At first I thought it was a typo, students supposedly protesting the impending tuition hikes by going nude in the quad at UC Davis, that should have read Berkeley right? The students claimed that their lack of attire was symbolic of the fact that they are being “stripped” of their right to accessible, affordable, quality education.
As it turns out, it must have been Davis after all, because naked to these students meant walking around in their underwear. Kids today. Kind of reminds me of a hunger strike at the UC Berkeley campus a decade ago, it turns out the kids weren’t exactly starving themselves as they consumed the SlimFast diet drink. Didn’t stop the administration from caving to their demands.
Especially intriguing to me is the normally research minded and non-political UC Davis faculty planning their own sort of walk out. They are protesting the fact that the UC administration will not permit furloughs to occur on instructional days.
In today’s Sacramento Bee, a couple of faculty members are speaking out in an op-ed against the strike. Their article “UC Davis Strike: Teaching is more than just about being paid” discussing their opposition to teaching stoppages.
The authors, Jonathan Eisen a profession of evolution and ecology and Winder McConnell, a professor of German, ask a paramount question:
“Where would we be today as professors without students? And, just as important, where would those students be without us?”
They continue:
“As each of our colleagues makes his or her personal decision as to whether to walk out Thursday, we’d like to make a case for why it’s wrong for faculty to cut class. Simply put, we see it as a moral, pragmatic and political misstep for faculty to abandon their classrooms and their students.”
The crux of the matter is their difficulty with the nature of the walkout being spreading the pain to the students to make a political point about the impact of the furloughs on education.
It’s painful to us that much of the basis for the proposed walkout is literally that many faculty wanted to “spread the pain” to students to make a political point about the effects of furloughs on education. This is an unacceptable use of students as pawns in this high-stakes game, especially those students and their families who are already shouldering a heavy financial burden that is soon likely to get much heavier.
Indeed, what kind of message does faculty members cutting classes send out to those students and their families who work hard to afford a world-class UC education? Do we really want to add more fuel to the fire of higher education naysayers who would question, “What are they teaching out there?” and, “How many classes does a professor teach, anyway?”
These are in fact all points I raised previous with regards to the walk out which I have mixed feelings about. I agree with these individuals that the idea of protesting the lack of spreading the pain along with the argument that the furloughs must impact educational days is a bit perplexing to the average person who is in fact more likely to turn against the faculty than sympathize with them.
The professors continue:
“We accept that the entire UC system could do a better job of communicating to Sacramento’s policymakers about the “pain” and “consequences” of budget cuts, and that teaching less would be a way to show that the cuts have a real impact on education. But abandoning the classroom is the wrong way to go. It would be a horrible political move right now. California’s budget could still go down next year and there could be more cuts. If UC works to build political capital in the coming year, then perhaps we will avoid some cuts next time around. But if we slash instructional time as a way to spread the pain, it will come back to bite us.”
They bring up practical considerations as well such as restructuring their classes and that might be a concern, but the bigger problem is that the public simply is going to lack any semblance of sympathy for the message–it seems contrived at best and self-serving at worst to have the faculty argue outloud that they need to spread the pain in order to make a political point.
If the faculty walkout I hope they have a broader message than we want to spread the point. I would start with the idea that we already have cutback on funding to higher education. That students and research suffer when cutbacks are made. That education in California has reached a perilous stage from which we may not longer be able to support and continue the best public higher education system in the world if things continue. We already have a mediocre to poor K through 12 which has put us at great risk, continued cuts to education demonstrate a lack of investment in the future and an inability to properly prioritize.
All of these messages can be made by people who choose to walkout without making the convoluted and counterintuitive argument that in order to save education, we must spread the pain to education itself. The students do not need convincing that they will suffer educationally. They may not feel the pain directly in the classroom, but as the students stripping to their skivvies attests, they feel the pain in the form of unaffordable education with higher tuition and fewer courses. For them in fact the danger is very real that many will no longer be able to afford the education process altogether.
I applaud the editorial by Professors Eisen and McConnell but it does not go far enough. It fails to recognize that the pain has already been spread around. It fails to build an alternative to get the message to the public and the voters.
We have made much about executive pay here, to some criticism, but the reason why executive pay matters is that those individuals are leaders in this system. The idea of spreading pain is somewhat misplaced in the discussion of furloughs because those who will feel the pain–already are. The people who are not feeling the pain are those making the decisions.
