Academic campuses of Louisiana State University, including the flagship in Baton Rouge and the University of New Orleans, will see their state support shrink by 3.7 percent under a plan the system’s Board of Supervisors approved this weekend for absorbing a midyear budget cut of $21-million, The Times-Picayune reported. Nonacademic entities, including the system office and several hospitals, will be cut by more than 15 percent. The system, which has eliminated programs in earlier rounds of budget cuts, had sought to hold the campus reductions to 1.6 percent, but cut deeper in order to restore some funds to research facilities not supported by tuition, a move that student leaders protested. The system’s president, John V. Lombardi, described the plan approved Saturday as “the best of a bad set of alternatives.”
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29 Responses to Louisiana State U. Campuses Take a Hit in Midyear Budget Cuts
div411 - November 8, 2010 at 8:44 am
As long as money for the football team is not cut, and as long as Mike the Tiger continues to be fed, who cares? LSU Baton Rouge is not exactly a world-class university. Most of its students couldn’t get in elsewhere, and most of its faculty–with some handsome exceptions like those in geology and animal husbandry–would be lucky to be working for Wal Mart if there were no LSU.
Ben T. (one-time faculty member in social science)
mela1532 - November 8, 2010 at 1:54 pm
@div411 Thanks for disparaging a whole range of alums from LSU who received a very good public university education. I appreciate you lumping everyone together into a single stereotype. You only display your lack of civility and insight.
lsutigerphd - November 8, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Methinks someone didn’t get tenure and is bitter…
LSU has numerous nationally prominent professors who are leaders in their field. Here’s three examples:
-An internationally prominent physicist who has written over 300 papers on materials physics.
-One of the nation’s leading genome biologists who is doing exciting work in cancer research.
-Two of America’s leading historians, one who has won numerous prizes for his work on the military history of the Revolution and Civil War; the other is the leading scholar of 19th century southern history and this year’s president of the Southern Historical Association. (A third historian you may know, Stephen Ambrose, taught at the University of New Orleans, a member of the LSU System.)
Additionally, LSU scholars Robert Penn Warren and T. Harry Williams both won the Pulitzer Prize for their work.
Over 200,000 alumni bear witness to what a great institution LSU is.
redpants - March 9, 2011 at 5:10 pm
This is a very difficult problem – one that I face all too often. Usually, I try to get the “needing to retire” professor to think about a gradual reduction in load, say from 2/3rds to 1/3 to out, with a comparable reduction in salary. It doesn’t take too much of a reduction in load of a long time, full professor to be able to hire a newly minted PhD as an Assistant Professor to join the department with little budgetary impact. And if you can focus the professor’s efforts on courses in which they are successful (or at least better), everyone wins.
If that doesn’t work, then I try to focus on evaluations and such to get the point across that current performance is unacceptable (change is needed), and mentoring, oversight, and additional training will be necessary. In other words, make it so uncomfortable and distasteful that the professor agrees to the step down plan in paragraph one.
I hate strategy two, but students deserve good teaching. In all I do with senior professors, I try to follow the advice given to me by my mentor: choose the redemptive solution if you can. PA
fullprof99 - March 9, 2011 at 5:24 pm
The two sections of fish-farming per semester is the perfect solution in many cases. (Though in the case of the dean’s stupid promise I would just hit the ceiling and say NO WAY!)
In my department we’ve actually got a situation like this with two sections of a cross-listed course. My competent department member gets good enrollments. Dr. Over-the-Hill in the other department gets one or no students in his section of the same course each semester. Fortunately Dr. O-t-H does not draw any salary from my department, so someone else has to worry about his non-productivity.
rpm13 - March 9, 2011 at 5:27 pm
The example shows why all personnel agreements should be written and signed by all parties, including, of course, the department chair. Another principle that may have been violated in the example is that incompetent professors should not be allowed to teach. However, incompetence is not merely the existence of a “high-energy, entry-level” colleague who can out-draw a senior professor. Moreover, you would not want to go to court using those code words.
philosophy - March 9, 2011 at 6:05 pm
“One approach that I occasionally hear about is where a faculty member is allowed to retire at full pension while still teaching one course a year or a semester at a nice contract rate.”
