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This discussion is closed. This is a transcript.
The great divideAuthor: Colloquy ModeratorDate: 05-22-03 19:10 At a number of colleges, faculty members have questioned the large gaps between salaries paid to professors in professional schools, and salaries paid to everyone else. Officials of business, law, and medical schools say that they must pay their professors substantially more than what other professors earn because of the tight competition for talent, and because of the availability of jobs outside academe with high salaries. But some faculty members who are not in professional fields say that the large gaps hurt morale and devalue their work. Some faculty members have urged that professors who are not highly compensated receive preference for raises, but others say this approach is not realistic. Should colleges try to limit these salary gaps? Are these gaps problematic? Read more ... Re: The great divide Author: DE Teodoru RVCC Date: 05-22-03 23:56 I cannot understand how this can be an issue of debate. In the 1960s students were FORCED to take absurd "social science" intro courses, more to keep faculty employed, that voluntarily would attract no one. Today, with these faculty members tenured, the course requirements are no longer so stringent. As a result, social sciences and humanities are gravely anemic in lecture halls. Given the cost vs. return of that slop, one can wonder how the profs make a living! But there they are, demanding big bucks like the professional school profs. So, when comparing what a "professional" gets back for his/her tuition investment with what a professorial student gets back for his/her tuition investment, one can hardly view this as anything but robbery. But now the profs want the kind of pay professional school faculty draws without having to draw in students the way professional schools do. We go from security and no accountabilty to artificial value, even though to most citizens-- the paying public-- what social science and humanities programs do is social untredeaming crap! Make your value felt and then you can ask for more than toleration from those whose tuition makes up your salaries. Or, would you expect funds to be scraped off the revenues of the professional schools to raise your salaries? Before that ever happens, dear profs, you'll have to convince a lot of people that what you do has redeamable value. Can you do that? Re: The great divide Author: Glenn E. Meyer Date: 05-23-03 09:54 The points are well made in the piece. One simple point - since many of the highly paid areas also have the opportunity for fairly easy consulting opportunities, let that be their extra income. Their base pay should be in accord with that of the ordinary folk. Then go and make money. Don't ask it from the hide of the rest of us. You get a nice free office, retirement, benefits, etc. You would have to pay for these from your business income if you were not associated with a university. So be happy you get these and can make so much outside money. That's your reward. I would also argue that free standing professional schools of business could develop to teach the little darlings away from those pesky other disciplines. Just teach business and nothing else. Charge the tutition that will generate the income that business profs deserve (if other fields are worthless in the eyes of the business prof). Seriously, it is difficult to keep up morale when a chosen profession tells you that they are off to some lucrative consulting gig. When you need a new position that starts at $45K but you have to offer $42K as we need more start up for business or CS. If one just argues that a chosen set of professional programs are the only worthwhile ones, then let market forces generate pricing. Who needs philosophers? I find it hard to tell anyone to go into college teaching nowadays. Re: The great divide Author: John Garner Date: 05-23-03 10:12 Dr. Teodoru, It is indeed a marvelous day when one wakes up and smells the coffee. Unless, of course, one does not care for coffee. An Professor of Education that I had as an undergraduate, (after I became a radiologic technologist), had an axiom that I will call Elrod's progression... Those who can do, do. Those who cannot do, teach. Those who cannot teach, teach teachers. It is cruel, but it is more truth than poetry. But, nonetheless, I have learned a lot from these folk. Much of what I learned from them was not in the curriculum... Re: The great divide Author: Marc Miller, Assoc. Prof. Augusta State University Date: 05-23-03 10:14 As a Business Professor, I can say that I receive a tremendous amount of criticism from my colleagues in other schools. I don't necessarily blame them, but when I am asked to justify my salary, I ask the question: "What would you have me do...give the money back....would you do the same?" I then point out that a Chemistry prof makes more than an English prof. Should they (the English prof) demand equity...or should the Chemistry prof offer half of his salary to make up the difference? Of course, these are not serious suggestions. However, I do offer a suggestion that several of my Business school colleagues have done: change professions. One Management professor retooled his Political Science degree into an Organizational Behavior degree. He tripled his salary. I know of a Math professor who went back and received a PhD in Finance. Same basic skill sets, just simply applied math. Again, tripled his salary. One of the more prominent researchers in Information Technology is a former English professor. He quadrupled his salary after going back and getting a second PhD in Information Systems. If you can't beat them...join them! :) Just deal with it Author: Patrick Jung, Adjunct Date: 05-23-03 10:22 Dr. Teodoru has hit the proverbial nail on the head. Once again, many pie-in-the-sky academics want to live in an imaginary world where wicked things like market forces do not exist, and where everyone, regardless of the skills they possess, will be paid the same. Unfortunately for these poor, misguided souls, the job market is real, it places a greater value upon people who can teach law and finance rather than comparative literature or history. Once suspects that many of these academics have read too much of Karl Marx, or perhaps St. Thomas More. The ugly truth of the matter is that there are far more people in this world with advanced degrees in the humanities and the social sciences than there are jobs for them. Therefore, with such an over abundance, the Law of Supply and Demand kicks in, whether anyone likes it or not, and those professors are paid what the market has deemed their skills to be worth. And let's face it, many aspiring academics in this world who yearn for tenure track jobs are willing to accept positions where the pay is abysmally low. When they do that, they only reinforce the already entrenched behavior of the job market. Professors in the professional fields, on the other hand, demand higher salaries because the market has deemed their skills to be worth more. Not only are their services in higher demand (even the most simple-minded undergraduate knows that law and finance are more lucrative fields than comparative literature or history), their services are also in shorter supply. Having a law degree or a Ph.D. in finance opens up many doors in the private sector, and many high-paying doors at that. Granted, the academic life has many attractions that the private sector cannot match, but the best talent costs money, so universities have pony up. I think academics in the humanities and social sciences ought to quit their whining and deal with reality. They are not going to create some academic utopia that ignores very real and very powerful market forces. And, before anyone accuses me of being a philistine, I have a Ph.D. in history. I am also one of the legions of newly-minted Ph.D.s who has been unable to secure an academic position because 1) there are only a limited number of such positions, and 2) there is a tremendous amount of competition for those positions due to the large number of qualified applicants. So, I think academics in the humanities and the social sciences who have academic positions should count their blessings. There are many persons like me who would gladly take their places, low pay and all. Re: The great divide Author: SUNY Brockport Date: 05-23-03 10:41 Part of this answer depends on whether or not colleges should follow a socialist or capitalist model, whether the ideal of diversity only applies to race and gender categories, and whether values of society should be allowed into the academy. Does the uniquenss of higher education justify the elimination of the "great divide?" I don't know, and I am open to hearing views on this topic. This is an issue at our college, and I would like to see an open discussion and reasonable resolution to this growing problem that seems to become more heated especially during times of scare resources. Re: The great divide Author: Newman Date: 05-23-03 11:11 Once again - it might be helpful in this debate to ask a more fundamental question - why are professionals schools on univeristy campuses? Business, medical, and law schools are less in the business of education and more in the business of professional credentialing. They should be free standing institutions as there is no a priori reason for them to be affilated with a college or university. In truth, this is already the case with most medical schools whose campuses are almost always physically and intellectually isolated from their "main campus". Medical school professors usually raise their salaries from research grants and/or clinical practice - and how much they are paid in salary has almost nothing to do with their performance of what fills the day of more traditional faculty. Business schools should really not be on university campuses - they have more in common with certificate-awarding institutions than with the philosophical basis of a university education. Law schools probably fall in-between these two. Hotel management schools, allied health professional schools, etc should all be independent and not pretending to be allied with liberal arts education. Re: The great divide Author: Gary F. Strickland, Adjunct LSUS Date: 05-23-03 12:22 It is a myth that professional school professors command higher salaries because of competetion with the private sector. The professors I personally knew in law school told me, in occasional moments of frankness, that they taught because they either hated practicing law or failed miserably at it. The private sector competition argument reminds of me of the bogus argument by physcians and sugeons that they are entitled to their million-dollar a year salaries because they went to school for 7-10 years. Its funny that the same argument doesn't apply to Ph.D's. Teodoru and Jung both make good points. The low salaries for academic professors compared to professional school professors, particularly those in the humanities, merely reflect the low value the American public places on academics versus job training. The prevailing American philosophy of education has always been pragmatism. Value lies in practical application and production. College subjects and courses that don't teach job related skills are increasingly seen as useless--a remnant of the University of the Middle Ages and early Rennaissance. Thus, Philosophy departments are shrinking or disappearing in many colleges and smaller universities across the country. Those remaining justify their existence by teaching Bioethics or some other form of Applied Ethics. Technical writing is now the raison d'etre for English Departments once devoted to the study of literature. The trend is unmistakeably obvious--if your teaching field does not teach a money-making skill, it has no value. As an adjunct professor in English and Philosophy, who like Jung, would love to teach full time, I've felt the wrath of full-time professors who blame adjuncts for the low salaries and disappearing positions. Unfortunately, they are partly correct. The existence of adjuncts in a department generally means that, despite course demand, the university administrators don't want to allocate money for a full-time professor. The fact of the matter is, the administrators place so low a value on the course that they don't think it is even worth the already pitably low salary of a full time instructor. So they require department heads to hire adjuncts. The truth is that our universities have failed miserably in their sacred purpose to teach virtue, preserve culture and disseminate knowledge. Rather, they have chosen to become institutions of job training and sports enterprise. Looking at the level of virtue, cultural awareness and education of our current political leaders, it is a regrettable decision. Re: The great divide Author: Anon 2 Date: 05-23-03 12:52 I can't speak for those in law or business, but I do know that most faculty members who work at medical schools (particulary those who are MD's), are asked not only to teach and conduct research, but they are also required to fulfill so many hours of clinical responsibilities (in fact, most physicians I know have to work at least half time in the clinic, despite any teaching and research responsibilities). These responsibilities are not confined to the time when classes are in session, and are no optional during the summer months (so they could spend more time on research). Also, almost any faculty member I work with could quit and find a job that