Pages

Saturday, March 24, 2012

A must-read analysis of a part of the tuition cost problem. However, this author knows you don't throw away a baby with bathwater.

Strib carries a WaPo op-ed. This link.

This quote, from early in the item:

With the 1970s advent of collective bargaining in higher education, this began to change. The result has been more equitable circumstances for college faculty members, who deserve salaries comparable to those of other educated professionals.

Happily, senior faculty at most state universities and colleges now earn $80,000 to $150,000, roughly in line with the average incomes of other Americans who hold advanced degrees.

Not changed, however, are the accommodations designed to compensate for low pay in earlier times. Though faculty salaries now mirror those of most upper-middle-class Americans working 40 hours for 50 weeks, they generally continue to pay for teaching time of nine to 15 hours per week for 30 weeks, with a month-long winter break, a week off in the spring and a summer vacation from mid-May until September.

Such a teaching schedule may be appropriate in research universities where standards for faculty employment are exceptionally high — and are based on the premise that critically important work, along with research-driven teaching, can best be performed outside the classroom.

The faculties of research universities are at the center of America's progress in intellectual, technological and scientific pursuits, and there should be no quarrel with their financial rewards or schedules. Indeed, they often work hours well beyond those of average middle-class professionals.

This is a point I have argued, less effectivly than David Levy, author of the item.

Read the entire thing. He defends paying the elite at elite level compensation, and leaving them time for cutting edge research. Which is what they do best, and in doing it mentoring a next generation of exceptional people.

But the author makes another point about faculty at the less cutting-edge higher education outlets. They are not the major leagues. They should not be given a ride as if they were. In Minnesota, branch campuses exist and can feed their best students into graduate programs or into the professional schools, but never forget the TC campus is the heart and soul of public higher education in Minnesota. It's in the major leagues, as with the Seattle campus of University of Washington, or the Madison campus of University of Wisconsin.

There are levels to things.

And top levels command top level respect. And, top level support. Building a world-class faculty takes decades. Messing one up via dumb legislators and tax pledges can be done in a handful of years. It is like free agency in professional sports. The elite have options to move if management becomes ravening, unthinking dogs. And the legislature, now in Republican hands, is the management - of the purse, which is a big part of things even when academic insiders may minimize things such as pay, in terms of a higher calling, but pay calls too.

So, don't begger the TC graduate and professional school excellence, no matter what other stupid things you, in the legislature, may do.