My place has that policy (it lasts 3 yrs), and so does at least one other state university around here (theirs is for 5 yrs). Well, it’s not for one course a year, but for one semester’s worth of courses per year. I could either teach full-load for one semester and skip the other semester, or do 1/2 load each semester. A good many senior faculty take advantage of it – it’s a good deal. When I took it, I did the math, and found that it did allow our dept to get a new tenure-track hire at no increase in the dept budget! However, I think it took some negotiating with the state pension officials to get initial approval of the policy, 10-15 years ago.
cwinton - March 9, 2011 at 6:12 pm
First of all, since faculty should not “own” any course that can be taught by other faculty, this problem will not occur if faculty routinely rotate among a selection of courses they can handle competently. If this is not the department culture, or the curricular structure fails to facilitate such an approach, then I suggest it’s time to make some changes. I also would suggest faculty members who declare themselves incapable of handling such a scenario be gently informed that by doing so they are declaring a lack of competence in the profession. That alone should shame anyone but a true incompetent to suck it up (and if it fails to work, then they have opened the door for other measures to be taken). As for the “fish farming” example, if said faculty member has been regularly teaching from among a selection of courses, arguments such as letting the new hire have a crack at the fish farming course are compelling. Moreover, since colleagues are also rotating among courses, there is no stigma associated with not getting a course you might prefer (and which perhaps for a time you truly were the only one available to teach it). As the scenario has been painted, the dean is way out of line and should be called on it. It is fine for the dean to lend a sympathetic ear, but no competent dean is going to commit to more than simply saying course scheduling is between you and your chair.
hmlowry - March 9, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Yes, I’ve known more than one professor from whom you’d have to pry the course from their “cold dead hands.” One taught not just one, but two courses after their “retirement.” The purpose was to ingratiate the current dean and any who would follow. He lived (and allegedly taught) on achieving Lawrence Peter’s proverbial “level of incompetence.” The job wasn’t hard for him, he had his old notes–the one’s he used 30 years before.
All of us need to know when it’s time to go. My father-in-law, a professor of medicine, had his own standard and publically announced it. He planned to retire on his 67th birthday or when a routine surgery took him more than a certain amount of time. He’d know by that standard that he’d lost it.
He was true to his word and his colleagues and students mourned his departure. He never scrubbed again and his business card said “retired.” He was frequently called upon to speak and he typically declined. He felt he’d left others to carry on in his place. That’s the greatest achievement a teacher/professor can aspire to.
We all should know when it’s time to quit. The rest is hubris.
akprof - March 9, 2011 at 7:42 pm
In my institution the rule is a max of 49% teaching by individuals who have retired from a faculty position – 49% is the threshold that prevents the institution from having to pay benefits beyond workman’s comp and SS. 50% or more requires the payment of health and retirement benefits according to AK state law (possibly federal as well?). And there is no limit to how long it can go on – I just finished six years of 49% contracts and it was me who finally put my foot down and said “I want to be retired” – not the department. Maybe I was just lucky. AT any rate, sleeping in when I want to is sure nice!!
lost_angeleno - March 9, 2011 at 10:54 pm
A facet of this problem not discussed is when old profs retire, and the university deliberately hires people who are demonstrable inferior in the area, but are also cheaper to hire and willing to teach more sections. Some universities are happy to let quality slide, if it enhances the bottom line.
I was the co-founder of an mFff course that came to be recognized as a valuable and integral course for almost all of our (very specialized) major curricula. One of us became a campus-wide consultant in the area for all the major departments. As I approached retirement, new faculty were hired to replace me and the soon-to-retire co-founder. In their work, they are universally inferior to either of we (very experienced and qualified) old-timers. None are interested in consulting with, or even talking with, the faculty in other departments, and certainly not with us (though we are both open and friendly folks). The mFff course they offer is decidedly dumbed-down. The university doesn’t care. The newbies are cheaper and will teach more sections (poorly).
This is the opposite situation to the example in the article, but I wonder if it is not the more common experience in these budget-crunched days. And I wonder if this is not yet one more reason to take our courses seriously primarily as our own works of art that will inevitable be redrawn when we leave. Our satisfaction is not in leaving a legacy, since the institution cares not about such a thing. Our primary satisfaction is that of many serious artists, particularly in theatre: Having created ourselves a great work in itself.
laurencejgillis - March 10, 2011 at 7:55 am
As an adjunct, I live from course to course. Thismeans that I am utterly “tone-deaf” to your concerns here.
tuxthepenguin - March 10, 2011 at 10:33 am
I’ve heard numerous suggestions over the years to encourage retirement. The big concern for many faculty is that they have to completely give up their connection to something they’ve done since they started kindergarten. The academic is different from those in most professions because their life is their job. The borders are not as clear between life and work when you’re a professor. A professor of English does the same thing for leisure that he does for work.