pays twice as much the next day. Re: The great divide Author: edward biersmith northeast louisiana retired Date: 05-23-03 15:30 Dear Sir: This entire subject is made moot by the $90 million shoe contract high school basketball player turned pro labrone james has signed with Nike Inc. This deal confirms once and for all how totally irrelevant a college education is Just close the colleges and give a basketball to every kid in grade school and high school and tell them to go for it! Re: The great divide Author: DE Teodoru Date: 05-23-03 16:01 Prof. Gardner: Those who can do do-- and often they do without knowing why they do! Take a lot of surgeons, your fellow radiologists or some morphologic pathologists....They report on what they see or manipulate what's there. They are expert HOW people, but blind as to WHY. I propose that if social sciences were more oriented to a philosophical dialogue of their data and theories, they might prove one hell of a lot more meaningful and useful to our society. But, riding on the backs of the useful, these useless self-centered hedonists have invented degree programs for themselves that-- as I have seen to my chagrin lately-- take bright undergraduates and turn them into dumb ideologues. Such people prove useless to our society and end up unemployed. When the young grad students finally finish jumping hoops and get their PhDsa, looking for jobs they find the cupboard bare because the old farts left nothing there. These olf lefties are now safely and comfortably retired on their Keoe stockmarket plans while their students are driving cabs. So, the ones who still work want to be payed as much as the professional school faculty that educate for important jobs that earn and do good? OUTRAGEOUS!!!!! Great Suggestion! Author: Anon Again Date: 05-23-03 18:26 [quote] However, I do offer a suggestion that several of my Business school colleagues have done: change professions. One Management professor retooled his Political Science degree into an Organizational Behavior degree. He tripled his salary. [/quote] That is a great suggestion. Of course it means focusing on working as a teacher rather than indulging your interests. Which is the real great divide. But you make the excellent point that most with real skills can, if they are willing to give up the dillitantism of the soft sciences, etc., earn more money. Re: Just deal with it -- Great Point Author: Anon Again Date: 05-23-03 18:30 Patrick Jung, Adjunct wrote: "Once suspects that many of these academics have read too much of Karl Marx, or perhaps St. Thomas More. > the best talent costs money, so universities have pony up. I think academics in the humanities and social sciences ought to quit their whining and deal with reality. They are not going to create some academic utopia that ignores very real and very powerful market forces. So, I think academics in the humanities and the social sciences who have academic positions should count their blessings. There are many persons like me who would gladly take their places, low pay and all." Excellent point. Let those who are complaining leave academe and be replaced by those who are eager for their jobs. It seams an excellent suggestion. It would revitalize the fields, clear out the dead wood, inject fresh blood and discharge the duty of good faith and fair dealing that the dead wood owes the students they battened off of and then sent out into a world without job openings. 100% fair all around. Re: The great divide Author: Anon Again Date: 05-23-03 18:32 Newman wrote: "Once again - it might be helpful in this debate to ask a more fundamental question - why are professionals schools on university campuses? They are attached to university campuses because they generate revenue for the university. They are, even for most state schools, profit centers. The salaries for the professors at such schools would only go up if they were detached." Re: The great divide Author: Anon Again Date: 05-23-03 18:35 Gary F. Strickland, Adjunct LSUS wrote: "It is a myth that professional school professors command higher salaries because of competetion with the private sector. The professors I personally knew in law school told me, in occasional moments of frankness, that they taught because they either hated practicing law or failed miserably at it." I'd suggest you visit the AALS or the meat market for aspiring law profs. 50% of the law profs come from the top 10% of the graduating classes at about seven schools. Current placement for the students in those brackets averages over $140k a year. No doubt that at fourth tier schools the older profs fit the description you give of them. That is like comparing community college teachers (many of whom are excellent -- in general they seem to be better *at teaching* than other educators) to those at a Research 1 institution Re: The great divide between payer & payee Author: DE Teodoru Date: 05-23-03 20:06 Hey, acads.... Profs in proff schools get payed to ENABLE youths to EARN money at PROFESSIONS Profs in social science and humanities programs know that most of their students are there because it is ***required course***. So, they treat them like a captive audience, taking out on them everything they have against society from their rejection in high school for pimples to their world socialist revolution. It is funny how "brave" acads are on campus and what turds they are in the real world. Since most are acads because they don't want to face the riggors the most basic citizen faces, they will not jeoperdize their academic bubble. But do they care? Just watch how little the "minorities sensitivity" courses teachers and the "Black Studies" teachers don't give a damn when a minority student is getting into academic trouble. I'm there-- when I might be out to dinner or at a cocktail party-- TUTORING those who bother to put in the extra efforts. My life is SECOND to their getting over the hump. Why? Because to my mind a professor is like a priest: IN THE BUSINESS OF HELPING RISE UP THE FALLEN....I refuse to get payed because I don't want to be owned by the cruds who run academia....NOW THAT'S ONE HELL OF AN EXCITING RETIREMENT, I asure you. But I get a bit bent out of shape when the secure social basket cases with PhD in blah-blah demand equal pay to those who teach USEFUL things, Am I mad? ALL ANSWERS WELCOMED: deteodoru@yahoo.com Re: The great divide Author: Robert Schwartz, None, Independent Date: 05-23-03 22:17 "why are professionals schools on univeristy campuses? Business, medical, and law schools are less in the business of education and more in the business of professional credentialing. They should be free standing institutions as there is no a priori reason for them to be affilated with a college or university." The fact is that the first universities organized in the 12th and 13th centuries in places like Bolgna and Pisa, began with faculties of law and medicine. de Tocquville observed long ago, but quite correctlly, that Americans preffered practical studies and were not attracted to systems of abstract ideas. When you do not have a stong hand to play. It is better to be pleasant, fold and offer to refill the beers and chips. Re: The great divide Author: gerald garvey, claremont, assoc prof Date: 05-24-03 11:25 Thanks to Anon Again for dismantling most of the foolish complaints against professional schools. Even after the higher salaries are paid, we contribute $ to the other schools. My class sizes (I am a finance prof, a retooled economist) are more than quadruple the average in humanities at my institution. However, there are two objections that deserve more attention. As the colloquy on the new MBA indicates a lot of what goes on at business schools (including the most prestigous) is shallow and pretentious. Of course, that is also the case of much of the humanities. If you want to complain about the intellectual weaknesses of B-schools, you will have to raise your own game. Some folks have also noted that many professional school profs could NOT command high salaries in the private sector. Good point. One reason is that it is awfully hard for a dean or president to tell who does and who does not have a credible threat of going outside if the pay is not adequate. But I for one think it would be a good idea for some schools to push a lot harder on this issue. The fact that someone has a finance degree does not mean they are necessarily all that marketable. Just be aware that this may lead to even larger disparities in pay. Re: Just deal with it -- Great Point Author: Social Science Instructor Date: 05-24-03 11:46 Let those who are complaining leave academe and be replaced by those who are eager for their jobs. It seams an excellent suggestion. It would revitalize the fields, clear out the dead wood, inject fresh blood and discharge the duty of good faith and fair dealing that the dead wood owes the students they battened off of and then sent out into a world without job openings. 100% fair all around. If we stopped exploiting adjuncts in every field and hired full-time people to meet course demand, we would find that we would be injecting fresh blood. Our problem would be solved. Re: The great divide Author: Val Hoskins Date: 05-24-03 12:03 Hi. I find myself in an interesting situation as a full-time faculty educator at Gibbs College in Montclair, NJ in the Visual Communications Dept. Gibbs is owned by a for-profit business named Career Education Corporation, who purchased a number of institutions that train and educate people to staff secure industries like Visual Communications (the largest money maker at my college), Hotel Motel Management, Computer Programming and Networking, Hotel & Motel Management, Accounting and others. Although Gibbs is a professional school, it actually functions more like a hybrid business-academic institution, mainly attracting low income students directly from high schools, or working people who need to make a career change. It offers a 12 month certificate program and a 18 month associate degree. I am committed to the students I teach, yet at the same time, I often get stressed due to the school's weird identity. I want to say: What are you? A business school or an academic institution? Gibbs is pushing toward academic accreditation running the faculty ragged to meet Middlestates and ACICS standards. However, our salaries are terribly below the standard, we have no office space, no union, and teachers are constantly complaining to each other. My comment is usually: Find another job. It's easier for me because I have my own business, and have found a way to integrate the two by securing business-education partnership opportunties for my senior print and web design classes. They gain client-based experience that helps them be more successful gaining entry-level jobs. Anyway . . . He's yet another experience to share. Good discussion. Val Hoskins President, The Pursuit Studio Faculty, Gibbs College email: val.hoskins@thepursuitstudio.com email: vhoskins@njgibbscollege.net cost allocations Author: David Foster Date: 05-24-03 12:37 If it costs substantially more to hire professors in Law or Business than professors in History or Philosophy, then perhaps this cost should be reflected in tuition differences. Otherwise, a cross-subsidy arrangement is implicitly in effect. And it seems unreasonable for future history professors to be subsidizing future law firm partners and corporate VPs... Re: The great divide and Schwartz Author: DE Teodoru RVCC Date: 05-24-03 22:34 Wow, wow, wow...that Schwartz is right!!!!! There is no question about it: Medical schools also get the best intellectual minds and then turn them to $$$ hungry idiots making decisions from look-up-tables or following rigid algorithms in Harrisson's so as not to attract the lawyers. And only the cream is taken into med school, mind you! Meanwhile medical residency programs are monitored and squeezed out so as not to create a "glut of hungry competitors." Business schools teach nonesense-- so much so that the Business World has decided to train their own execs. Law Schools, of course, introduce students to ethics. But that's only because it makes for such good dirty jokes! Point is that the professions have not created professionals to serve, like the military, but to make lots of $$$. Yet, the "hands on" part of the training is abuse as a free pair of hands, not ars a young mind eager to learn. And, at least in medicine clerkship, it is like the "hazzing" those girls got on video that the press has made so much of-- the price you pay now so that you can do it to others later. Please let me confess....A world without social theory, thinking and research is a dark, dark world. But America which doesn't give a damn if 83% of its citizens haven't got a clue what calculus is, has always seen education as canibalistic opportunity for the professionals to exploit the up and coming new kids. The social sciences differ from the rest in that there are no "real world" sign posts to distinguisn nutty academics from psychpathic ones. And so it shows in their usefullness. Afterall, who needs the Rutgers Anthropology Dept. head who screws grad students for stipens and gets "canned" by getting payed his full salary to the expected normal retirement date plus full pension? Now there's a real case of violation of the "you play, you pay" rule! I wish history and othewr forms of intellectual ventures would be appreciated and properly renumerated. But the farts that run these depatments insisted on NO STANDARDS, like science grant applications have to meet, and so the bozzos rule. Now we without