This is the error of Wall Street and the rise of a sort of populism all over again. The public felt taken to the cleaners already by the notion that they were bailing out wealthy Wall Street companies with their hard-earned tax dollars. But that outrage was magnified when it learned that business as usual continued in terms of compensation and bonuses to wealthy executives. The executives tried to argue of course that bonuses were simply how they got paid, but no one wanted to hear it.
The issue of executive pay at the UC has the same level of potential to be a flashpoint because it simply looks bad. Anytime people at the top appear to get pay raises while everyone else is suffering it is a bad political move. Those opposed to more money for education point to it as a point for the waste and fraud in the system. Those who are making at the bottom build up resentment.
There may indeed be logic in giving out salaries, retaining top administrators, increasing pay to people like Chancellor Katehi. But I think the point missing is that few people want to hear that logic. To them, a person making $300,000 is making enough money that they don’t need that additional $100,000. To them, the people at the top are getting too much during a time when too much is being cut and too many who struggle to get by are being asked to do so with far less. It is as much symbolic and political as it logical. It is clear that cutting money at the top will not change the conditions on the ground, but at least those on the ground will know they are all in it together.
If there is a message of spreading the pain that will resonate with the public and those in the system, it is not the idea of making students suffer more in terms of their education, it is the idea that the entire system bites the bullet collectively led by those at the top and then rallies the public to save them from themselves. The notion that public education in California is in trouble. That the best public higher education system in the world teeters on the brink of the precipice and it needs real leadership to get passed it. Real leadership is not a man who makes $800,000 asking those who make less than 5% of than to make due with less. Real leadership is someone who inspires everyone else to find the best in themselves in order to serve the collective good. That is what is missing here and why tomorrow you will see a wide variety of groups acting as a bunch of different groups and asking for a bunch of different things.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Thank you for this terrific post, David. I, too, am conflicted about the walkout by Senate faculty. Like Winder McConnell, I work at the campus’s Teaching Resources Center, but my comments here are my own, and not written on behalf of the TRC–and I’m classified as a staff member, not faculty.
Faculty walking out this Thursday are encouraging staff to join them in solidarity. Yet Senate faculty cannot authentically champion labor issues until the faculty Senate officially recognizes the caste system where faculty receive so many more benefits as employees than do staff. Faculty salaries are in some cases 7-10x what clerical staff make. Even accounting for differences in experience and education, that’s a stunning difference when the number of hours worked are comparable. In addition, tenured and tenure-track faculty have a host of other benefits that are too numerous to list here–benefits that are not extended to staff.
UC Davis faculty want staff support of their walkout. But where were faculty when staff salaries were frozen 2+ years ago & layoffs began? If you consider the two rounds of merit increases I missed because of these staff salary freezes, plus my furlough pay cut of 6%, I’ve actually lost 13% of my salary over the past two years.
Undoubtedly some of my frustration comes from the fact that I teach undergraduate and graduate students, I have a Ph.D., I publish in academic journals, and I do more than my fair share of service to the university community, and yet it’s faculty–and not staff like myself (and I’m far from alone in having those credentials)–who reap all the benefits. And yet until faculty salaries were cut this year, I didn’t hear word one from a Senate faculty member about the effects of the budget crisis on staff.
In short, faculty who want to “spread the pain” to students and their families are failing to recognize all of the privileges they have enjoyed for so many years. That they’re complaining only now–when their salaries are cut and they’re denied permission to furlough themselves on instructional days–smacks of self-interest rather than their students’ and community’s interests.
In short, faculty who want to “spread the pain” to students and their families are failing to recognize all of the privileges they have enjoyed for so many years. That they’re complaining only now–when their salaries are cut and they’re denied permission to furlough themselves on instructional days–smacks of self-interest rather than their students’ and community’s interests.
Amen Leslie M-B. On one hand we should not be surprised when individuals pursue his or her self interests… that behavior is natural and human. However, when it is done at the expense of the students and community, and when it is a group-organized pursuit, it should be labeled as reprehensible.
Whether faculty or staff, public empathy for perceived or real pay inequality can be garnered without manufactured exploitation of student pain. It has been a common practice for the education profession and it has to stop.