Other suggestions I’ve read:
- Office space (as described in the article) but not individual offices. That way they can chat with other retired professors. There would be a few individual offices available for work requiring quiet.
- A system where retired professors offer short courses that last a few weeks. Students would get one credit, and could count three short courses as one elective.
- Research support, in the form of library access and conference funding. Giving retired professors the opportunity to work on books or articles at school for, say, 12 hours a week means they don’t become disconnected.
- Paying them a small amount to serve as advisors for the department four hours a week. This would not replace advising by full-timers, rather the retired faculty member would help students navigate the web of rules, handle transfer credit, and so on, that full-time faculty hate to deal with. Some retired faculty would also be happy to chat with students, and students like that, so it’s a win-win. The idea is that this would allow the faculty member to more easily give up teaching, because he/she would still be able to interact with students, which is what keeps some of them from retiring.
- Starting an “online press” which publishes books and articles by retired faculty members. If they feel they have something they want to tell the world before calling it quits, the university would give them editorial support to put their thoughts into a freely downloadable book.
- Allow them and their spouse to take as many classes as they want for credit, free of charge.
koufax33 - March 10, 2011 at 10:34 am
The faculty retirement literature from the perspective of the faculty member is rather interesting, supporting several of my colleague’s comments above. One reason that faculty often defer retirement is the impact it may have on the department. If Professor X retires, the course she/he developed 20 years ago goes down the gutter, or they have fears that they will be replaced not with another professor of various tenure stream rank, but by adjunct/contingent faculty who they perceive may do an inferior job.
It’s a tough call for department chairs and deans, particularly since they are rarely trained on handling issues related to retirement other than the financial cost to the institution. My own research on faculty emeriti found that the emeriti “knew when it was time” to retire for a variety of reasons. Sparing you my dissertation, here are the main retirement triggers: life circumstance (mainly health), change (administrative/department), and knowing its time (less productive/desire/allowing new generation).
-SMF
robertkase51 - March 10, 2011 at 10:39 am
When one retires from an institution, they should say goodbye. If they want to continue teaching, find an adjunct position at another institution, but they should definately make the split, (no matter how good or poor they were in the classroom) and move over for the next generation of professors. It should always be about the students, not about the professor. When you’re done, you’re done. Leave, Go Away. Thank you very much, but it is over now.
manitoga - March 10, 2011 at 11:34 am
Just because one retires, doesn’t mean that they can’t do what they love. Many retired faculty (at least at my institution) still retain their library privileges, and they still can publish – albeit they won’t be publishing from their office on campus. As I’ve said before, there comes a time when people need to step aside and think of the needs of others, not just their own. People are making faculty sound like addicts…perhaps a 12 step program might be in order (and I’m only half kidding)
manitoga - March 10, 2011 at 11:36 am
I’ve seen this syndrome on other professions as well; the “if I leave it will all go to hell…” syndrome. Well, perhaps it will, maybe it won’t. One thing is certain, one day you will keel over and die – then the institution/department/whatever will need to come to the realization that they need to do something. It’s better for you to retire on a high note (provided you can financially afford it!) and still have life to live and enjoy, and guess what, if things do go to hell, you’re alive to lend a hand! No one is served if you die while doing your job and then there is no continuity.
westtosouth - March 10, 2011 at 12:01 pm
Some of these comments sound a little harsh. I am only 62, but have health problems. Whether it’s medication or age, I feel my abilities slipping some. I am productive and have respect in my discipline, but I am also tired, loathe my chair, and work in the shadow of younger, more charismatic colleagues. I would love to retire and return to my home region, but I am single, lost some retirement funds, came late into the profession, and simply cannot afford it any time soon. Maybe I have put too much store in my college’s benign treatment of faculty with serious illnesses (such as cancer) but I would like to pull back *a little* until I get to full SS benefit age, although teraching and research are still going strong. I guess I will have to go on trying to work like I am 32. Does some kind of experience and “wisdom” count for nothing, offsetting small losses of energy and innovation? I guess not.
midevilprof - March 10, 2011 at 12:09 pm
So why did you comment?