PhDs in these nebulous social sciences are free toi do what wee want because we accept starving to death like 19th Century artists or do that after a long productive life. And, we don't need the "peer review" daisy chains (you ooh-ahhh my book, I'll oooh-ahh your book). that today kills strees so as to smear white paper with crap. Perhaps I sound too much like a Harvard SDSer...We'll dear acads, that was YOU twenty years ago. Since then you took the tenure bate and now are stuck strangling your minds for your body's comfort. Well, blame no one. Instead, remember how everyone listened attentively to you in the "60s when you were young and what a jerkoff they think you are now that you are bald. Whose falt is that? THERE IS STILL HOPE.....As you used to say when you were young idealist students: START BEING RELEVANT, and maybe you'll get at least more recognition if not $$$ like the professional school profs. you might be surprised what turns out to be relevant Author: humanities prof Date: 05-25-03 13:55 I'd just like to interject, for all of those who claim salaries should be based on the "practicality" or "relevance" what what people teach, that what turns out to be practical or relevant may not always be immediately obvious. Before September of 2001, who had a clue that scholars of Islam would be in high demand? And, medieval history, especially that of the Crusades, suddenly seems surprisingly "practical" to know. Who would have thought, huh? The humanities may well turn out to be more valuable (in every sense of the term) than the general population--as well as some of my colleagues--think at the moment. Re: cost allocations and Foster Author: DE Teodoru RVCC Date: 05-25-03 16:32 Foster's argument sounds interesting but is rather sophistic. Considering the percentage of students who pay professional school and pre-professional tuition, as opposed to those who pay to studies arts and humanities, and considering the fact that more and more universities run on funds aquired via tuition, the percentage of total tuition funds allocated to paying for the running of blah-blah faculties is far higher that tuition income from these institutions. Again, the issue ie ***RELEVANCY***! The problem is that non-professional faculty are not payed on the basis of their draw. And, they subsist by making MANDATORY idiotic versions of materials that one should have aquired a taste for in childhood. The European system provides you all you need to be a cultured pearl by the end of high school. "University" is something you go to to aquire mastery of your chosen profession. The absurdity of Foster's view is one more clue as to how arts and social science faculties, like the proverbial dodo bird, fly in ever concentric circles of illogic until they fly up their own rectum and disappear. I may rough on them because I feel a great need for them to thrive for the good of our society. But to do that, they cannot appeal to their "academic freedom" to act as infantile imbeciles but to their USEFULNESS to the culute of our society-- to do that they will have to do better than works of art such as Jesus crucified upsidedown in a vat of urine. Re: cost allocations Author: gerald garvey, claremont Date: 05-26-03 19:37 Differential tuition already occurs at many private schools like mine. Not explicitly (all students pay an insanely high price) but through financial aid. Almost none of our B-school students get financial aid, almost of the humanities students do. Plus we have class sizes 4 times larger on average. None of this is to argue against higher fees for professional schools. Just to point out that I do not know of any school anywhere where professional schools are subsidized by the others. The fallacy of market values Author: Susan Feiner Date: 05-27-03 06:23 I write on this topic as an economist deeply sceptical of arguments that justify the very high salaries of business, law, medicine, and engineering faculty. If these folks could actually get these very high salaries, let them go out on the job market and get them. If they are actually deciding on careers in the university, and $$$ are a principle motivation, then I wonder if they should be teaching. How many lawyers, engineers, top business executives, or doctors do you know who have the kind of personal free time (sure it's supposed to be used for research, but once tenured there is no greater distance between the engineering professor and golf course than any other professor and the golf course), flexible schedules, and freedom to pursue whatever is of interest, that professors have? Is it sometimes necessary to pay a premium to hire to a "star?" Yes. Does this mean that in general faculty in the professional schools deserve the salary premiums they get? No. I bet there are lots of engineers, business folks, lawyers and even doctors who would be very interested in careers in the university if all those professors, so convinced of their market worth, quit in search of higher salaries. This would probably be a good thing. Re: you might be surprised what turns out to be relevant Author: Flabberghasted Date: 05-27-03 07:23 Utterly ridiculous and self-serving claim. September 11 proved that Middle Eastern Studies departments REFUSE to deal in basic facts that don't accord with pre-approved ideology and are ***completely irrelevant*** to modern society and politics. They simply will not entertain any observation that does not conform to their abstract and mindless glorification of victims. You need to pick up a newspaper and/or professional journals once in a while. You are so out of touch with basic facts that it is laughable. I simply cannot believe that this is a serious topic of discussion. Humanities faculty get paid an obscene amount and furnish nothing of value in exchange. I agree with several posters here: Go out and try and survive in the real world, where competence, intelligence, and accomplishment count. You'll be tucking tail in seconds and crawling back. Time for a good reality check. Concentric circles of illogic Author: David Foster Date: 05-27-03 09:15 Teodoru says..."The absurdity of Foster's view is one more clue as to how arts and social science faculties, like the proverbial dodo bird, fly in ever concentric circles of illogic..." Just to clarify, I am not now and have never been a member of any "arts or social science faculty." I am an experienced business executive, and write from that perspective. My point in this post was not either to defend or to attack any aspect of present-day arts and social science teaching, but to point out an aspect of financial management which is common to all organizations--the issue of cost allocation. The fact that I have some serious concerns about the state of what was once called "the liberal arts" should not prevent me from pointing out a possible issue in how costs are allocated to these activities. It's sad that much of academia has become so polemical that every comment must be perceived as attacking or endorsing some predefined package of ideas. The Great Divide Author: Jack Chin, Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati Date: 05-27-03 10:03 I certainly can understand why professors in other departments want to earn more, but there are a couple of factual points which I do not think have been made. 1. Law, medical and business students do not generally get tuition waivers or stipends, so those going into teaching in those areas often have tens or hundreds of thousands in student loans to pay off. My understanding is that most Ph.D. students are supported. 2. Legal education is mass graduate education. It is not uncommon to teach two classes of 60 in a semester. It is not clear to me that law professors are paid any more than arts & sciences profs in other graduate programs on a credit hour/student basis. 3. Of course professional schools could fill the faculty lines more cheaply, but that is true even for all disciplines, right? The competition for good students is intense; students want to go to law schools with excellent faculties. So a school that wants good students and wants to be competitive in U.S. News has to pay market rates. Law faculty with good records who are underpaid move to more competitive schools. 4. As has been mentioned, most law students either pay full tuition or get scholarships financed by the law school, and most law schools operate in the black. To cut pay of law professors to subsidize other departments would make the donors and students justifiably angry; surely future applicants would vote with their feet and go to schools where more of their tuition dollars stayed in the school. It is hard for me to see why a university administration would do that to a program that was paying its bills. 5. The quality of those entering law teaching in the last ten years has been astonishing. About 1000 people apply though the central hiring meeting, about 10% on average get jobs. Many candidates are not competitive, but I don't think any significant number of successful candidates lack the personality or credentials to make substantial salaries outside academia; the typical successful candidate is a top graduate of an Ivy League law school, or Michigan, Virginia, Stanford or Chicago, with a clerkship for a federal judge, and practice experience with a elite law firm, or elite public service--Justice Department, ACLU, Legal Aid Society of New York. These people have enormous market power. The bottom line is I don't see the case that professional school pay as a category is based on charity; it seems like a successful operation of market forces. Re: you might be surprised what turns out to be relevant Author: humanities prof again Date: 05-27-03 10:14 I would suggest that "flabberghasted" take a look at some newspapers and professional journals herself / himself before claiming intelligence, competence, and skill carry the day in the "real world." Ever heard of Enron? WorldCom? I think recent events should make us extremely wary of holding up the "real world" (defined as the corporate world of business evidently) as the model to which we should all aspire and as the ultimate arbiter of "value." To forestall the accusations I can see coming since I have the temerity to speak against the greatness of the "real world," for the record, I'm not a Marxist or anticapitalist at all. In fact, I have worked outside a university setting in the "real world," where my skills as a writer and editor are in demand with the very newspapers and professional journals with which "flabberghasted" suggests I am so out of touch. By the way, there's no "h" in flabbergasted--maybe she / he needs the skills of someone like me! Pay differentials in academia Author: Junius W. Peake Professor of Finance Date: 05-27-03 10:24 My mother taught me not to worry about what other people were paid, but to look at my own pay and determine whether it was appropriate for my contribution to society. If not, I should look elsewhere for a job. I belive that was good advice, and offer it to everyone in this colloquy. Re: Pay differentials in academia Author: Ova Pade Date: 05-27-03 10:53 Junius, My father put it more bluntly..."If you don't like your job, quit....otherwise, shut up!" I've seen this from both sides. I taught in a sociology department for 4 years before moving into a business school. These are both state schools in a low-paying state. Now I teach 9 hours/semester instead of 12 and I make twice as much money still as an assistant prof. (and I'm still about $20K below AACSB averages). So should I feel overpaid because I make more than the average full prof in Arts & Sciences, or should I feel underpaid because I'm $20K below my peers? I actually feel fairly paid (neither under nor over) because I was willing to accept this job at this rate and they were willing to pay this rate. I also finally feel as if I'm accomplishing something. In the sociology dept. (and other liberal arts depts. I've seen), we spent most of our time moaning about our sad state of affairs. In the business school, we're too busy WORKING to complain. Misconceptions Author: Med School Professor Date: 05-27-03 11:27 As a medical school professor at a level 1 research university, I would like to reply to some misconceptions about our situation. I also think of the story of a woman who complained that a handmade quilt cost too much, and the quiltmaker said to her, "Why don't you sew a quilt, and then see how much you would charge for it?" 1. My colleagues and I are expected to generate the majority of their own salaries from clinical revenue or from research grants. I have generated 95-100% of my salary from outside sources. 2. Medical school profesors generally have more than 7-10 years of higher education. College (4 years) Med school (4 years) Residency (4 to 7 years), Fellowship or research training (2-5 years) is typical before obtaining an entry level faculty position. 3. Our situation differs from PhDs also because of the enormous debt the typcial medial student incurs (equivalent to the mortgage on a house). 