[i]The issue of executive pay at the UC has the same level of potential to be a flashpoint because it simply looks bad.[/i]
You are right about that! It’s not what it really is, it’s how it looks. When a chancellor makes $400K in a time of fee hikes and furloughs, it looks like a crime. On the other hand, when a football coach makes $2 million, it doesn’t look as bad because he’s not a “leader”. Indeed, to football fans, it looks good: The fans think that he must be a great coach if he costs that much.
As a matter of logic, of course UC does not have a way to hire people at far below the median salary. As a matter of logic, that’s a penny-wise and pound-foolish strategy for chancellors, because hundreds of millions of dollars in outside funds are at stake. That is why other universities have bid up the price of chancellors. And as a matter of logic, it makes no sense to aim below the top salaries in order to blast leadership.
But as you say, the critics don’t want to hear logic. As you say, they want the university to be steered by symbolism and politics, not logic. It is a depressing thought, even though it’s true. The state budget has virtually been destroyed by symbolism and politics at the expense of logic. It would be sad if the same thing happened to the University of California.
I did vote to have some of the furlough days on teaching days. Obviously a phrase like “spread the pain” is an emotional frame that does the most to infuriate people. It’s not what I had in mind. Furloughs on teaching days were a good idea because the state should only get what it pays for. There is a market for distinguished faculty. The state will write itself out of that market if it demands more from faculty than what it has paid.
But I’m not doing the walkout. The walkout reflects the faculty that signed it: A lot of drama and very little science. I realized that it is yet more symbolism and politics, and that that’s the last thing right now that UC needs.
Anyway, the furloughs have set the not-so-invisible hand of the market in motion. No hiring and no retention packages until the furloughs are over. The University of California has been laid open to universities in the rest of the world. Chancellors included. And if you want it to go all the faster, try increasing teaching days. After all, who said that they were at exactly the right number before?
“It’s not what it really is, it’s how it looks. When a chancellor makes $400K in a time of fee hikes and furloughs, it looks like a crime. On the other hand, when a football coach makes $2 million, it doesn’t look as bad because he’s not a “leader”. Indeed, to football fans, it looks good: The fans think that he must be a great coach if he costs that much.”
Overly paid athletic coaches are just as disturbing to me as overly paid top university execs. And I doubt I am alone in that thinking.
DPD’s point is well taken – “We have made much about executive pay here, to some criticism, but the reason why executive pay matters is that those individuals are leaders in this system. The idea of spreading pain is somewhat misplaced in the discussion of furloughs because those who will feel the pain–already are. The people who are not feeling the pain are those making the decisions.”
In point of fact, it rings hollow when Yudof talks about the need to “share the pain”, when he has been hired at a 100% increase in salary over his predecessor. Nor does Yudof have much CREDIBILITY with the CA legislature, when he goes hat in hand to beg for more leniency in the budget cutting process.
“Undoubtedly some of my frustration comes from the fact that I teach undergraduate and graduate students, I have a Ph.D., I publish in academic journals, and I do more than my fair share of service to the university community, and yet it’s faculty–and not staff like myself (and I’m far from alone in having those credentials)–who reap all the benefits. And yet until faculty salaries were cut this year, I didn’t hear word one from a Senate faculty member about the effects of the budget crisis on staff.”
This is a very telling indictment of the arrogance of UCD faculty. One would think the entire world revolves around them. Trust me, it doesn’t. Both students’ and taxpayers’ collective pockets have been picked clean. To ask them to shoulder any more fiscal burden is to break the back of our economy. Many folks are without jobs, including students. You cannot get blood out of a turnip. Faculty should be thankful they still are still employed, and have a relatively cushy job w good pay at that!
“Amen Leslie M-B. On one hand we should not be surprised when individuals pursue his or her self interests… that behavior is natural and human. However, when it is done at the expense of the students and community, and when it is a group-organized pursuit, it should be labeled as reprehensible.”
Amen! Faculty have got to start climbing out of their ivory towers and begin living in the real world. Life can be difficult – hello! What, did faculty think the UC system was going to skate scot free from the budget cutting process?
More on theme of symbolism and politics vs logic.
I’m no expert in political damage control, but I understand a few basic points:
1) The coverup is worse than the crime.
2) If it looks bad, that’s worse than if it is bad.