11129150 - March 10, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Some thoughts: I hope to remember Kenny Rogers — “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.” And also, to remember what I don’t want to hear colleagues saying to me (or thinking at me), as Cromwell said to Parliament and Leo Amery said to Neville Chamberlain — “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” Seriously, though: with luck, I hope to be financially able to step off at 67 ( 3 more years) and not thereafter bug the people I used to work with. Some gathering space for the old folks would be nice (it isn’t likely to happen here anyway), but wouldn’t be as high priority as would faculty library privileges, continuation of the email address, and continuation of faculty gym privileges. Pretty low cost to the institution, on the whole, to give me warmer fuzzies about leaving. I love the place, it’s been a large part of my life, but not all of my life, and I trust that the gap that retirement leaves in my psyche will not prove un-fillable.
11272784 - March 10, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Department chairs are often reluctant to do the obvious. Higher ed faculty are perhaps the most conflict-averse people I have ever met. When it’s time for the course to move, tell the senior prof that it’s going to happen. There’s no need to be uncaring or cruel, but when a change is needed and timely, the chair should go to the dean and negotiate a way out, then communicate that to the faculty member in question.
11129150 - March 10, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Some thoughts: I hope to remember Kenny Rogers — “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.” And also, to remember what I don’t want to hear colleagues saying to me (or thinking at me), as Cromwell said to Parliament and Leo Amery said to Neville Chamberlain — “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” Seriously, though: with luck, I hope to be financially able to step off at 67 ( 3 more years) and not thereafter bug the people I used to work with. Some gathering space for the old folks would be nice (it isn’t likely to happen here anyway), but wouldn’t be as high priority as would faculty library privileges, continuation of the email address, and continuation of faculty gym privileges. Pretty low cost to the institution, on the whole, to give me warmer fuzzies about leaving. I love the place, it’s been a large part of my life, but not all of my life, and I trust that the gap that retirement leaves in my psyche will not prove un-fillable.
11129150 - March 10, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Whoops — second post. Sorry. Memory must be going.
ewd33 - March 10, 2011 at 4:04 pm
One reason that I recently heard for some professors’ reluctance to retire is because they lose their health insurance coverage when they do so. Considering the potential for debilitating health problems in later years, and the cost of insurance for older subscribers, this seems reasonable. I am not sure if that is the sole reason that some do not want to retire, but it may be something that colleges and universities should take into account when they are trying to encourage their venerable professors to become venerable emeritus professors.
artedforall - March 10, 2011 at 6:14 pm
In some ways I am a “victim” of this phenomenon right now. I am that new faculty member full of new ideas and skills that I am more than ready and willing to offer the department and the students. I was promised certain courses and opportunities when I was hired but I’ve been waiting around for a year and a half for these promises to be delivered because someone is lingering where they should have left years ago, and someone else made promises they shouldn’t have in the face of not hurting feelings or because they wanted to “honor the expertise and years of service.”
All that fluff is just a nice way of couching your conflict-avoidance, and it’s really frustrating form my perspective (and yes, I’ve discussed this at length with my Dean who did the promising). There are so many ways I can streamline course content for students, and so many new theories and concepts I could offer students in these courses but I’m not getting the chance to even dip my toe in the water. Instead I sit by the sidelines and teach slightly out of field in the meantime while waiting for my chance. To add insult to injury (because my office opens to my classroom), I get to constantly overhear students’ frustrations about how “out of touch” this prof is and about how confused they are during and after class. Several students have even transfered out of our program or to other schools because of these frustrations, and it’s really heart-breaking to watch knowing I could help and knowing the Dean won’t budge.
I’m not saying that these wise profs should be out on their ears the instant they reach 65. There are many ways I would like to collaborate with my wiser and more experienced colleagues who become emeriti. If I could take over the courses I’ve been promised, I would love to invite her as a guest speaker/lecturer or bring her in on consulting work, etc. But as the situation is now I’m between a rock and a hard place. I really respect my elder colleague, we have a great working relationship so far and I’ve learned a lot from her. We’ve even discussed some of the issues I’ve voiced here. It wasn’t pleasant but she could see I’ve been struggling with this and she asked me to talk to her about it so I did. But I’m certainly not going to confront her any more harshly than I already have. I don’t want to jeopardize our current and future working relationship – plus, why should I have to do my Dean’s dirty work for him? But at the same time, how long can I afford to wait around to be given what I was promised? How long can I put my skills and ideas on ice? Not to mention the quandary the students are in who are paying for a current education.