3. Medical schools run on a 12 month schedule not a 9 month schedule. Having a summer off is unheard of. 4. Clinical departments provide clinical services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year in the emergency room and the hospital. A faculty level person must be available to come in, and in some departments, is required to stay in the hospital while on call. Re: The great divide Author: Anon Grad Student Date: 05-27-03 14:24 This discussion is timely and intersting. So many points I would like to make, but will confine myself to a few for now: First, I think it is a mistake to bundle Business in with Law and Medicine for purposes of this discussion. Law and Medicine are traditional "professions" (based on extensive and technical requisite bodies of knowledge, and practiced only by those with specific credentials who have also passed certain exams, maintained their status through continuing education etc.). It is likely that a majority of professors in medical and law schools could (and often do!) also practice their professions at an exceptionally high level. With Business things are murkier. I could reference some comments by disgruntled MIT MBA students in an earlier colloquy to anecdotally support this contention. In the case of business, it seems research-oriented academics toil more at the esoteric edges of a very loosely defined collection of "real-world" careers. Quantitative finance may be one of the only B-school research areas that require mastery of a extensive, technical body of knowledge -- the parameters of which are always changing, but perhaps with some reasonable consenses emerging at each point in time. And it is an area in which academic research per se is utilized heavily in the private sector. What is ironic is that outside of areas like quantitative finance, accounting and business law the non market-based justifications people often give for low salaries in arts & sciences (ie., group-think trend-following, sheer vacuousness of much "thought," painfuly low standards for student intellectual performance) is so much more pronounced in B-schools than elsewhere on campus that it is often a running joke, considerably to the detriment of MBA students -- often from developing countries and completely unaware of the how a B-school education (that is the *education* not the credential, which does have value) is viewed in the US. Finally, with respect to practicality or forseeable applicability of research I'm sure many would agree that a huge amount of work in the pure sciences and mathematics has considerably more value than much B-school drivel and yet these areas tend to be pretty poorly compensated when done under the auspices of a grad school of arts and sciences. This I guess is just a long way of getting 'round to the conclusion that the compensation differentials are, like many things in society, a complicated artifice that arises from the poltics, mores, values and requirements of our society at this time. There is no special timeless, placeless lesson to be drawn about the relative merits of cerebral pursuits of this kind of of that. Right now there is a special value accruing to those who receive nonresearch credentials issued by schools of business, law, engineering and medicine -- possibly a very reasonably outgrowth of the fact that higher ed in America has become more accessible and hence a greater number of its students must concern themselves with acquiring concrete credentials of clear value in their postacedimc lives. Is B-school research (ie., business academia rather than B-school credentialing) on average more substantive, more timeless, more beneficial to society than that conducted in the pure sciences, the social sciences or the humanities. Probably not. But compensation, inside and outside of academia, never really has been some kind of merit-badge for one's overall value or utility. There are shifty used car salesmen that earn more than the president of the United States, sleazy ambulance chasers that earn more than earnest public prosecutors and defense attorneys etc., etc. Re: The fallacy of market values Author: gerald garvey, claremont Date: 05-27-03 19:16 Some valuable points emerging, eh? Susan Feiner makes my original point far better than I did. Hey, B-School Deans, there are lots of profs in your school to whom you do NOT have to pay that premium. And if you say that you are compressing pay inside the B-School for collegiality's sake, be aware that that argument can bite back at the level of the entire University. Of course, you'd expect me to say that as a quant finance academic with no Dean-aspirations who is going on leave to work in the private sector next year..... Anon Grad student is dead-right about pay not being a barometer of virtue or anything like that. I for one feel blessed and fortunate that businesspeople are willing to pay for what I do, and do not expect this to continue indefinitely unless I work at it. Junius Peake gives what I think should be the last word on this. Worrying about what others get is a waste of your time and I seem to recall it also being a sin. Re: So you want high salary? Author: Jay Simon Retired prof Date: 05-27-03 20:59 The so called professional schools, for example, business AACSB, medicine AMA, engineering ABET etc., for the most part behave like a cartel by their accrediting organizations. They have stringent requirements who can join and muster their credentialing mentality. This cartel mentality mischievously manipulates the law of supply and demand. Sensing this phenomena early in my career, I switched from chemistry ABD (too many post docs!) to business PhD in information systems, a successful academic career, and now retirement. If the other disciplines want to raise the salaries of their faculties, then they have to organize themselves like a cartel. Otherwise whining nonstop, even if hell freezes, will not get them anywhere. Re: The great divide Author: Humanities Prof-Applied Ethics Date: 05-27-03 23:59 I second many of the thoughts expressed here by both the professional school faculty and the humanities faculty. As an ethics professor, my "home department" is in the humanities, but I also regularly teach in the B-School and in the Medical School. So, I have a bit of perspective from each side. Unfortunately (for me!) my discipline does not command the same salary as my colleagues in Business or Medicine. I understand the market forces at work, and frankly, I see the justification-to a point. I also understand the utilitarian justification for it. And, lest we forget it, even thought the university is "non-profit" that doesn't mean that it can run in the red. So, I expect some difference. My issue comes back to the basic question of what the university actually teaches to its students. In my experience, with the exception of the usual top 10%, professional degree students are just not very good critical thinkers. They will regurgitate, but not process ideas very well, unless they are "concrete." As a rule, they lack a perspective on the history of ideas, and how it can be "applied" to contemporary challenges. I do agree that much of what passes for liberal arts education stinks! Faddish ideas have displaced the goal of educating students about the ideas that have created our society. It seems to me that that is the meeting point for the professional programs and the liberal arts. Is it a purely utilitarian goal? No! It is not easily quanitified, but it is certaintly needed, on both the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels. That is the value of a liberal arts education, and if it is done well, then the university should make some effort to quantify it and to compensate liberal arts faculty accordingly. The reason that they don't is because most universities fail to see its purpose any longer. Re: Concentric circles of illogic Author: DE Teodoru Date: 05-28-03 11:15 My dear Prof. Foster, May I extend to you deep appologies and add to your criticism of me: RIGHT ON!!? I *should* consider the issue of equal salaries for equal worth, not just use the occaision to slam academia....YES INDEED, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES ACADEMICS ARE WORTH AS MUCH AS ANY OF US IN THE PROFESSIONAL FIELDS TO MANKIND AND THE DIRECTION IN WHICH IT GOES. I would be the last to say the opposite, for I have grown up under a system where art was deemed "decadent" and subversive, much as calculus had once been seen as a secret code of class enemies. But for me the issue is that academics-- who are to the mind what clergy is to the soul-- are thinking more of themselves these days than those upon whom they act. At various clloquy debates here I have tried to say that the STUDENT IS EVERYTHING. Everything else come FROM that. I recall a grad class in neuroscience, where a new Asst. Prof was lecturing. He got tongue tied trying to explain autonomic ballance. He got so frustrated he suddenly slamed the books on his lecturn yelled out: "@!#$, they pay me to do research, not to teach. Get this crap on your own!" He stoemed out of the romm and we all sat there wondering if we should leave or stay in case he came back. The point is that a "bad science teacher" is easier to tewll than a bad BlAH-BLAH TEACHER, that's all. But do we NEED as a nation and as a species good arts and humanities profs-- you bet your bepee! Re: The great divide Author: DE Teodoru RVCC Date: 05-28-03 11:27 My dear Anon grad student, What you should get out of this debate is that profs are NOT asleep at the wheel-- at least not when an exciting issue rhiles tem up. So, instead of being quiet note takers in your grad seminars...as you were as undergrads in lectures...as you were in high school as students...as you were in elementary school as pupils, pass the word out that in seminars profs might just wake up-- even do their homework and come in knowing what they are talking about-- if you guys would stand up and yell out more often "YOU'RE FULL OF CRAP!" Then, if they come in the next class and give a sterling argument for why you are wrong-- one that you will remember all your life-- then get your classmates and all go to the Provost's office and demand that he be given a sally ary increase to the level of "real world" professional school profs because that's what they face everyday from "real world" veterans in school only for that sheeps skin in order to get ahead in their fields. You see, in real world professional schools, a higher degree is not an opening door, it is a key that unlocks it. To open it you have to use your shoulder and push it open by proving that your degree does as much for your employer as the experience of others did. So, professional students see a "crapolla prof" right way or at least inevitably later. But who is to say that Gabriel Kolko is full of crap, afterall, he has a PhD in history (Marxist crap) and you don't. See the difference? Re: you might be surprised what turns out to be relevant Author: DE Teodoru RVCC Date: 05-28-03 11:29 Bravo, "humanities prof"! But may I ask if you, as a humanities frof, ever found that you could get away with crap like no one lese ever can? And, if so, did you take the opportunity? Lastly, once done, is it not hard to get back to high standards? Re: Just deal with it -- Great Point Author: DE Teodoru RVCC Date: 05-28-03 11:42 My dear social science instructir (adjuct????) "Adjucts" would not be so exploited were it not for the need of the prviledged to have "cradle to grave" captive audiences and modest but sure salaries (when I copare the hours an MD works-- payed according to MEDICAL ECONOMICS much less *per hour* than a plummer-- in comparison to the amount of time an academic gets to leasurely look at his navel instead of getting out of bed EVERY MORNING to go to work, I want to cry). If tenure were gone, the s--t would flush away to be replaced by real food with nutritional value on the academic table, n'est pas? Re: The great divide Author: gerald garvey, claremont Date: 05-28-03 11:54 There is a proposal at the B-School where I work to add a liberal arts requirement to our MBA. Based on your post I think you would agree this is a good idea in principle (especially since our school is named after Peter Drucker and touts the notion of management as a liberal art...). My fear is what will come out in practice, given that we have real-live normal humanities faculty on board. That is, folks who have succeeded in the existing humanities academic scene. Based on what I have seen, that is a cause for alarm rather than celebration. Anyone have any useful suggestions? Re: Just deal with it Author: cecil, wash state system Date: 05-28-03 13:24 interesting, this piece, insofar as it claims: "Once suspects that many of these academics have read too much of Karl Marx, or perhaps St. Thomas More. The ugly truth of the matter is that there are far more people in this world with advanced degrees in the humanities and the social sciences than there are jobs for them. Therefore, with such an over abundance, the Law of Supply and Demand kicks in, whether anyone likes it or not, and those professors are paid what the market has deemed their skills to be worth." considering that a) the public school system depends upon the state for much of its funding, b) hiring determinations are ultimately made on the basis of bureaucratic decisions at the level of the state, and not on the basis of market-oriented merit at the level of the university, c) ergo, market forces have little to do with the reality at the university level of the hiring process, because the federal govt exports its debt to the states, which then cut funding from social services such as education, which leads to d) the general interruption of "market forces" in the university e.g., i've known plenty of adjunct colleagues who are talented, determined, and so forth, but who have been denied work--not because they are bad teachers or that demand was lacking; on the contrary, enrollment for their courses was often overloaded with eager students. in english particularly, demand (however produced) is rarely lacking. rather, the state determines at the bureaucratic level that funding doesn't exist, and so the university is forced to cancel various sections --not because of anything to do with the market, but because of the serious underfunding in the humanities. how state appropriation of taxpayers' wealth is a matter of the "free market" with its (heh) "laws" of supply and demand is beyond my powers of comprehension. the suggestion that each humanities prof is less valuable because of an overproduction of humanities academics seems to be posited on the basis of a pernicious free market fundamentalism, which is more worthy of the derogatory st thomas more lineage than any marxian scholarship interested in the critique of the structural limitations placed on public schooling by the coroporate state. certainly, the overproduction of academics *is* a problem, one structural to the anarchic capitalist system for the vast majority of commodities (save currency and labor power itself). however, that overproduction seems irrelevant when funding for courses with full enrollment is cut off before the mystical smithian "hidden hand" can intervene for our underpaid academics. of course, the higher rate of compensation for business-oriented profs is not amazing, and it is not difficult to discover the rationale. indeed, fat endowments, corporate-state preference for...corporate ideological projects, and large numbers of schmucks ready to pay for degrees in business, all of them buying into the dominant political mythology that "everyone can make it as an entreprenuer!"