary). It's these faculties which bring in the money, which produce the results.

As a result, universities rarely make decisions like corporations, where the CEO decides and everyone in the organisation toes the line. A policy like this is made by consultation with stakeholders, extensive and ongoing. As the article describes, this takes years even in a small university like MIT.

It's simply not within the power of the negotiators to reach a decision outside that policy: they'd be ignored by the university faculties, who would then make their own individual arrangements, and the funds available to the negotiators would not be agreed to (and far worse outcomes are possible, efforts by 'the administration' to make decisions against consensus are a common reason for the head of a university to be sacked). If the negotiators genuinely can't reach agreement, then negotiations have to be suspended, the progress reported to many interested parties within the university, and then a new consensus reached about the negotiation parameters.

Now no two universities are the same, and the degree of centralisation varies. But I hope this helps you understand that the 'policy' referred to in this article was itself the result of years of negotiation, and "you can change them at any time; they are your choices" doesn't describe the situation.

[elashri]

Universities usually get 40-60% of any grant money by researchers as overhead fees. This is usually negotiable but it is not like you have much to barging against administration as individual researcher/group unless you are one of the top in your field or a nobel prize candidate.