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[academic_cog]

I agree; the issues isn't whether UC professors are underpaid (they are), but rather whether the situation is better anywhere except the privates.  Perhaps Texas can absorb the entire UC faculty, but Columbia (another school currently feeding from the UC trough) can't. - DvF

The dire-ness of the situation is that this 9% pay cut won't just affect the profs --- who I agree are probably not getting paid enough if you compare them to peer institutions --- but the adjuncts (those who haven't been fired already), the staff (who were already paid 20% below local market rate, they claimed at the time of their last contract negotiation), the grad student TAs, and the facilities workers. Since they make minimum wage on my campus already, I don't see how they even _can_ be hit by a 9% pay cut. (or live on it!) But all the stuff I have been forwarded says that "to be fair" that 9% will be across the board. And that they are holding the thought of more layoffs on the table still. :(

[terpsichore]

I agree; the issues isn't whether UC professors are underpaid (they are), but rather whether the situation is better anywhere except the privates.  Perhaps Texas can absorb the entire UC faculty, but Columbia (another school currently feeding from the UC trough) can't. - DvF

The dire-ness of the situation is that this 9% pay cut won't just affect the profs --- who I agree are probably not getting paid enough if you compare them to peer institutions --- but the adjuncts (those who haven't been fired already), the staff (who were already paid 20% below local market rate, they claimed at the time of their last contract negotiation), the grad student TAs, and the facilities workers. Since they make minimum wage on my campus already, I don't see how they even _can_ be hit by a 9% pay cut. (or live on it!) But all the stuff I have been forwarded says that "to be fair" that 9% will be across the board. And that they are holding the thought of more layoffs on the table still. :(

UC's furlough plan is ugly, but slightly less ugly than your post indicates. The proposed cuts are progressive, with higher earning employees taking a higher percentage cut. For employees at the lowest salary levels, the cut would be 4%, ranging up to 10% for the highest paid employees. Grad students, and other student employees, would not have their salaries cut. The university will have to negotiate with the unions representing facilities workers and some other employees.

[madhatter]

Texas Tech has lots of money and could take them in - see thread on Bertie G. Of course that would turn TT into the intellectual powerhouse of the south-central united states.  We can't have that now, could we?

To the extent that UC is losing some of their big name people, Texas seems to be one of the main places they are going.  - DvF

This is a great opportunity for John Yoo to leave Berkeley and head over to Texas Tech to join Alberto Gonzales. They can open the Center for Counter-Ethical Studies.

[lost_angeleno]

Actually, given their politics, shouldn't that be the Center for Neo-Contra-Ethical Studies?.

Yeah, and put Woofie in charge of Womens Studies.  The Mark Stafford Endowed Chair of International Relations.

Ok, add some more....That's Texas; they'll love it.

[tolerantly]

I just came from doing some work at Berkeley, and I have trouble seeing what all the griping's about.

My tally:

1) Beautiful, well-appointed campus.
2) Subsidized wonderful food.
3) Fabuloso public transportation all around in a city of, what, 100K?
4) Painfully beautiful climate.
5) Faculty tuition benefit.
6) Immediate proximity to actual city.
7) Basements without mold.

You need cute woodwork at home, too?   Is that it?  Because otherwise I don't get it.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I just came from doing some work at Berkeley, and I have trouble seeing what all the griping's about.

My tally:

1) Beautiful, well-appointed campus.
2) Subsidized wonderful food.
3) Fabuloso public transportation all around in a city of, what, 100K?
4) Painfully beautiful climate.
5) Faculty tuition benefit.
6) Immediate proximity to actual city.
7) Basements without mold.

Yeah. with all that who needs stuff like competitive salary, research support staff, or junior colleagues?

Seriously, while Berkeley faculty have it better than the overwhelming majority of us, UCB is the top public university in the country, possibly the world, and the people who have positions there have earned a generous salary and institutional support.  The average faculty member there brings in over 3 times their salary in outside money (and this average includes all the Humanities professors).  Based on contribution to the State of California and her citizens, few if any of those calling on the UC faculty to "share the pain" or "do their fair share" are in any relative position to make such statements.

While I stand by my earlier posts (that relatively few UCB faculty will be able to go somewhere better or even as good), I also believe that on balance the UC faculty are being treated shabbily.  - DvF

[immigrant]

I just came from doing some work at Berkeley, and I have trouble seeing what all the griping's about.

My tally:

1) Beautiful, well-appointed campus.
2) Subsidized wonderful food.
3) Fabuloso public transportation all around in a city of, what, 100K?
4) Painfully beautiful climate.
5) Faculty tuition benefit.
6) Immediate proximity to actual city.
7) Basements without mold.

You need cute woodwork at home, too?   Is that it?  Because otherwise I don't get it.

Yup, I don't even know if this post is serious. Apparently the only thing that you had to pay for was subsidized food and a bus ride or two. Not exactly simulating the damage done by a 10% pay cut, is it? Try making a pre-crash CA house-size payment with a 10% pay cut (and in lots of cases you could throw in a newly out-of-work spouse, I suspect) and then re-evaluate the problem.

[madhatter]

I just came from doing some work at Berkeley, and I have trouble seeing what all the griping's about.

Yup, I don't even know if this post is serious. Apparently the only thing that you had to pay for was subsidized food and a bus ride or two. Not exactly simulating the damage done by a 10% pay cut, is it? Try making a pre-crash CA house-size payment with a 10% pay cut (and in lots of cases you could throw in a newly out-of-work spouse, I suspect) and then re-evaluate the problem.

As Dan Quayle said to the American Samoans, "You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be."

[tolerantly]

Boy, do you guys need to wake up and look around you, even though it'd undercut the hell out of your rhetoric.