--hmm...it's not surprising that the corporate-state encourages the "scholarship" of disciplines that "teach" their students how to, say, evade child-labor law or environmental regulations, but not those disciplines that provide students with critical thinking apparati. no surprise at all, to be honest. overall, the puerile hostility and typical naivete in this thread is beyond churlish. surprising, this deluge of vitriol against the arts coming from Chronicle readers , and somehow, not so surprising, all things considered Re: cost allocations Author: Anon Again Date: 05-28-03 22:45 David, You need to read the earlier posts. The bottom line is that even at the higher salaries, the Law and Business Schools are subsidizing the Art and History students and their professors, not the other way around. It is tempting to make a biting comment, but probably unfair to do so. However, one of the big conflicts at institutions is over just how much money the main campus gets to transfer away from the professional schools and how much the schools should be allowed to keep in order to upgrade the student body and the professors. It is a fascinating topic, and one well worth your attention if you are really interested in fairness. Re: you might be surprised what turns out to be relevant Author: Unpersuaded Date: 05-29-03 07:55 Perhaps you can move beyond identifying one typo (gee, you guys might want to review your own messages/past writings to see if you yourselves have ever made any) to address the substance of what is being said? It makes perfect sense to me that exactly now humanities and social science faculty are vehemently contesting their lesser remuneration. Since 11 September 2001, the public has become for the first time aware of how terribly fallen such departments are. The hit to the academy's reputation has been sudden and tremendous, and some faculty have been slow to understand that fact. Witness the reaction of Middle Eastern Studies departments and MESA to critics who questioned their failure to even see the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. If prevailing ideology thoroughly blocks anyone from even considering basic facts necessary to meaningful scholarship in his/her field, what possible value does it have? Further, witness MESA's reaction to the criticism: It claims that expecting quality scholarship based on facts and evidence amounts to "McCarthyism." Indeed, the association simply demanded more and more government funding to continue, despite the shocking problems, which it refuses to even address. This is the problem you need to address. And it doesn't lie outside your departments; it lies at their very hearts. This obvious divide between what humanities and social science departments should do and the painful lack of value of what they in fact do dramatically undercuts your position (in my humble opinion). You'd best look to the ideological rot that is disabling such departments from making meaningful contributions to scholarship and culture, as opposed to making public displays about your discontent with your salary More on cost allocations Author: David Foster Date: 05-29-03 10:30 A proper cost study would include, at a minimum, the following factors: 1) Professorial salaries 2) Teaching loads 3) Departmental facilities costs 4) Student subsidies (scholarships, etc) that are provided by the university itself I wonder how many universities actually conduct such analyses? Response to Cecil Author: Patrick Jung Date: 05-29-03 10:50 Cecil from Washington State brings up several important points to which I feel obligated to respond, particularly when one considers that he quoted my original post at length. His point, if I read him correctly, is that since state schools receive public dollars, and because hiring decisions are generally "bureaucratic decisions at the level of the state," market forces (i.e., the Law of Supply and Demand) "have little to do with the reality at the university level of the hiring process." I am not an economist, but I do know that, regardless of whether we are considering the decisions made within the "open market" (and I by this I refer, in a rather general sense, to those transactions that occur outside the realm of the governmental sphere) or decisions made at the bureaucratic level of state government, the same forces are generally at work. Within both the public and private spheres (and, as side note, I think most academics would agree that it is often difficult to draw a definite line between the two), there are finite resources, and economics is, in the broadest sense, the process by which a society allocates finite resources (both public and private). Thus, when he states that "how state appropriation of taxpayers' wealth is a matter of the 'free market' with its (heh) 'laws' of supply and demand is beyond my powers of comprehension," he ignores the fact that regardless of whether resources are public or private, members of society tend to allocate finite resources to those programs that it values the most. Unfortunately for those of us in the humanities in the social sciences, those members of our society who are students, state bureaucrats, business leaders, tuition-paying parents, etc. tend to value professional education more than the humanities or social sciences. As a final note, his statement that "overall, the puerile hostility and typical naivete in this thread is beyond churlish" indicates to me that he refuses to believe or accept that such forces exist at the bureaucratic level of the state as well as within the private sphere. Even a casual understanding of how state governments (and the federal government) allocate finite resources should be enough to illustrate the point. In 2001, Congress appropriated $900 million to the Small Business Administration and $4.4 billion to the National Science Foundation. By contrast, it appropriated $445 million to the Smithsonian Institution, $119 million to the National Endowment for the Humanities, and $105 million to the Nation Endowment for the Arts. So, what does Congress value more? Re: More on cost allocations Author: CJ, graduate student Date: 05-29-03 11:32 Mr. Foster: I believe most well-managed universities (perhaps an oxymoron) regularly use such information to determine budget allocations for schools and departments. One item that should be included is the teaching productivity of the units (i.e., student credit hours taught). I've always thought that a great paradox of university budgeting is that department and school budgets are determined in large part by enrollments (usually student credit hours), yet faculty workload is most often measured in terms of number of courses taught--frequently without respect to enrollments. As has been mentioned by others in this discussion, faculty in many of the "expensive" professional areas teach significantly higher numbers of students than faculty in lower-salary areas. So, if we really want to measure cost across units using the cost per student credit hour generated would be a reasonable metric. For example, a business professor making $60,000 a semester, teaching a two course load with 100 students (300 credit hours), would cost the university $200 per credit hour if her entire salary were allocated to teaching. On the other hand, a humanities professor, making $25,000 per semester and teaching a two course load with 40 students (120 credit hours) would cost $208.33 per credit hour. Of course the enrollment and salary figures vary significantly, but in my experience, the numbers I used are fairly representative--and maybe a bit on the conservative side . Re: More on cost allocations Author: Anon Again Date: 05-29-03 14:07 David Foster wrote: "I wonder how many universities actually conduct such analyses?" Good question, all with law schools do. At least if they have ABA approved ones. Part of ABA approval has to do with the way the funds are siphoned off from the law school and involves calculating all of these numbers and quite a few others. You should be able to find the information disclosed for public universities, though there is a sharp bit of conflict over the way numbers tend to be twisted to justify pulling off more money than the ABA has approved. I'm glad you are interested in work that has been done. Of course it is a sad fact, but most of the people demanding "equal" pay have not done that sort of work and are incapable of doing it. Re: Response to Cecil Author: Anon Again Date: 05-29-03 14:10 "As a final note, his statement that "overall, the puerile hostility and typical naivete in this thread is beyond churlish" indicates to me that he refuses to believe or accept that such forces exist at the bureaucratic level of the state as well as within the private sphere." I just thought he was being self-descriptive. It is, of course, illustrative that many in the soft sciences resort to infantile name calling when they lack the ability to understand reality or cope with criticism. Naive, hostile and beyond churlish describes them well. Re: Response to Cecil Author: cecil, wash state system Date: 05-29-03 17:51 a fine post, which deserves a considered response. mr jung: Cecil from Washington State brings up several important points to which I feel obligated to respond, particularly when one considers that he quoted my original post at length. His point, if I read him correctly, is that since state schools receive public dollars, and because hiring decisions are generally "bureaucratic decisions at the level of the state," market forces (i.e., the Law of Supply and Demand) "have little to do with the reality at the university level of the hiring process." I am not an economist, but I do know that, regardless of whether we are considering the decisions made within the "open market" (and I by this I refer, in a rather general sense, to those transactions that occur outside the realm of the governmental sphere) or decisions made at the bureaucratic level of state government, the same forces are generally at work. Within both the public and private spheres (and, as side note, I think most academics would agree that it is often difficult to draw a definite line between the two), there are finite resources, and economics is, in the broadest sense, the process by which a society allocates finite resources (both public and private). cecil: agreed re: the undertheorization of the distinction between "public" and "private." and liekwise agreed re: the basic meaning of "economics" as the social allocation of scarce resources; such a definition seems very plausibly descended, as per the etymology of "economy," from greek "oikos nemein," or "household management." mr jung: Thus, when he states that "how state appropriation of taxpayers' wealth is a matter of the 'free market' with its (heh) 'laws' of supply and demand is beyond my powers of comprehension," he ignores the fact that regardless of whether resources are public or private, members of society tend to allocate finite resources to those programs that it values the most. Unfortunately for those of us in the humanities in the social sciences, those members of our society who are students, state bureaucrats, business leaders, tuition-paying parents, etc. tend to value professional education more than the humanities or social sciences. cecil: the assumption of an identity between those elements of the state which determine public economic allocations and "members of society" as a whole is a nasty conceptual aporia. why assume that "members of society" are identical to state school boards and state legislatures? even federal budgets are a factor here. you could argue, very reasonably, that representative governance provides a very clear indentity link between the 2 obviously separate bodies of state bureaucrats and general population. however, evidence often trumps well-reasoned hypotheses, and thus it seems likely that the bureaucratic decisions precisely do not represent the values of the members of society if indeed a greater student demand for humanities courses exists than the number of courses that