3) All large-looking numbers provoke the same anger.
4) It’s better to create your own storm than to answer anger.
5) Guilt by association is fair game.
With that last point in mind, I might well be blamed for a walkout that I didn’t join. I’m “faculty”, and it’s a “faculty” walkout. As a matter of logic, the walkout is not my fault. But as David warns, the resentful don’t want to hear logic.
It’s not a super big deal. Individual faculty members don’t have a very high profile. Moreover, the protests have nowhere to go, so they will play themselves out. But it is dispiriting.
@Greg Kuperberg: It does make sense to have some instructional days be furlough days, but only in proportion to the percentage of teaching specified in the faculty member’s contract. My worry is that those faculty in disciplines that emphasize research far more than teaching, given the opportunity to determine their own furlough days, would elect to take them all on instructional days.
If a furlough system could be put in place to keep faculty from disproportionately electing out of teaching responsibilities in favor of advancing their research, then I’d be for it.
Teaching is too frequently the first responsibility Senate faculty leap to cut back on. I know there are reasons for this (merit, promotion, etc.), but it would be refreshing to hear a Senate faculty member say instead, “Fine, then, I’m going to do 20 fewer days of cancer research this year.” In aggregate, that’s a lot of life-saving research by faculty. That might get the public’s attention more than complaining about teaching duties that are already light to moderate when compared with those at other colleges and universities.
Leslie: [i]It does make sense to have some instructional days be furlough days, but only in proportion to the percentage of teaching specified in the faculty member’s contract.[/i]
A proportionate reduction is all that the faculty asked for. What we were told was that our proportion of workload reduction is zero.
Let me also say that it would completely make sense for the TRC to reduce its activities in proportion to furlough days. I have no objection to that, regardless of what the administration decides for faculty.
Also, I wouldn’t for a minute argue that faculty are needier than staff. I know that things have slid for non-unionized staff, and I’m not against raises for you folks. The only argument that I make for faculty is that UC is going to lose its prestige if it ignores what other universities pay for prestige. It’s also going to lose federal funding if it can’t compete for that funding.
[i]It would be refreshing to hear a Senate faculty member say instead, “Fine, then, I’m going to do 20 fewer days of cancer research this year.”[/i]
That is an impossible scenario, because none of the incentive to do research has disappeared. Instead, some of the incentive has been redirected. Instead of doing research to get promoted at UC, many faculty will do research to get promoted away from UC.
Actually, although this was unbelievably bad advice, Lakesha Harrison of AFSCME implied a similar scenario not for research, but for medical care. She told Yudof that UC should reduce all pay over $300K by 24% — most of which goes to doctors. Imagine this protest: “Fine, then, I will drop a fourth of my patients!” But again, some medical faculty certainly can do the same thing as some non-medical faculty, namely get hired away.
And if anyone has the smug idea that there isn’t anywhere for highly paid UC employees to go, what were told is that it has to happen for the furloughs to end.
Rome is falling. All levels of government have stretched too thin. Just wait until the pension tsunami catches up with us. We ain’t see nothing yet, but somehow we still want to give unfair and unjust pensions to government employees. Most professors would would pissed if they saw how much some city workers make for the low skill jobs they perform.
Rome is falling. All levels of government have stretched too thin. Just wait until the pension tsunami catches up with us. We ain’t see nothing yet, but somehow we still want to give unfair and unjust pensions to government employees. Most professors would would pissed if they saw how much some city workers make for the low skill jobs they perform.
Rome is falling. All levels of government have stretched too thin. Just wait until the pension tsunami catches up with us. We ain’t see nothing yet, but somehow we still want to give unfair and unjust pensions to government employees. Most professors would would pissed if they saw how much some city workers make for the low skill jobs they perform.
Faculty salaries are in some cases 7-10x what clerical staff make. Even accounting for differences in experience and education, that’s a stunning difference when the number of hours worked are comparable.
So how much do you suggest should professors make? $100k?, $200k, $300k? Say, you cap the prof’s pay at $300k. Those “overpaid” professors are likely to be bringing in more than their salary in the form of indirect cost recovery to the university, which partly support many of the university programs and services and their staff like you. I’m sure they will be hunted by another university in a heartbeat because they can easily recover the investment, and our staff suffer even more.