I know it must not be the easiest conversation for Department Chairs or Deans to have with a colleague they’ve worked amiably with for a long time especially when they have to bring up retiring to someone who is reluctantly facing it regardless of their teaching performance. And I even understand the other side of the coin where some profs may be reluctant to let go of their life’s work, or their passion, or something they spent a long time fighting for and building from the ground up. But isn’t that why when they announce retirement that they usually sit on the hiring committee in the first place – to find a replacement they trust to carry on in some way, someone who will see their wisdom and years of service as an asset, someone who will potentially not cut them out of the loop completely but who will instead want to collaborate with them? As I recall there were several questions in my interviews along those lines!
The other facet of this interesting issue are the many profs on the verge of retiring who are just frankly scared of not being so “needed” anymore or who have unhealthily wrapped their whole identity and purpose for living up in their work/mission/title/career/status. These profs can get very proprietary and can even get down right mean when prodded to think about their post-retirement plans (I’ve seen it several times). So I can imagine that these conversations would be difficult for a Dean/Dept Chair to have with someone acting this way!
But the bottom line is that everyone is replaceable in their job and everyone ages and loses the cutting edge. It’s not pretty but it’s the truth. So why pussy-foot around and make matters worse by not having honest conversations with each other? Or what about putting into place a set of performance reviews for profs who are past the legal retirement age?
I just hope that when/if I reach the point where I’m not being as effective in the classroom as I could be and there’s someone who is more than capable of taking over waiting for the chance, and that someone has the guts to be honest and just tell me it’s time to go! Then again, (and maybe I’m the minority here) even though I’m just starting out in my higher ed teaching career and I have a good 30 years before I get to think about retiring, I’m already looking forward to it too much to want to delay it even by an hour. If I GET to retire at 65 rather than 70 or 72 as is projected by the time I get there I’ll be counting down the days. And as far as I’m concerned the sooner I can retire the better – I plan on doing some amazing and wonderful work in my higher ed career and I’m excited about it all, but I also have lots of other things I want to do with my life too!
Anyways, my situation might be extreme but I thought that maybe by sharing it here someone could benefit from my brief and unfortunate experience. Sadly, I will likely be leaving my university after this semester in search of better opportunities. But you’d better believe that in interview situations where a retirement is involved I will be asking about promises that have been made and agreements in place BEFORE accepting any position this time. I don’t want to spend another 3-4 years waiting around for some other prof’s hands to become cold and dead!
skaking - March 12, 2011 at 3:19 pm
artedforall,
there’s a potential upside here. since you will be judged on your teaching, perhaps leaning (nicely) on your dean and chair and really making the case that had you had the opportunity to teach these courses you would have done x/y/z, and they really need to take that into consideration when evaluating your teaching. because one of the things they will comment on is what new/exciting thing do you bring. talking about it in this way with them and asking them to note that in your evals will go some way, hopefully.
the other thing is, so what if you don’t get that class(es)? if you’re so creative in one, you can be creative in others. your skills are transferable; so transfer them and be happy to teach those classes. and if that doesn’t make you all that happy, then just teach the classes you do have in the way (and in content) to those classes you wanted to teach. they’re really different, you say? so what, i say.
joejoe1 - March 17, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Maybe to let you know how out of touch universities seem when they treat waning older professors with great thoughtfulness and respect while they treat high performing adjuncts like temporary data entry clerks with slow typing speeds.
angel_fernandez - May 3, 2011 at 12:32 am
Estimado Francisco: Muy oportuna tu reflexión sobre el tema de la internacionalización. Estarás de acuerdo conmigo que hay “mucha tela de dónde cortar” sobre este tema. Mientras tanto, sólo quisiera conocer tu opinión sobre aquellas instituciones que han logrado esa transversalidad en la internacionalización en sus funciones sustantivas: ¿existen realmente éstas instituciones? ¿cuáles son? ¿se sabe cómo lo han logrado? ¿se han documentado sus experiencias?
Saludos cordiales.
conahec4u - May 6, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Estimado Angel: Agradezco tu amable comentario. Por supuesto que existen este tipo de universidades aunque son muy contadas. Naturalmente que el grado de transveralidad que han logrado no es completo pero cuando menos han sentado las bases para un robusto desarrollo0 en la materia. Curiosamente una de ellas, la Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM) se encuentra ubicada en Mexico. Francisco Marmolejo