state is willing to fund. this crucial (and somewhat tasteless) state intervention in the relation between student "demand" and instructor "supply" is a) the essence of my original post and b) the proof of the "market forces in the university" pudding. does this lack of funding at the bureaucratic level accurately reflect the will and value system of "members of society" when in fact these members of society are filling up enrrollment at schools across the country which then promptly cancel full sections? it is this "artificial" restructuring of "demand" that destroys the classical economic "law" of supply and demand here. we can not know what the going rates for humanities courses would be if the supply of unemployed and underemployed instructors were not increased because of bureaucratic fiat. if indeed i wanted to lower the cost of humanities instructor labor, destroy the possibility for collective bargaining, and lumpenize large sections of exactly those scholars who have the training to produce critiques of the educational system, i probably could not think of a better start than to artifically increase the supply of debt-laden humanities instructors by a) artifically manipulating demand and then b) blaming it on impersonal laws of the free market. mr jung: As a final note, his statement that "overall, the puerile hostility and typical naivete in this thread is beyond churlish" indicates to me that he refuses to believe or accept that such forces exist at the bureaucratic level of the state as well as within the private sphere. Even a casual understanding of how state governments (and the federal government) allocate finite resources should be enough to illustrate the point. In 2001, Congress appropriated $900 million to the Small Business Administration and $4.4 billion to the National Science Foundation. By contrast, it appropriated $445 million to the Smithsonian Institution, $119 million to the National Endowment for the Humanities, and $105 million to the Nation Endowment for the Arts. So, what does Congress value more? cecil: i suspect that mr jung and i have miscommunicated in regard to the point of my original post; in this riposte, i wish to make it clear that, yes, market forces do function at the level of the state--insofar as market forces are said to be related to the values of state school baords and legislatures. however, this point is a red herring if the debate is about market forces determining humanities instructor compensation merely on the basis of supply of instructors and demand for instructors' services. it is more than slightly disingenuous for anyone to claim that market forces are the sole or even primary determinants of such compensation when extra-market forces delimit the possibilities for instructor employment a priori. on a another point, the cited appropriations figures seem to go a long way in doing my original argument's work. setting aside the important consideration that science, engineering, business, and so on are far more capital intensive study programs than the humanities, yes, the corporate state values corporate practice. these numbers confirm that thesis. why is this a matter of an objective "demand" and not a highly interested "value"? as we in the humanities will recall, claims that one is not ideological are often the most phantasmagoric ideological moments of all. is the suggestion, then, that such a preference at the level of funding is not ideological, and is merely a reflection of the values of "members of society" ignores the long history of class-interested intiatives at the level of the state as well as the long tradition of critiques of such class-interested knowledge. that is, to simply suggest "the government values it by shoving money in its direction; hence, it must be good!" is to illustrate the old aphorism that capitalists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. of course, all of this is a separate consideration of whether or not "market forces" *should* be a factor in the public education system. Re: Response to Cecil Author: cecil, wash state system Date: 05-29-03 17:57 anon: I just thought he was being self-descriptive. It is, of course, illustrative that many in the soft sciences resort to infantile name calling when they lack the ability to understand reality or cope with criticism. Naive, hostile and beyond churlish describes them well. cecil: come now. you will have to muster more than this argumentum ad hominem. in the event that you missed the previous argumentation, i developed several theses that deserve more than a dismissive "see, i told ya that they can only do name-calling." that you ignore the substance of that argumentation does not constitute an refutation--but rather an evasion. my comments about the thread's "puerile hostility and typical naivete" being "beyond churlish" are hardly the substance of that argument, and they are hardly argumentum ad hominem themselves, since they are a) not an argument, but a coda to an argument's conclusion and b) referring to a thread, not a person. i suggest that you internalize this set of distinctions. the state and public education Author: cecil, wash state system Date: 05-29-03 18:57 de teodoru syays: "I cannot understand how this can be an issue of debate. In the 1960s students were FORCED to take absurd "social science" intro courses, more to keep faculty employed, that voluntarily would attract no one." sadly, this cynical assertion bears greater resemblance to business-oriented propaganda myth than to the history of education in the united states. during world war 2, the federal government commissioned several studies with the goal of turning us education into a servant of the military-industrial complex. what follows is quite separate from the long history of cooperation between the pentagon, the cia, and the schools in research projects for military and population control technology. rather, what was at stake during the world war and the cold war was the production of an education system that would simultaneously solve several problems. problem one: cold war necessity required both post-taylorist management technologies (some of us might call them panopticist) and an aggressive high-tech industry for use in the cold war--of which the space program is but one part. problem two: cold war necessity required a population unified against the common foe. normally, the hitlerian "big lie" and goering's "tell the people that they are under attack and then denounce the peacemakers as traitors" would be enough, but the wholesale reorganization of american society in the late 40s and early 50s met the classical definition of a crisis: both danger (of radicalism) and opportunity (for reactionism). problem one is solved by artificially creating incentives via the state for high tech fields in business, engineering, and medicine. military-industrial contracts through the new procurement nexus of the pentagon provided these well-compensated jobs, and a system of standard testing would guarantee that the best qualified people ended up where they "should" be. the publishers of the sat, the lsat, the mcat, the gre, and so forth--educational testing services (ets)--is a direct outgrowth of these early standard testing practices. much of these practices developed from the work of james conant, the educational reformer and adminstrator of harvard, whose team authored, at eisenhower's request, *general education in a free society*, or more simply, the *red book*. conant, otherwise famous for being the only civilian on the manhattan project, eisenhower's ambassador to the crypto-fascist adenauer regime in west germany, and a prominent cold warrior (surely a reprehensible resume), recommended such items as the gi bill and the testing standards as a way to produce a genuine meritocracy, which would lead to maximum cold war military-industrial efficiency. the irony that such military-industrial "efficiency" is centrally-planned will not be lost on the informed observer. this meritocratic plan worked beautifully, aiding in the production of the post-war middle class as much as the progressive tax structure inherited from fdr and the keynesian developments of the marshall plan. however, a meritocracy in engineering, business, and medicine--all leading to well compensated positions for the successful students in industry, does have the crucial effect of exacerbating class differences. sure, the well trained go off to high paying careers as "white collar" proletarians, petit bourgeois owners, or even board members for megacorporations in the military-industrial complex--but everyone else, not well trained enough or "talented" enough to pass the biased standard tests or not well inclined to a life of military-industrial drudgery, had to find employment elsewhere--typically in industries not preferred, and thus not privileged, by the state's military-industrial imperatives--and thus industries not offering artificially inflated compensation. (examples include ditch-digging, taco-making, and humanities-teaching.) obviously, then, we have a situation where the solution to problem one--high tech necessity--produces and intensifies problem 2--national unity. for how could the state maintain class unity when the system was designed to produce a class differential? after all, that's what the solution to problem one was all about: high tech to fight the soviets, who claimed (whether true or not) to be in the process of eradicating class privilege around the world. the solution to problem 2, and thus the preservation of the class system supported by the solution to problem one, was brilliant--if morally bankrupt: general education. today's core curriculum, with its smattering of psych 101, sociology basics, some jingoistic us history, bland western civ classes, intros to the arts, and--the flagship of the core (because of its universal requirement and crucial focus on standard langauge, intellectual property, and monological thinking)--freshman english coursework, was specifically designed to unify the stratified us population behind the political mythology of the cold war. that this entailed the erasure of class analysis from the public mind and the reinscription of nationalist and "civilizationalist" (as per huntington) doctrine should be obvious. do i deny that professors have an interest in their own subject matter and employment? of course not. however, such individual motivations for curriculum design don't even come close to competing with the structural imperatives of the state when it comes to explaining the reasons that students were forced to take the core classes. we could appeal to the notion of a "liberal education"--that exposure to the arts, pure sciences, and social studies has intrinsic merit, since it makes us smarter, more enlightened, better critical thinkers, and so on. I personally like this rationale for the humanities, though i realize that it is self-aggrandizing. likewise, a fine case could be made that the general dearth of knowledge in regard to history, philosophy, and politics is what makes both the bush and hitler regimes possible. although the instructors in these fields may believe such admirable, if trite (but not untrue--only irrelevant) assertions, the reality is that the state endorses and tolerates the surly humanities and the programs that immediately aren't well suited to the military-industrial complex at the micro-level out of a macro-level cold war (and now openly imperialist) structural strategy. overall: a) the suggestion that humanities and social sciences courses "would voluntarily attract no one" is simply not serious. need it, really, be evidenced that there are obviously people who become sociology and art history majors and then go onto graduate work and prestigious careers? b) the assertion that this is a matter of "markets" is at best a red herring, considering the vastness of the economic reorganization implict in the pentagon's parastatal system and the manipulation of price, "demand," and so forth. c) to attribute the existence of non-military-industrial complex educational programs to cynical professors jealous of their own careerist desires or to lofty idealism by a (highly exaggerated) leftist academy is to ignore the historical record to the point of becoming a feckless and unintentional propagandist for the forces of reaction. Re: Response to Cecil Author: gerald garvey, claremont Date: 05-29-03 19:09 You can add economic illiteracy to the charges against Cecil. In this country, the salary I can command is driven by what I can get elsewhere. The leaders in the salary competition are private schools and the private sector. I have no idea whether or not state legislators have some iedological or crypto-marxist desire to pay higher salaries to academics in professional schools. And it does not matter. They have to pay me a higher salary than an English prof because I can get more from another potential employer. Hell, I actually work at a private school. And my bargaining power comes from my ability to work elsewhere, including the non-academic sphere. Who Cares? Author: American, an America university Date: 05-29-03 20:58 Who cares what you whiney humanities types think! Go to China if you don't like your job in America! "fallen" departments/fields Author: university research administrator Date: 05-30-03 09:47 One example of a field that has definitely "fallen," as "Unpersuaded" uses the term, below -- "It makes perfect sense to me that exactly now humanities and social science faculty are vehemently contesting their lesser remuneration. Since 11 September 