Here we go again. One of the problems we have in Southern Illinois at contract negotiation time is there is some thought that the professors care about money, which clearly they don't. The professors want fair pay, respect, control of their own destiny and reasonable management.
Fair pay - if professors everywhere else are making more than SIU professors, is that fair? It is funny how the paper covers these things without an understanding of who makes what at SIUC. Professors who make great money compared to their industry - Law, Medicine, Business, Music and Art (I figure this is about 20% of the professors). Who makes less than their industry - Engineering, all the sciences, all the liberal arts (I figure this is about 60% of the professors). When the press goes to interview a professors their view is largely about how they are doing, not the common good. Interview a business professor with their $130k for 9 months starting salary and they are happy, history professor with their $42k is much less happy. Human nature is powerful.
Side note on inflation - we are going to see rates over 5% in the next few years as our fuel prices start to reflect on the economy. A 1.5% raise per year isn't going to cut it.
Respect - Like the baseball strikes where the owners villianized the players, there are some problems here. The professors are the show at SIUC and all universities. Students don't come here for the administration, the football stadium, or new buildings; they are here to be educated by the professors. When Uncle Walt realizes that this is about the people and not buildings, many management problems will be solved as if by magic. You are right, Wendler will never understand this is about people and not buildings and is doomed to fail.
Control of your own destiny - I was amazed that everyone didn't know when you were deigned tenure you were fired. One of the problems that SIUC has is that the professors have been taught that management is incompetent on hiring and promotion. I expect that the professors would like the administration to follow the rules as they were written, in particular dealing with issues of tenure, promotion and firing people. Forget the money, there is where the strike is coming from.
Reasonable Management - Thanks to Glen Poshard we are seeing some public objectives from Uncle Walt and the boys in Anthony Hall for the first time. Not bad, only 5 years in and they are finally starting to do something.
Clearly SIUC is horribly managed and it is a shame. The more you rub elbows with people at SIU, the more you realize that most of the department chairmen are afraid to do anything, but are allowed to keep their chairmanships forever. Special note, for most people being chairman gives you a 40% raise the first day and a 10%+ raise every year after (vs. the administrations current offer of 1.5%, this is real money to a longstanding professor). At SIUC you don't see many chairman giving up that money.
Let me suggest here that if you want SIUC to improve, the BOT, administrators and Deans need to grow a backbone and replace a majority of the department chair people. The decision to hold chairman to some standards and get rid of them if they don't meet them must come from management. The professors can vote their chairperson out, but if you lead that movement and fail, the chair can really punish you.
I expect a strike or at least a whole lot of pain.
2 comments:
First, let me start with something you wrote with which I disagree: "Students don't come here for the administration, the football stadium, or new buildings; they are here to be educated by the professors."
That is true for some of them, but most of them are here to get a credential (degree) and if education occurs in the process, well that's a happy coincidence. Most students I know spend so much time in the Carbondale service workforce that there is inadequate time for both sleep and study. (Yes, they do party, but wouldn't you after pulling a double shift waiting tables?)
Now, as far as addressing what you perceive as poor management, I do not think the problem is as far down as departmental chairs. They operate within constraints imposed from above. I recall that a previous Provost pressured a previous math chair to pass more students. The perceived poor performance of math students results substantially from poor high school preparation. I'm not saying that the math department couldn't do better, but the failure of K-12 is well recognized now and dealing with that at SIU is a complicated issue.
Finally - and I guess I want to back up to the entry on Poshard and make a comment there - I recommend James Q. Wilson's book on Bureacracy to understand how fundamentally institutional culture and mission determine the success or failure of management. Glenn Poshard understands that. I'll pick up that line of commentary back at a previous post.
Do you really think this? You should have seen the negotiations four years ago. Those negotiations make these look like the faculty and the administration look like their sitting at Longbranch peacefully eating crumpets and drinking tea. I was certain they were going to walk, but they dived out at the last second. We really don't have this sort of huffing and puffing this time around. There is a much smaller gap to bridge. Fortunately, I don't think it's going to come down to a strike this time.
At least the faculty has acted unselfishly by negotiating more personal attention into SIUC Contracts by demanding smaller student-faculty ratios.
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