All The Hullabaloo
So Kevin comes into my office this morning, claiming he wishes he could sing, because he'd be singing, "Let's go out, in a blaze of glory." Yeah, I was on the front page of the student paper today, with the headline, Professor Leaving Because of Low Pay. Needless to say, this didn't endear me much with the administration in the department. But that's not all of it. Even the weekly editorial was about this issue. I did, however, receive about a dozen emails from faculty who are glad that someone finally spoke up in public about this issue. It doesn't do me any good, but maybe it'll help those who are stuck at Eastern.
Don't get me wrong; I love the school, I love my job, I love my colleagues, and I especially love the students. I do, as the new president is so fond of saying, have a passion for this place. But the administration has decided that faculty retention isn't important, so we're getting doubly shafted, through both hiring in above and the failure to even nod at our benchmark institutions for faculty salaries.
I've also heard from many current and former students about this. Their comments through this have been sustaining; they recognize the situation for what it is, not merely a matter of economics, but a matter of (as members of the Societatis Jesu would call it) systemic evil. We'll fix one problem, low faculty starting salaries, by, for all intents and purposes, ignoring the larger one of low salaries across the board when compared to our benchmarks. And we'll create a new problem, that of salary inversions (I just participated in a search where the new PhD was to be offered more that I'm making with five years here, tenure and promotion -- turns out that the embarrassment factor was too high, so they lowballed her -- she'll be one of the disgruntled in a year or two). Nevertheless, the Assistant Profs in English are all being royally screwed in this hiring process. When we turn to the administration for answers, we're told one of two things, "You should see what I made when I started," or, more commonly, "If you want a raise, get another job." The sympathy just oozes out of their pores.
I hope that the junior faculty strike while the iron is hot, and ask the administration what's being done for them. The answer will be, of course, that they'll just have to take their lumps, shut up and teach, be good soldiers, and be "team players." But they should get a chance to hear this publicly, to hear declared that their service is worth less than nothing.
I'd like to be around to hear that, but I just can't afford it.
Thursday, April 18, 2002
Consider Me Gone
Amanda and I are leaving town, blowing Richmond for Greenville, South Carolina. She's been offered a position with the Greenville School DIstrict, and I'm looking for work down there. As I see it, I could have spent five more years whining about money, never seeing anything like equity adjustments, and eventually having new people being hired in above me (which will happen this year, to all Assistant Profs and a couple Associate Profs in English -- this is truly an example of systemic evil, created and perpetrated by those who don't feel the sting of the situation, who, whenever questioned about money, say that we should have seen what they made when they started -- a specious argument), or I could get out now, find something else where the upside was better, and hope for the best there. So I'm looking at part-time work so far, and maybe something full-time will come through. If it doesn't, I can tech write for a year.
I have heard from many faculty members and students that they are upset about my leaving. I've even heard from two deans about this. I have heard comments like, "You're doing what we all should have done," and "Now maybe they'll do something about salaries," and "What will we do without you?" I'm not worrying too much about the answer to that last question -- they'll muddle through as they did before, because, as the institution is showing, we're all just cogs in the great machine, easily replaced and soon forgotten. Oh, I was offered sweeteners to say, but they both involved working in administration, something I'd like not to do. It's a shame that good teachers, in order to make decent money, have to give up teaching for administration. One position would have been quite a coup, but it's work I didn't want to do. The other position was very tempting, working with great people for a great cause, but it didn't really address the issues that have let me leave: the practice of hiring in above without a funded plan for faculty equity, and the lack of a funded plan for moving meritorious teachers to 100% of benchmark CUPA data. If either of these things happen within the next five years at EKU, I'll be terribly surprised.
I hope this gets the junior faculty talking, forcing the administration to put up or shut up. It took the University 18 months to figure out how to spend 50k in salary adjustments (I saw a whopping $600 out of that). How long do you think it will take to determine how to spend something that will really make a difference? The English Department alone needs over double that to address the issues of benchmarking and equity. It's a shame, because many good people there don't have the opportunity to leave, so they're locked in to a system that in good conscience I can't deal with any more.
It's scary, heading for SC without a tenture-track job, giving up tenure and a place where I can do good work for the unknowns that will surely follow. But wherever I get work I will advance, and will enjoy my job, perhaps in a different way. I'll miss the people here, the fellow faculty who have become friends, the students who keep in touch, the staff members who work hard for little pay. But I won't miss the callousness, the good-old-boy networking, the offhand praising of incompetence and mediocrity that has become the Eastern Way.
Amanda and I are leaving town, blowing Richmond for Greenville, South Carolina. She's been offered a position with the Greenville School DIstrict, and I'm looking for work down there. As I see it, I could have spent five more years whining about money, never seeing anything like equity adjustments, and eventually having new people being hired in above me (which will happen this year, to all Assistant Profs and a couple Associate Profs in English -- this is truly an example of systemic evil, created and perpetrated by those who don't feel the sting of the situation, who, whenever questioned about money, say that we should have seen what they made when they started -- a specious argument), or I could get out now, find something else where the upside was better, and hope for the best there. So I'm looking at part-time work so far, and maybe something full-time will come through. If it doesn't, I can tech write for a year.
I have heard from many faculty members and students that they are upset about my leaving. I've even heard from two deans about this. I have heard comments like, "You're doing what we all should have done," and "Now maybe they'll do something about salaries," and "What will we do without you?" I'm not worrying too much about the answer to that last question -- they'll muddle through as they did before, because, as the institution is showing, we're all just cogs in the great machine, easily replaced and soon forgotten. Oh, I was offered sweeteners to say, but they both involved working in administration, something I'd like not to do. It's a shame that good teachers, in order to make decent money, have to give up teaching for administration. One position would have been quite a coup, but it's work I didn't want to do. The other position was very tempting, working with great people for a great cause, but it didn't really address the issues that have let me leave: the practice of hiring in above without a funded plan for faculty equity, and the lack of a funded plan for moving meritorious teachers to 100% of benchmark CUPA data. If either of these things happen within the next five years at EKU, I'll be terribly surprised.
I hope this gets the junior faculty talking, forcing the administration to put up or shut up. It took the University 18 months to figure out how to spend 50k in salary adjustments (I saw a whopping $600 out of that). How long do you think it will take to determine how to spend something that will really make a difference? The English Department alone needs over double that to address the issues of benchmarking and equity. It's a shame, because many good people there don't have the opportunity to leave, so they're locked in to a system that in good conscience I can't deal with any more.
It's scary, heading for SC without a tenture-track job, giving up tenure and a place where I can do good work for the unknowns that will surely follow. But wherever I get work I will advance, and will enjoy my job, perhaps in a different way. I'll miss the people here, the fellow faculty who have become friends, the students who keep in touch, the staff members who work hard for little pay. But I won't miss the callousness, the good-old-boy networking, the offhand praising of incompetence and mediocrity that has become the Eastern Way.
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