April 28, 2008
Administrative Flight at U. of Wisconsin?
According to an article in the Wisconsin State Journal, professors aren’t the only ones departing the University of Wisconsin for greener pastures; chancellors, apparently, are saying sayonara at an alarming rate, too. The reporter, Deborah Ziff, writes that:
In the last year, more than a third of the University of Wisconsin’s chancellors announced they were vacating the head office. …
Heads of five of 13 UW System ‘s four-year universities are leaving, or have already left — Whitewater, Madison, River Falls, Parkside, and Green Bay.
The reason, of course, is money. Ziff notes that despite the Board of Regents’ recent efforts to raise UW chancellors’ salaries to bring them in line with those of their peers, compensation and benefits packages for UW chancellors are still low. She points out, for example, that:
The salary of UW-Madison chancellor John Wiley, who announced he was retiring last year, is $327,417, the lowest in its peer group. The highest is University of Texas at Austin at $552,500.
Meanwhile the median salary of the other UW school presidents, except UW-Milwaukee, is about $13,000 below the median of its peer group.
Ziff quotes the system’s president, Kevin P. Reilly, as saying there’s no denying that money is major factor: “For the chancellors of UW-Green Bay and UW-River Falls, ‘the compensation packages were a significant part of the decision of those folks, although not the full story.’”
He and others worry that lower salaries will hurt the university’s ability to recruit top leadership talent. Jimmy Peltier, faculty chair of Whitewater’s chancellor-search committee, told Ziff that while he is happy with the pool of candidates to replace Martha Saunders — who departed last year at a chance to help her alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, rebound from the damage done by Hurricane Katrina (not to mention a big raise, from $190,525 to $345,500) — he worries that some candidates may be turned off by Wisconsin’s lower salaries: ‘“One of our disadvantages we have as a state is we don’t offer salaries other states offer,” Peltier said. “And that’s a challenge.”
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Monday April 28, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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Of course we will see the typical response from the UW-Board of Regents….Urgent action to raise the salaries of top administrators while faculty salaries (especially for those of us at the 4 yr institutions—-who teach most of the students) remain stuck in the toilet 15-20% below our peers.
— Howard Michaels Apr 28, 03:50 PM #
It is extremely doubtful that the loss of administrators from the Univ. of Wisconsin will significantly impact the standing of this university. I have never selected a university because of its great administrators. Faculty build research and education programs that bring status to universities, not presidents, chancellors or a plethora of deans. In all my years as a university professor, I have not met one administrator that has promoted the status of the university. Most of them command high salaries and perks and contribute very little to academic development. However, they are quick to “crack the whip” on faculty so they generate more grants. They move on to other institutions before their failed initiatives require their resignation. I only wish that state legislatures and other governing bodies would realize that administrators are the problem with universities and not faculty. Their exorbitant salaries and perks are a drain on limited resources that should be supporting good faculty.
— DM Apr 29, 10:48 AM #
I would disagree in part with the comment made by DM. Chancellors and Presidents, when they do a good job, raise significant funds, develop programs and institutes, and facilitate growth even at times when a state legislature fails to support higher education at reasonable levels. This is a disturbing trend for Wisconsin, and if it continues will have an unfortunate effect on the system and the flagship in Madison. Indeed, in my area, UW Madison has so lost its edge that we no longer consider it a major player. Only time and significant increases in funds for all positions could possibly change this.
— JE Apr 29, 11:09 AM #
Maybe at Madson and other flagship institutions chancellors and presidents are important players in terms of fund raising, but at the 4 year institutions in WI I would argue that Chancellors are less than essential. Faculty, not administrators, develop programs and institutes and bring students and prestige to a campus, not administrators. As a long time (20+ years) faculty member at a 4 year UW school, the important players in my life are legislators and the Board of Regents. Chancellors are irrelevant.
The entire UW system has been in a downward spiral for years. As JE pointed out, in his/her area, UW-Madison is no longer considered a major player. Sadly, that is true in my area as well.
If I knew then what I know now I would not have left my previous institution. I gues the word is getting out as my campus continues to have a string on unsuccessful searches in several academic areas, year after year.
— BJ Apr 29, 06:37 PM #
There was a time long ago when faculty took care of all the business of the university. Then they tired of it and decided to let someone else deal with matters that they did not want to deal with. Those people are the administrators. Faculty work does bring stature to the university. It’s often administrators that spend time pointing out the good work faculty do, and asking people to support the university in an effort to make up for the shortfall in public funding. Frankly, if it were not for the experitise of administrators telling the story, much of the philanthropy that all colleges and universities are dependent upon today would not happen. Faculty now depend upon administrators to lobby the legislature for their causes; few faculty have the time or inclination to tell the story. I know plenty of chancellors, and I can’t say any of them are in it for the fame. Many have little personal life. Money cannot buy time lost with family or friends, but that’s how our society gets people to give up things. Other states apparently are willing to pay more. We decry the loss of star faculty who choose to leave for higher salaries but feel chancellors are the unwashed? Administrators and faculty are in the enterprise together, and should support each others mutual efforts rather than sniping.