In addition, tenured and tenure-track faculty have a host of other benefits that are too numerous to list here–benefits that are not extended to staff.
If you consider the two rounds of merit increases I missed because of these staff salary freezes, plus my furlough pay cut of 6%, I’ve actually lost 13% of my salary over the past two years.
Undoubtedly some of my frustration comes from the fact that I teach undergraduate and graduate students, I have a Ph.D., I publish in academic journals, and I do more than my fair share of service to the university community, and yet it’s faculty–and not staff like myself (and I’m far from alone in having those credentials)–who reap all the benefits.
If you are so qualified, you are free to seek faculty position at UC or elsewhere. Like it or not, we live in a capitalist society. The same goes for the faculty. It’s just a temporary, one-month furlough. Cut the students some slack. You know you can cut down on the workload just by getting rid of unnecessary committees and pointless meetings. If you are still unhappy, write some angry e-mails to the legislators or you can pack up and head for a new university.
Yeah, I will start looking for a new job if this furlough doesn’t end this time next year, not just because of the salary, but I know that UC would be seriously going downhill. I don’t make $300k but I have enough grant money that comes with indirect costs worth multiple times my salary, so I am not too pessimistic about finding a new position.
I appreciate more than ever David’s warning that people don’t want to hear logic. When I skimmed the KDRT interview, certainly there were big departures from logic in the segment with Jeff Bergamini.
Jeff said that if we look at the UC payroll, I will discover that the payroll is top-heavy with administrators. Jeff himself put a lot of work into a very nice web site to browse the payroll. When you look at the payroll at his site ([url]http://ucpay.globl.org/index.php?year=2008&s=gross[/url]), you discover that it is top-heavy with doctors, not administrators. The pattern is overwhelming in the gross pay list, and gross pay is the basis of Jeff’s request to Yudof ([url]http://ucpay.globl.org/letters.php?id=2[/url]) for where to cut pay. Although he doesn’t say so, his formula to balance the UC budget by raiding the salaries of doctors.
I do not expect the protesters to tell hospital patients that their doctors’ salaries would be shifted to undergraduate education. But as David warned, people don’t want to hear logic. If they don’t want to hear logic, then they might well want to misrepresent the payroll.
Later in the interview, David and Jeff implied that UC has made cuts in research days instead of teaching days for the faculty. It would indeed be problematic if UC had asked us to do less research, but they didn’t. On the contrary, they encourage us to do research on furlough days. Faculty research is essentially funded on a commission basis, so any association between furloughs and research time is meaningless. What if ESPN had “furloughed” Dara Torres during the 2004 Olympics, and told her that she was free to go the Olympics anyway? It would be the same blatant flim-flam.
It takes a little logic to realize that the furloughs are not a work reduction for faculty of any kind. Again, we should heed the warning that people don’t want to hear logic. I won’t accuse all Californians, but I know that there are many who truly don’t. Of course, we have to accept it and cope when people reject logic — but we shouldn’t buy into it!
“David and Jeff implied that UC has made cuts in research days instead of teaching days for the faculty. It would indeed be problematic if UC had asked us to do less research, but they didn’t.”
While that’s a fair criticism and understand I was speaking on the fly without notes at that point, the bottom line I think is that if they furloughed class days, classes would be canceled, instruction cut. Your point gets to the point that research might not suffer because of furloughs–isn’t that a positive?
“It takes a little logic to realize that the furloughs are not a work reduction for faculty of any kind.”
Remember, other professions, both in the public and private sector, are suffering through furloughs. Some have been laid off, not just furloughed. Professors should be thankful they still have a job! What, do they think UC faculty should be immune from any budget cuts?
[i]Your point gets to the point that research might not suffer because of furloughs–isn’t that a positive?[/i]
David, let’s first stick to the truth, and then we’ll talk choices. On your show, you also uncritically took the claim from two guests that the payroll is top-heavy with administrators, when the truth is that it’s top-heavy with doctors.
It’s a positive that they didn’t cut research time in the same sense that it’s a positive that they didn’t call out the National Guard. They had no chance of doing either one, so it’s a red herring.
[i]Professors should be thankful they still have a job![/i]
Yes, “Anon”, I am thankful that UC did not violate my employment contract. But all I ask for at this moment is the truth. If you called me a thief, I would rightfully blast the falsehood, even if I’d still be glad that I have health insurance.
