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[humgrad]

I'm referring to this recent article: http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/07/2009071301c.htm


I can understand inviting a scientist who has had much success getting grant money for his/her projects to a a lunch or other meeting with a prospective donor.

But...

Aren't humanities and social science professors already busy enough (and chronically underpaid enough) without adding fundraising to their responsibilities?

Is research on, say, sixteenth-century franco-burgundian poetry really going to help a donor part with some of his/her money over a luncheon?

I don't know anything about fundraising.  Wouldn't it be just as absurd to invite university fundraisers to guest lecture in our classes?

[menotti]

One could just as easily say, "Hasn't the scientist who's pulled in zillions of dollars of overhead done enough for the bottom line without forcing them to go shmooze with donors? Let the humanities professors go - they probably have better social skills, anyway."

I'm guessing the development office has a good idea of what helps in fundraising, and probably putting a human face on the less obviously practical disciplines is to those disciplines' interest.

[mended_drum]

I go schmooze whenever I'm asked to do so.  With my record for dropping, spilling and breaking things, however, they prefer to leave me in my office most of the time.

[sibyl]

Donors don't give money to institutions because they like the fundraisers.  They give money because they believe in what goes on on campus, and a professor is one of the best possible people to talk about pedagogy, retention, and student learning.  Burgundian poetry rarely comes up, unless it's an example of some of the exceptional work that my students are doing. 

Sure, teaching and researching are our major responsibilities, but not our only ones.  We all have service commitments.  And it's not as though they're going to ask you to spend five hours a week on fundraising.  Two hours a semester, maybe.  They didn't often ask me to go when I was full-time faculty, but I went every time they did.  It requires less time and returns more satisfaction than, say, committee service or talking to prospective students (which I like). 

[henry_adams]

Like so many other things in life, the fund raising experience depends upon the people involved.  I've worked with delightful development people and with impossible ones.  Mr. Impossible once invited me to address a room full of Very Rich at a dinner.  I prepared a ten-minute talk on the narrowly focused subject he gave me, but at the last moment Mr. Impossible whispered to me, "Tell everything important your department is doing, but keep it under two minutes."

Needless to say, I went over two minutes.  Mr. Impossible never asked me back. 

[takapa]

We're all over worked to some degree despite field or departmental affiliation, and adding something else to our work is not a popular thing.  And I have to say I never thought about myself being a part of fund raising as a faculty member.  But, given the economic reality of higher education today and the need for constant fund raising to support even the most basic required components of our mission, I understand the need for us as faculty to play a role.  Although I have never been asked by a development officer to be a part of such a thing, we have our own departmental and school-wide fund raising efforts directed by faculty and I've joined in them.  Sometimes I figure I could spend an evening or an afternoon doing something else, but I also want the resources to be there we I need them so I suck it up and do it. 

[notaprof]

I'm spraying the air with Spam-B-Gone.

[doctor_torrseal]

Everybody is busy and has a lot of stuff to do.   (I didn't read the original article because the link is now dead.) Yes, fundraising is outside most of what we have been trained to do.

But it is d-mned important.  Further, profs are generally not going to be tasked to ask for money.  We're not necessarily any good at that, it's the development people's job.  The role of the prof is to show that the university is doing wonderful important things that the donor should support.  Ideally, that is, you would be talking about why what you do is neat and important.  In my opinion, everybody in academia should be prepared to make a two to five minute spiel, pitched to an intelligent outsider, about what you do and why an intelligent outsider should find it interesting.  And ready to answer questions.

I once worked for a research institute that had a board of trustees mostly of Very Rich People (not Bill Gates-levels, closer to old money).  They came for a visit and the postdocs and staff were trotted out to have lunch with them and make chat.  What I found out is that Very Rich People who care enough to be on boards of scientific institutions are wicked smart, including the ones that are from family money rather than self-made.  I guess you don't become a Very Rich Person who cares about research and education without being pretty sharp.  I am happy to talk to people who are smart and interested in what we do.

[mad_doctor]

I don't have a problem with fundraising in principle - it's necessary, and I participate whenever I'm asked to do so.  However, in practice it's just one more thing in the long list of administrative and clerical duties that were once the domain of support staff and administration that is being dumped on the faculty so administrators can continue giving themselves more pay raises, perks, and power.  In another thread I mentioned that from an economic standpoint the admins have no disincentive to continue this behavior, so they will keep piling it on.  My last Dean was fond of reminding us that, "The general perception out there is that faculty only work twelve hours a week and make more money than anybody else, blah, blah, blah... prima donnas, blah, blah... so you really need to make a few goodwill gestures...  I'm only trying to save your jobs here..." 

Over the years, in addition to fundraising with Very Rich People, we also had to participate in: phone campaigns, recruiting visits at local high schools, increased advising hours and advisees, "pro-active" advising (to catch delinquent or otherwise irresponsible students before they flunk out), mandatory attendance at student events (it's a gesture of support and show of concern for their growth and development), register students for classes upon request, and graduation audits beginning in the junior year, to name a few.  Previously, all of these functions were either performed by administration or support staff, or were deemed too trivial to worry about. 

It seems that over time, as administrative salaries and perks increase, spending on support staff decreases, and faculty duties and responsibilities increase.  I wouldn't feel so disturbed about it all if there were even a pretense that these duties were being shared by the admins or their own staff, but they are very out in the open that they are way too important to be bothered by that kind of thing, and choose to exercise their "administrative discretion" in avoiding it.  I even worked at one school where the VPAA deputized various mid-level administrators to supervise faculty participation in these kind of things, and allowed them to make "service evaluations" for all faculty which became a part of our official performance and merit evals.  Of course, these deputies didn't have to share these duties either.  We also had to surrender campus parking in the name of student satisfaction, and were encouraged to be on campus from 9 - 5, M - F to demonstrate that we "took our jobs seriously". 

I'm seriously thinking about finding a way out of academia.  I had a real job once, and it worked out pretty well.  I changed careers because I thought I could pursue a true calling in academia, but these days it's turning more and more into just another job.

[betterslac]

Dammit, Notaprof, is your Spam-B-Gone out of date???

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You must have an abnormally small penis.

[spork]

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[spork]

Regarding the topic of this thread:

I'm not overly busy.  If a free meal is involved, sure, I'll talk to potential donors.

[dolljepopp]

Well, yeah. In my discipline, turning down free food gets one booted from the union...

[norvell]

Well, yeah. In my discipline, turning down free food gets one booted from the union...

For me there's a sliding scale with variables that include the quality of the free food and how big of a hook I have to swallow in order to feast on said worm food.