A 10% salary cut?  I'm here with people who've had a 100% salary cut and no immediate prospects for anything else.  I got friends in similar housing situations in NJ working part-time at Home Depot because that's all there is.  All the connections worked, dozens of resumes out, headhunters and agents paid, and nothing.  I'm lucky in having found work that'll carry us through March of next year.  You may find this absolutely incredible, but there's a whole world of people out there doing serious work without getting paid bupkes for it.  You guys have salaries, health insurance, retirement benefits, disability insurance, and, for some of you, tenure and tuition benefits.  You sell a complete intangible and are not required to prove its utility.  You live nicely, you get to do work you're interested in, and you get to sit down while doing much of it.  In Berkeley, you get to do it in a physically splendid place with annoyingly good food and lovely weather.  I'd say quitcher b*tching.

DvF, I'm sure Berkeley's stuffed with bright people who've worked hard.  There's untold others who're bright and accomplished and have worked hard, too.  I see the argument from bringing in cash, but the rest?  No, I don't see any particular "deserve" about it.  They're in a fortunate situation, but there's plenty more where most of them came from.

As for the premiere research institution part -- look, this is the same argument you'll hear all over town.  We're not a premiere research institution, but there are good reasons to keep funding us up the wazoo.  Unfortunately, CA is bust, and we're not far from it. 

But, you know, go ahead, get rabid over that pie.  I hear it's getting lower.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

tolerantly, the point isn't that they are working hard; salary in our society is not a simple function of how hard we work.  I suspect that few of the people you know who are being laid off are in companies that are wildly successful, and few companies are as successful as UCB is.  Also, few of those people attract several times their salary to their employer; the UCB faculty do.  Cutting UCB (or any quality state university) at this point in time is like turning to your investments when you need a bit of cash, and selling shares in one of the few stocks in the portfolio that consistently brings in dividends.

You might think that faculty of the quality of those at UCB are a "dime a dozen", but that is simply not true. - DvF

[tolerantly]

tolerantly, the point isn't that they are working hard; salary in our society is not a simple function of how hard we work.  I suspect that few of the people you know who are being laid off are in companies that are wildly successful, and few companies are as successful as UCB is.  Also, few of those people attract several times their salary to their employer; the UCB faculty do.  Cutting UCB (or any quality state university) at this point in time is like turning to your investments when you need a bit of cash, and selling shares in one of the few stocks in the portfolio that consistently brings in dividends.

You might think that faculty of the quality of those at UCB are a "dime a dozen", but that is simply not true. - DvF

I don't know, DvF; how about junior lawyers at hundred-year-old law firms?  A proven PR guy at a major PR firm?  An editor who climbed to the top of the Mumford pile to see her magazine fold under her?  Times are, as they say, bad.  Universities, especially public universities, are to some extent insulated from economic vicissitudes, which is a major part of why I live in a university town.  But don't kid yourself -- there are very good people out there, formerly of some highfalutin places, who have lost jobs and are losing jobs.  The word I hear from people in the northeast is that if you lost your job in the fall and didn't find another immediately, you're still looking. 

I understand the point about maintaining the investment.  We've got one here, too.  As I say, the quality of the research is not the same; but we have a remarkably good bread-and-butter state U here that attracts bright, hardworking kids from prudent families.  Keeping the tuition low and keeping fine, if not brightest-star, faculty are essential in keeping the bright kids here; you lose that, and soon after you'll find that, as in so many states, the state school's where you go if you can't get into someplace "really good".  There's a classless element about the current situation that's extremely valuable, and I think unrecognized by the regents and those in the capitol.  However.  The money is not there.  And when the money's not there, you do what you gotta do.

I suspect that much of the yelling about moving will be mitigated by the fact that things are tough all over.

[jonesey]

UCB is a bit like Harvard in that faculty who teach there can't imagine teaching anywhere else. 

[renji]

You might think that faculty of the quality of those at UCB are a "dime a dozen", but that is simply not true. - DvF

I agree, Berkeley isn't just a California institution. It is a national treasure. To date, 20 Nobel Prize winners have taught at UC Berkeley. The impact of UC Berkeley's high quality research touches all our lives. Cutting funding to this institution will slow discoveries that prolong human life, increase fuel efficiency and add to our basic understanding the universe.

The long term impact of these cuts, and resulting faculty loses, will be felt for years by all of us living on earth.

Cuts at "good bread-and-butter state U" may have an adverse effect on those that live in a 50 mile radius, but will not have the international repercussions that cuts at UC Berkeley, one of the world's leading universities, will have.

[erzuliefreda]

Gosh, I feel so very bad for UCB! Maybe on my furlough days next year, I can go adjunct there for free. Oh, wait. I'm not the type who belongs at a "quality institution." Oh, well. I guess I'll just watch TV instead.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I don't know, DvF; how about junior lawyers at hundred-year-old law firms?  A proven PR guy at a major PR firm?  An editor who climbed to the top of the Mumford pile to see her magazine fold under her? 

If the magazine folded, then it was probably not "wildly successful".

I suspect that much of the yelling about moving will be mitigated by the fact that things are tough all over.

I agree, and have said so above, but that doesn't make the cuts less deplorable or ultimately masochistic.  I am personally quite capable of being envious of my colleagues at UCB without at the same time being even slightly gleeful to see their salary drop closer to mine.

renji: I agree with most of what you wrote, with some reservation about your last line.  Every R1 I know has many faculty (and associated research programmes) who are as strong as their UCB counterparts.  What makes our very best universities stand out is that the quality is uniform across fields, and what makes Berkeley stand out among the best universities is the depth and breadth of their offerings. - DvF