@AJK I went on the academic job market and didn’t get a nibble. Humanities positions get hundreds of applicants. Out of the dozens upon dozens of humanities Ph.D.s I know, only a select few have landed t-t faculty jobs.
I do think $300K is too much for a faculty member. I suspect almost everyone who isn’t a faculty member might agree with me. . .
[i]I do think $300K is too much for a faculty member. I suspect almost everyone who isn’t a faculty member might agree with me.[/i]
I can tell you one type of person who isn’t faculty and who might have second thoughts about a $300K salary cap on faculty: A patient who is about to go under the knife at UCDMC.
California prisons used the Jeff Bergamini approach to cope with a squeeze between powerful blue-collar unions, spending restrictions, and an expanding mandate. They paid their doctors $150K or so. The result was a lot of Dr. Giggles, Dr. Zorros, Dr. Timothy Learys, and Dr. Unfilled Positions. The federal receiver just granted himself authority pay the doctors up to $300K. And this is for prison doctors, not for UC doctors who know the latest and fanciest procedures.
But it is true $300K is well above the market range for faculty in any area other than medical research. There are engineers and economists who make that much in the private sector; faculty don’t.
[quote]I went on the academic job market and didn’t get a nibble. Humanities positions get hundreds of applicants. Out of the dozens upon dozens of humanities Ph.D.s I know, only a select few have landed t-t faculty jobs.[/quote]
My point is, if you want to argue for higher salary and better benefits, you have to be competitive in the market. Nobody is pointing a gun at you to stay at UC, so don’t complain if you have nowhere else to go, especially if you are entirely paid from the state funds and student fees (or money from someone else’s grants).
I’m not in humanities but we do get hundreds of applicants for a faculty position in a national search. But the reality is, the people we want to hire are also sought after by other major schools. That’s why faculty get higher salary and better benefits than staff. If we can’t afford to compete for these candidates, we will lose extramural funding which pays for some staff, lose prestige, lose good students… If that’s what the taxpayers are going to tolerate, there’s nothing much we can do.
[quote]I do think $300K is too much for a faculty member. I suspect almost everyone who isn’t a faculty member might agree with me. . .[/quote]
You can check exactly who’s earning how much at the database linked above. Except for a bunch of MD faculty who would clearly earn as much if not more in the private sector, not to mention that they bring in huge amount of money through clinical work, there are only a handful (~dozen) of academic and top administrative faculty who earn >$300k at UCD. Would your ego be satisfied if the university cap their salary and bankrupt the med school, or force the university go through with a series of long, bureaucratic, and futile searches to replace the few “overpaid” faculty?
@AJK It’s not about my ego. Really. It’s about being able to put food on the table for my kid, about being able to pay my rent in town, to pay my student loan debt, to pay for my husband’s medical expenses. It’s that basic.
Using your own capitalist argument, a medical doctor who treats hundreds or thousands of patients a year should be earning more than a professor, because that’s what the market will bear. And I’m fine with that.
Similarly, the UC recompenses scientists more because the public/state/whomever tends to values the sciences more than the humanities. Meanwhile, the UC (as do other universities) accepts orders of magnitude more humanities grad students than the job market will bear when they graduate. But there’s no truth-in-marketing in these programs, and so we’re ending up with a lot of overeducated working poor.
I do wonder if the university–and here I’m not talking about the med center, which is a different beast–should be operating on a capitalist system. What happened to the ideal of a liberal arts education, of an engaged citizenry that’s broadly educated? What’s happening to the university’s teaching mission–and by extension what will happen to the young people of this state–when we value and reward professors for their research efforts so much more than we do the teaching of undergraduates? One of the scenarios that follows from continuing to value scientists over humanists is an elimination of the humanities and arts from the university curriculum. We already see signs of this in reductions in lecturers and course offerings, and also in closing programs altogether, and that’s troubling.
Meanwhile, though, the work I’m doing is valuable to the university in ways that can’t easily be quantified, and I’m underpaid for it. So are other staff–and underpaid so much that it limits their life choices more than it does faculty. I know staff who have been homeless, yet I hear faculty complaining about having trouble paying the mortgage on their second home. I don’t think many faculty see these problems, even as they rely on staff labor. And it’s because most staff become invisible when we do our work well, whereas faculty tend to become more visible when they do their work well.