2001, the public has become for the first time aware of how terribly fallen such departments are. The hit to the academy's reputation has been sudden and tremendous, and some faculty have been slow to understand that fact." -- is English composition. The remedial teaching of writing to first-year students, in other words. But September 11 didn't make that "fallen" state obvious. The public has been coming to that realization all along, resulting in the associated "hit to the [field's] reputation" AND to practitioners' salaries. (In The Chronicle's most recent salary survey, I noticed the striking fact that the ONLY academics with salary averages in the $40K range were professors of English composition.) Those salaries are understandable when you consider that (1) English composition as a field cannot explain what "good writing" is, (2) its practitioners too often cannot create the "good writing" they demand from their students, (3) graduates of those mandatory first-year composition courses are often judged by other fields to be "bad writers," and (4) my field's practitioners respond to those complaints by claiming--as Dennis Baron did in a recent Chronicle article--that one of the tenets of "good writing" (using grammar appropriate to the standards of the writing situation) isn't even relevant to my field's practitioners! I am both personally and professionally embarrassed to be associated with a group of people so disconnected from reality. To explain where I'm coming from, on one level, I'm a university research administrator at a midsized university in the Southeast. On another, I'm ABD in Rhetoric and Composition at another (much larger) university, also in the Southeast, and finishing up my dissertation while learning a new field. I'm in a new field because in talking with former colleagues, I learned a startling fact: several are happy to have landed tenure-track positions making $30-32K, several $K less than I'm making now in an alternate field while using the skills I learned in my Masters and PhD programs. And this morning I'm readying myself to argue for a $10K raise (and to justify it via my job performance over the last 12 months). I expect to receive at least part of my requested raise. The comparison is eye-opening. I doubt that I'll seek an academic tenure-track position in my field; it's too much work for far too little money, and I'd have to share my field with unpersuasive incompetents who deservedly receive too little respect for their lack of success in using a skill they should have ("rhetoric" is in the _name_ of my field, for crying out loud). That's why I'm doing something different with my skills sets: I'm looking at re-shopping my teaching skills as a trainer, re-shopping my writing and research skills as a university research administrator, and/or re-shopping my "people skills" as an upper-level university administrator. Basically, one of my best career options is to use my "worthless" PhD as a doorway to higher-level jobs important in universities' most relevant current role: functioning as economic development engines in their states and regions. My advice, for what it's worth: If you think your work is undervalued, take a look at your skills sets and re-shop your abilities in fields where they are valued. (This advice has already been said here, but I thought it needed repeating. After all, "evolution" most often means "adapt or die," doesn't it?) Re: More on cost allocations Author: anonymous assistant professor in science Date: 05-30-03 11:12 In reply to your analysis of the business professor v. the humanities professor and their student loads: I agree that business classes are often more packed than humanities classes, but this does not necessarily reflect the amount of work that goes into teaching and assessing those classes. Writing intensive courses require many more hours per student. Nevertheless, I'll leave that point. The issue I would like to raise is that teaching is NOT the sole measure of worth at any institution. If so, we would all be paid the same as adjuncts. Being on the faculty at a university brings extra responsibilities in the way of contribution to faculty governance. I do not begrudge the business school faculty their salaries that are twice mine; however, I do begrudge the fact that they show up only for classes and spend the rest of their time doing private consulting, leaving all student advising, committee work, workshops for the community, and other faculty governance issues to the rest of us. Most can't even be bothered to show up once a month for an hour for the college-wide faculty meetings. The rub isn't that they're being paid more for the same work; it's that they're being paid more for less. a pre-literate response, perhaps? Author: cecil, wash state system Date: 05-30-03 11:36 garvey says: "You can add economic illiteracy to the charges against Cecil. In this country, the salary I can command is driven by what I can get elsewhere. The leaders in the salary competition are private schools and the private sector. I have no idea whether or not state legislators have some iedological or crypto-marxist desire to pay higher salaries to academics in professional schools. And it does not matter. They have to pay me a higher salary than an English prof because I can get more from another potential employer. Hell, I actually work at a private school. And my bargaining power comes from my ability to work elsewhere, including the non-academic sphere." cecil says: your argument runs thus, essentially: 1) if i get paid higher, then i get paid higher. 2) i get paid higher. ergo: i get paid higher. yes. no one denies that you get paid higher. but the tautology, annoying enough, is furthermore exposed as not serious because your response, in relation to mine posts, is pre-literate: you don't seem to have bothered to read them. and no one denies the power of collective bargaining, the power of those whose degrees are in demand in the non-educational sector, and so forth. but these are red herrings in the present context: i am attempting to explain the cause for the pay differential. most posters here seem to think that a highly simplified version of the "how"--disrupted market focres in combination with state imperatives--explain the "why"--the cause of the differential and the disrupted market forces in the first place. by explaining such, one can undercut the facile rhetoric about "go to china!" "market forces!" and so on. so, can you address the substance of my arguments about the structural necessities of the corporate-state political economy? or can you only parrot the cliche dogma of market fundamentalism? since when was this kind of orwellian propaganda, where state interventions constitute "free market forces," a substitute for rigorous analysis? now that the preliminary... Author: cecil, wash state system Date: 05-30-03 12:56 issues are settled, it's time to focus on the real issues at stake here. my earlier posts disputed the mysticisms typically employed to shout down those who militate for better compensation in the humanities. however, such discussion does not directly address the issue of whether humanities profs *should* receive better compensation than they in general do. the assertion that "the market determines the value of your work, so stop whining" is both an evasive ad hominem dismissal, and also a red herring. the issue at stake is definitely *not* what determines value (and i assure you, the simplicities of market fundamentalism do little to explain even this), but rather what the compensation *should* be. (this is, of course, hume's is/ought gap, for those of you in the humanities who know of this.) in the case of the market fundamentalist evasion, the argument attempts to construe a perceived necessity (the alleged purity and primacy of "market forces" in education) as a virtue. thus, it is possible for the market fundamentalist to assert with a clear conscience if s/he has a brain, or with a clear brain, if s/he has a conscience: "the market determines your salary, and therefore it is a just salary! QED!" that this assertion explains precisely *nothing* should be more than bloody obvious, and moreover that this assertion constructs corporate doctrine as apodictic truth is hardly worthy of our attention as a serious contribution to the debate. there is no virtue in the (alleged) necessity of the market. period. to suggest that there is--a red herring. what humanities instructors want to know: why do we make so little, even though we put in plenty of work? is there no justice in this public institution? the market fundamentalist can merely point to pay rates and run these rates of compensation through the market fundamentalist ideology, which says "value is determined by market forces, and price is determined by value; thus, the low price for your labor must be justified by its low value," and so on. of course, for the market fundamentalist, the evidence is irrelevant; the fundamentalist doctrine will decide the conclusion a priori. that humanities instructors work hard is not a matter of debate: publication, pedagogy, service, and so on. that some folks, especially adjuncts, can't afford to service debt, pay rent, and maintain a vehicle on their pay would seem to be case in point--and certainly so for your average english adjnuct, who teaches 20 hours of freshman comp. one wonders if a business school instructor does as much work with students during a whole year as one freshman comp adjunct does for one section. but never mind that. the market fundamentalist dogma says that the necessity imposed on us by market forces must be a good thing--just because! it's the market! sadly, there is no sense in this position, though there is plenty of corporate wealth behind it, pushing it through our mass culture. Re: a pre-literate response, perhaps? Author: gerald garvey Date: 05-30-03 17:31 I said that pay in state institutions is driven by opportunities in PRIVATE schools or even in the PRIVATE sector. Two examples I actually know something about: 1. Academic salaries are much more equal (and lower) in Australian universities. There are no private Aussie universities (except Bond Uni, which is a very marginal institution). 2. I am going to work in the investment industry, private sector, next year. If the university wants me back they will have to pay in $ or otherwise. I guess you could dismiss this by saying "the state is involved in the private sector, so it is not a real market". Of course that means there is not and has never been a market. If you want to use that as an excuse to ignore Econ 1, feel free. I have better things to do. Re: The great divide Author: Marvin Johnson, Associate Professor of Music/Universit Date: 05-30-03 23:41 5/30/2003 It is gratifying to see the high level of interest in this subject but less gratifying to observe a tendency to oversimplify the problem and glibly suggest that those in lower paying positions simply leave the field and find other work or just "get used to it." This is not a problem which affects individuals only. It is a problem for the entire community and for society at large to the same extent that the integrity and survival of an identifiable, independant academic community is necessary for the preservation and development our culture. Current trends, driven by these "market forces" we are told, push some disciplines to the brink and continue to diminish the significance of all of the traditional disciplines. Business professors after all, make more than physicists and mathematicians, not just more than musicians and anthropologists. Is anyone willing to argue that the value of marketing is greater than the value of quantum mechanics or that the value of accounting is greater than that of mathematics? It may be possible to show that marketing and accounting have greater commercial value, but is commercial value the only value; and more importantly, is commercial value the value which must guide our academic community if it is to survive and continue to provide its unique perspective? It is fashionable to promote the idea that the academic community needs to be more like the "real world" (as if the life of the mind is not real!) There can be no doubt that ideas, values, and vocabulary from the world of business and commerce have been mapped onto the academic community to the extent that the two are virtually indistinguishable. Therein lies the rub. The more we become like the "real world." the more redundant we become. In that redundancy, we become less and less valuable as the loss of our integrity and identity means we have have less and less to offer. This issue concerns the survival of our profession as an integral part of a healthy culture with an abiding appreciation for and commitment to intellectual, aesthetic and spiritual values as well as commercial ones. Re: More on cost allocations Author: CJ, graduate student Date: 05-31-03 00:53 The purpose of my analysis was to offer an additional criterion for Mr. Foster's "proper cost study" and to address the assumption among some discussants that lower-salaried faculty were somehow subsidizing the "expensive" professional faculty. I believe my example showed that such subsidies do not necessarily exist. I did not, however, mean to suggest that teaching is the only responsibility for which faculty are compensated. Surely you must agree, though, that computing the average cost per student credit hour is a rather straightforward means of measuring faculty productivity and costs across academic units; certainly more straightforward than trying to measure research productivity across diverse academic areas. On the other hand, you provide no evidence to support the claims you make about business school faculty not working as hard as others on campus. At my institution I can easily identify humanities and science faculty who don't pull their weight when it comes to governance and service, just as I can point to business faculty who take on those responsibilities with enthusiasm. For you to paint all or even most business school faculty with such a broad brush is disingenuous at best. Re: "fallen" departments/fields Author: DE Teodoru Date: 05-31-03 05:12 How "fallen" are humanities is made clear by the fact that PhDs in literature are teaching junior high school literacy to college students. I recall the means of self expression of common Frenchmen in a bistro as compared to the inarticulateness one confronts in a bar in the US. Perhaps what that shows is how American utilitarianistic phiposophy leads to TEACHERS looking at their craft, not from a pedagogic excellence standard, but from the sense of "what's in it for me?" And certainly college administrators are no less fecal slime than hospital administrators, paying themselves outrageous salaries, given their unique skills (sic)-- what the hell is a Masters in Hospital Administration or any administration, for that matter?