— JP Apr 29, 10:18 PM #
“Faculty now depend upon administrators to lobby the legislature for their causes”.
If true then administrators in WI should be fired en masse. The relationship between UW and the legislature is absolutely toxic and, if at all possible, getting even worse.
— AD Apr 29, 11:07 PM #
The issues with the state government are hardly toxic at this point The Governor and Senate have been very supportive and the University got a major INCREASE in funding in the last budget. The salary for the Madison chancellor has been bumped by nearly 50% to just under $500,000. Yes the focus at Madison has shifted some from the liberal arts to sciences, engineering and professional schools because that is where the student demand and money for research are going. Sorry English profs, you can easily be replaced at the current UW salary level.
— Frank Apr 30, 10:46 AM #
Exhibit A to my prior post.
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/04/2008041401c/careers.html
— Frank Apr 30, 03:20 PM #
Gee thanks for reminding me that I’m replaceable, Frank. And when the turnover rate in the English department affects your engineering students’ ability to write anything resembling coherent papers, who will you laugh at then?
I’m sick to death of the devaluation of people who teach in the humanities. Critical analysis and communication skills are critical in the business and science fields; who teaches those skills? Not an engineering professor. Not a math professor. Not a business econ professor. Humanities in the UW system are suffering attrition due to low salaries too. We are having a hard time keeping people on the tenure track because they keep finding jobs elsewhere (including at the tech schools) that pay better.
And your “Exhibit A” is a non-sequitur.
— AP Apr 30, 04:04 PM #
The idea that it takes a tenured professor in some arcane area of English to teach students to write a basic term paper is ridiculous and you know it.
And my example of an English PhD so desperate for a tenure track job that she takes Botox to appear younger exactly points to how many people are out there who want the job and are willing to take less money.
— Frank Apr 30, 06:20 PM #
Just a point of clarification, but the department to which I referred as being considered less the adequate in my post is not in the humanities, but rather is in one of the fields you mentioned. From my perspective, Madison’s Engineering and Sciences have dropped considerably in the last few decades. We no longer consider them as a peer institution in that respect. Additional funds of an expansive nature will be needed to correct this long evolving problem.
— JE May 1, 08:24 AM #
The Wisconsin system is distinctive in that most of the state government attended the very institutions it funds. What is more, the system was set up in such a way that closing a campus to save money is practically impossible. Top class administrators from outside the system are vital to break a downward spiral of low morale and contempt for the value of higher education that decades of underfunding has bred. This won’t be done by setting disciplines and campuses against each other, and might begin by reviving a strong undergraduate liberal arts curriculum statewide.
— F May 1, 11:24 AM #
Chancellors and high-level administrators are paid too much in relation to professors. 347K? I could happily live on that in NYC or London. Still, it’s sad that Madison, my alma mater, is losing stature, and that the state of Wisconsin has abandoned its once admirable belief in funding a superior educational system.
— btraven May 1, 11:59 AM #
Well, JE I can’t accept what you claim as accuarate as research and publications are pouring our of the areas I cited as never before. UW moved up to #1 in total research spending passing UCLA and Michigan. They just broke ground for the Institutes for Discovery which will feature a public private partnership for bioscience research. WARF is the envy of many schools in the are of moving research to patents and products.
http://www.news.wisc.edu/15155
— Frank May 1, 03:28 PM #
The state can’t accept it either. I think that belief is fine. Less grant funds for Madison, more for us. Good luck UW.
— JE May 2, 06:52 AM #
From the COHE
College of Engineering faculty are among the most productive in the nation, according to the 2007 Chronicle of Higher Education Research University Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index. The index compiles overall institutional rankings for 164,843 faculty at 375 PhD-granting universities. The productivity of each faculty member is measured, although the data are aggregated before being published. Faculty members can be judged on as many as five factors (books published, journal publications, citations of journal articles, federal-grant dollars awarded, and honors and awards), depending on the most important variables in the given discipline. For each, Academic Analytics assigns a weight to each variable. The following COE disciplines ranked in the top 10: chemical engineering, 3; civil engineering, 5; engineering mechanics, 5; environmental engineering, 9; geological and mining engineering, 2; industrial engineering, 2; materials engineering, 2; nuclear engineering, 2.
— Frank May 2, 04:09 PM #
And yet the sorrows continue. You trying to convince me or yourself? You will not convince me…
— JE May 5, 06:52 AM #