[i]I do wonder if the university–and here I’m not talking about the med center, which is a different beast–should be operating on a capitalist system.[/i]
Since we’re in a country with individual property rights, we don’t have much choice in the matter. It would be interesting if all universities in America could unite and become a monopoly employer that dictates wages for chancellors and professors. It wouldn’t necessarily be good, but it would be interesting. But we can’t do that.
[i]One of the scenarios that follows from continuing to value scientists over humanists is an elimination of the humanities and arts from the university curriculum.[/i]
That is a different question. Should UC have more humanities and less science and engineering? I don’t know the ratio that has and I don’t know the ratio that it should have. You could perhaps decide that on the basis of impacted majors.
[i]I know staff who have been homeless, yet I hear faculty complaining about having trouble paying the mortgage on their second home.[/i]
I’d be the first to admit that I could never win a belly-aching contest with staff. I don’t like such contests in the first place. For the record, we only own one home, one car, and zero swimming pools, and our mortgage is not a problem. And I don’t mean to be dismissive about financial problems among the staff. I know that some staff can’t afford the full American dream.
No, the real issue is whether UC will buy labor from the market at market rates, or whether it will be a Marxist ostrich.
Since we’re in a country with individual property rights, we don’t have much choice in the matter. It would be interesting if all universities in America could unite and become a monopoly employer that dictates wages for chancellors and professors.
Honestly, I’m looking for something between these two extremes. I’m not a Marxist–far from it.
[i]I’m looking for something between these two extremes.[/i]
People may have trouble seeing it because of the bad budget, but we already have a compromise between the extremes. The salaries of UC executives are already below the market median. It’s the same for UC faculty, on average. And the academic job market is already a huge compromise between Marxist wage equality and the private sector. University salaries are substantially closer together than corporate salaries.
It takes a radical to reject a middle course as far to one extreme. Certainly one example of that is demanding that UC chancellors run California’s research universities for much less than they run research universities in other states. A little less isn’t good enough; it has to be much less.
[quote]Meanwhile, the UC (as do other universities) accepts orders of magnitude more humanities grad students than the job market will bear when they graduate. But there’s no truth-in-marketing in these programs, and so we’re ending up with a lot of overeducated working poor.[/quote]
Again, nobody put a gun to your head to go get a Ph.D. Every graduate student who aims for a Ph.D. in any field should be able to assess the competitiveness of the job market. If they couldn’t understand the risks that they were taking, they probably didn’t deserve a Ph.D. in the first place.
[quote]I do wonder if the university–and here I’m not talking about the med center, which is a different beast–should be operating on a capitalist system. What happened to the ideal of a liberal arts education, of an engaged citizenry that’s broadly educated? …[/quote]
UC is essentially a research university. You should have realized that before you took your job. There are CSUs, community colleges, and private liberal arts schools that strongly emphasize the educational mission that you cherish and that is good. UC is just not one of them. If the taxpayers and students don’t demand the UC-style of education, we will be forced to downsize, probably shifting toward more research-intensive graduate students and professional students, and fewer undergraduate students. There’s no point for the UC to become ten more CSU campuses.
[quote]Meanwhile, though, the work I’m doing is valuable to the university in ways that can’t easily be quantified, and I’m underpaid for it. So are other staff–and underpaid so much that it limits their life choices more than it does faculty. I know staff who have been homeless, yet I hear faculty complaining about having trouble paying the mortgage on their second home. I don’t think many faculty see these problems, even as they rely on staff labor. And it’s because most staff become invisible when we do our work well, whereas faculty tend to become more visible when they do their work well.[/quote]
Personally, I do appreciate the work the staff do. But what exactly do you want the university to do? Cut faculty salary and give it to the staff? Lay-off some staff and increase the salary for those left? I’m saying that if you further shift the salary from the faculty, the university will lose the best people first, who bring in the most grant money so we will be in a deeper hole.
If you have another job offer, I can’t blame you for ditching UC. But from the taxpayers’ perspective, it is egoistic to complain for a 5 or 8 % furlough when the state unemployment rate is >10%. We can blame our legislators or the incompetence of the voters who elected them, or save the anger and find another job. Making emotional and illogical accusations against UC administration and faculty won’t do any good.