-- and the greater importance of the actual "working parts" of that institution. I could never find an administrator before 10AM or between 11AM and 2PM-- PM-- LUNCH!-- or after 4PM-- goota beat the traffic to suberbia, you know-- or 3PM on Friday. Come to think of it, all through my encounter with American higher education, that was indeed also the schedual of deans. Alas, unionization has washed away the professional pride of profs. It then followed that they became little fish eaten by big administrative fish, just like doctors leaving Medicade, Medicare and HMOs to the MHAs. Perhaps if you all had a more solid pedagogic relationship with your students, your influence might be greater than that of the educational bureaucrats. But you don't want the responsability, lest it turn into blame. At least professional faculty do research that someone out there finds necessary. As to 9/11, I not that the media chose to avoid academia and went after "experts" and the Govt. went after thnik-tanks instead of thinkers. It sais a lot about academia's standing and about how profs that only reproduce themselves through PhDs will become extincr dinosaurs. Respect yourselves by givinh of yourselves more generously to students and seek relevance and then you will have the administrative beasts eating out of your hands. Right now, they know that the public considers them shepards for bovine faculty. Meanwhile, you are all happy cattle chewing your cud and looking aimless, guranteed your pasture through tenure. How can you expect anything? Re: a pre-literate response, perhaps? Author: cecil, wash state system Date: 05-31-03 11:00 garvey says: "I said that pay in state institutions is driven by opportunities in PRIVATE schools or even in the PRIVATE sector. Two examples I actually know something about: 1. Academic salaries are much more equal (and lower) in Australian universities. There are no private Aussie universities (except Bond Uni, which is a very marginal institution). 2. I am going to work in the investment industry, private sector, next year. If the university wants me back they will have to pay in $ or otherwise. I guess you could dismiss this by saying "the state is involved in the private sector, so it is not a real market". Of course that means there is not and has never been a market. If you want to use that as an excuse to ignore Econ 1, feel free. I have better things to do." but i could also dismiss it as a) another red herring in the same vein as the rest of the thread's focus on market fundamentalist assertions b) anecdotal evidence however, the main charges that stand against the argument above also stand against the whole of this thread's anti-humanities positions: 1) a severe case of the *complex cause fallacy*. remember the challenger catastrophe in 1986? the mainstream rationale was that "well, the cold weather that day caused the o-rings to contract, which caused a breach in the fuel tanks, which caused leaks and hence the explosion could not be avoided." this is corporate state mendacity at its worst, considering that o-rings don't just magically wink into existence. as is well known, but rarely admitted by officialdom, the profit-motivated corporations involved in the shuttle construction and the venality of the state's bureaucracy combined to produce the conditions, through typical capitalist negligence/incompetence, for the o-ring contraction and the shuttle's destruction. so, is it literally untrue to say that the o-rings caused the shuttle's destruction or to say that market forces cause lower compensation in the humanities? no. but it is logically fallacious in its simplicity in either case. perhaps logicians might also point out that focusing on proximate causes is a paltry substitute for focusing on more foundational causes: yes, a bullet *did* cause jfk to lose tons of blood and brain matter and thus die--but who caused the bullet to hit him? 2) the battery of ad hominem attacks on humanities folks is not only childish--it reveals the bankruptcy of the opposing position 3) the red herringish diversion into lengthy "market! market! market!" tirades 4) the nearly theological mantras of free market fundamentalism, and the categorical denial of both the historical record and the current reality 5) the refusal to admit that perhaps one's beloved "free market forces" might just be constructed by other more important factors--to the point that "free markets" as described in econ textbooks don't really exist 6) the fall into the abyss of the humian is/ought gap when one claims that the alleged necessity of the prices determined by the "market" indicates the virtue of their determination. please address these concerns, and then maybe we can take your "market forces" position more seriously. Re: The great divide Author: Flabbergasted Date: 06-01-03 08:10 The best reply to your contentions is this: Attend a sampling of panels at any MLA. Let's limit it to 5 panels, just to keep your sanity safe (and your breakfast/lunch/dinner down). Then come back and tell us all what the value of queering everything in sight through feminist and ethnic studies doctrine is. They all say the exact same thing in the exact same way at the exact same time and all fall silent exactly together. This is ideologically orthodox ritual, not independent and insightful scholarship. You might as well pay to have Catholic priests preaching in a classroom for all the diversity of viewpoints and debate you get in humanities classrooms these days. Education should not be ideological programming. This is why humanities and social science departments have forfeited society's respect. And deservedly so. Re: The great divide Author: John Garner Date: 06-02-03 10:10 Flabbergasted, About "Flabberghasted"... Just when I was thinking that they could be replaced with a good spellchecker you made me relize that perhaps this is not the case. There is just no way that you can get that much Modernism and Positivisim programmed into one of those things... spell checkers, etc Author: David Foster Date: 06-02-03 11:04 "Just when I was thinking that they could be replaced with a good spellchecker you made me relize that perhaps this is not the case...There is just no way that you can get that much Modernism and Positivisim programmed into one of those things..." Sure you can! Check out this link: http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/29756.1696577868 Will it be in the next version of MS Word? photoncourier.blogspot.com Re: More on cost allocations Author: anonymous assistant professor again Date: 06-02-03 11:10 CJ, Thank you for clarifying what you meant. I agree that I was perhaps unfairly generalizing the situation at my campus to business/professional faculty in general, and that there are dead weights in every field. However, I still feel that there is some "danger" to trying to equate salaries to a per-student credit hour cost basis. If that calculation were made for everyone in the university, it would be painfully clear that adjuncts (in particular) are being paid significantly less than their "worth" to the university, especially compared to some of the higher-paid professional faculty. Additionally, depending on the makeup of the school, it may turn out that the humanities and other faculty that teach gen ed classes teach a much greater percentage of the students than the professional school faculty. In my instance, the professional schools each have a subset of students, but the entirety of them come through my school for gen ed classes in addition to all of the humanities/science/social science majors we service. Although I'd applaud efforts to do such cost allocation calculations, I don't think the university would be very happy with the results. Re: spell checkers, etc Author: John Garner Date: 06-02-03 23:26 Mr. Foster, I am going to be Pragmatic about all of this. We will just have to wait and see...I am not so sure... Re: you might be surprised what turns out to be relevant Author: NJ Petersen Date: 06-06-03 07:36 May I suggest that this conversation about compensation sidesteps a more significant issue of acknowledging and respecting others in an interdependent world. This is like the bickering husband and wife who compete to best each other but ultimately reveal that their marriage is horrible, and are therefore judged not by their superiority to each other but by their inferiority to other couples. 'Flabberghasted' indulges in a rant that includes "Go out and try and survive in the real world, where competence, intelligence, and accomplishment count." I submit that the 'real world' also values civility, a dynamic studied and taught within the social sciences. It is well-known that most people who lose their jobs are usually technically competent but socially and/or emotionally unstable or toxic to others. The point of working in an institution is to be part of the institution's community mission. This discussion thread addresses not just disparity of compensation but division of community. Those who actually teach leadership theory in business and economics and education departments may agree with the theory that money is not a motivator but a maintenance factor: only when there is not enough or it appears inequitably distributed is a worker de-motivated. It does not serve to motivate. This is well-supported in what we know about extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The first is counter-productive, because the more students experience extrinsic 'rewards', the less likely they are to be motivated by less tangible outcomes. The market economy may be based on competition, but the realms of competition are not agreed. My observation regarding funding within a university is that those schools generating well-paid graduates benefit from generous alumni contributions and a self-perpetuating marketing strategy. As an education professor, I am keenly aware that our graduates make relatively little, and our building and faculty salaries correspond. This in spite of the fact that our program is the only one growing and serves as a cash cow for the rest of the small liberal arts university. But the real irony is that some academics are so competitive that they pollute their own environment by demeaning others' contributions to the greater field of learning, or worse, do not benefit from the knowledge base of other departments. There is much to be known about industrial relations, worker motivation, and learning--all social sciences. It is a false sense of safety to retreat to narrow realms of discussion. Re: you might be surprised what turns out to be relevant Author: Anonymous Date: 06-07-03 07:18 So Mr. Petersen, is this an example of the "civility" you are looking for from others? Beating up on people you don't agree with does not enhance the reputation of ed schools one bit. Quite the contrary. I note you resumed a trivial attack on a single typo, yet found a way to post this: "The market economy may be based on competition, but the realms of competition are not agreed." What does it mean that "realms of competition are not agreed?" I havge never heard of a realm "agreeing" to anything. I am not surprised at what is happening Author: jgarner Date: 06-09-03 10:44 NJ PETERSON... Makes some good points. His analogy is very applicable to this situation. But part of the problem in traditional academe is being perpetuated by the lack of civility among Professors. I know of a case where a Philosophy Professor is in a running debate with the religous right. He has been told that the articles that he has written in this debate will not constitute professional publication. This is ironic in that this running debate has engaged such heavy-weight religious right figures as Pat Robertson among others. You see, if somebody in academe tries to do something that is significant in our society and to make a difference, they not only have the battle to make that difference to fight, but they also have the battle for acceptance from their own colleagues and school administrations. It is as if we all stand in a tar pit demanding that nobody climb out. It is not right and academe is suffering because of it. Re: The great divide Author: Robert L. Moore, Professor, University of Alabama Date: 06-10-03 13:43 As |