Thoughts on “Full” Raises for Whitworth Faculty
October 31st, 2009I am among the blessed of the earth. With millions of people currently out of work in the U.S. and billions of people on the planet living on a pittiance (even before the current recession), I recognize how fortunate I am. Moreover, I have a wonderful, loving family, something that is more precious and important to happiness than material affluence (assuming a basic level of subsistence). Plus I live in a democratic, free and politically stable country (despite America’s myriad problems, I am a big winner in the “birth lottery”). I am also fortunate to have found a way to make a living that I enjoy; being a professor suits me fantastically well. My profession allows me to feel that I contribute to the good—that my work has some significance and meaning—and allows me to get paid for doing things that I enjoy and would want to do on my days off if I had any other job—I love reading, constantly learning, trying to make sense of the world, talking about my emerging understanding and new questions with other inquisitive people. Thus there is precious little, I realize, for me to complain about; I am indeed greatful for all my manifold blessings.
Feeling so blessed allows me to chuckle more than cringe at the clever way our university’s president communicated some information to faculty in an email last week. He told us that the university is moving forward with building an expensive new science building with debt financing (wherefore art thou, o donors?). He shared “good news” with us, explaining that he was happy to discover that “the lower cost of bonds would enable us to do the full 2.1% increase [in salaries that had been tentatively budgeted but not yet enacted] if it became effective on Nov.1, 2009 [rather than being retroactive to July 1 when our academic year began].”
Brilliant. Note that he did not write, “because we are building a science building which in our judgment is critical to the long-term health of the university we regret that we can only pay a nominal raise this year.” That is, he did not make explicit the underlying assumptions that building this building now, with debt financing, is more important than faculty raises. That policy stance is clearly implicit in the decision; he stated that raises are possible because, to his surprise, the cost of financing came in lower than expected; thus it is clear that the decision to move forward with construction was made with the expectation that the financing costs would preclude faculty raises. Rather than delivering the “bad news” about priorities he delivered the good news that we have been blessed with lower than expected debt service costs. Smart.
Nor did he write that foregoing four months of a 2.1% salary increase means that, actually, faculty will receive only a 1.38% increase (we have lost 1/3 of the salary year already, so 2.1 x .66 yields 1.38).
No, he is happy that the cost savings on the debt-funded science building will allow us to pay the “full” increase! And, by implication, we should be happy too!
Our president, soon to retire and much admired, has a PhD in communications. His skill is evident. Excellent leaders are almost always excellent communicators, no? Optimism is important in leaders, too. Bill Robinson incarnates both. He is worth every penny of the generous salary he currently makes. Seriously.
One of my colleagues wrly observed that there ought to be a plaque dedicated to faculty in the new science building, expressing appreciation for how our foregone (and generally depressed) wages made construction possible. That makes sense to me.
. . . “Sacrifice” is a common refrain at Whitworth when administrators address faculty. The academic vice president gave us a homily about sacrifice at our opening convocation this year when new faculty were installed. He also thanked faculty for all our sacrifices in a letter he sent out earlier this year.
Faculty at Whitworth do make sacrifices, and it is good that they are appreciated (I believe that they sincerely are). But I worry that faculty sacrifices are being disproportionately relied upon to run the school, and that the ready acquiescence of the faculty to sacrifice is making administrators make too many trips to that well. I imagine that it is not a sustainable practice, especially if we aim to enhance excellence.
Faculty here teach more, advise more and earn less than colleagues at other institutions, especially in certain disciplines like business (Whitworth pays only modest differences based on disciplines, so basically all professors of a certain seniority and rank are in lockstep).
I wonder if this sacrifice works partly because faculty in some disciplines have few realistic alternatives? Of course there are myriad reasons faculty make sacrifices—some people want to live in Spokane, some of them feel God wants them to work at Whitworth, and some of them probably couldn’t easily go elsewhere, especially after years of being here and “sacrificing” there research time.
Plus in some disciplines jobs are just incredibly scarce. In some fields, we attract hundreds of applicants when we post a job opening. This is true in theology, philosophy and English, for example. Recent searches in those disciplines have yielded an embarrassment of riches in terms of numbers of applicants and their credentials. Meanwhile our most recent searches in business (for a markeing professor and for a dean) have for multiple years failed to attract an equivalently rich pool of candidates (not even close). Also, less than half of our current business faculty have terminal degrees (though I hasten to add we have some stellar teachers in this category).
The ratio of full time faculty to numbers of students (or credit hours generated) is also quite different in business than in, say, art or athletic training (an excellent program that admits 12 students per year). Most institutions “tax” their business schools to support other programs, and within boundaries this seems appropriate to me, but overall it seems to me that Whitworth has pushed this principle too far.
Our business school has now been told to go for third-party (AACSB) accreditation; the administration says it is willing to put resources behind this. However, given the history of running the business department on the sacrifice principle, I remain somewhat skeptical that all the needed support will materialize. We have a huge gap to close.
Actually, faculty salaries have increased overall at Whitworth in recent years. They are now near the midpoint of a self-selected reference group. Though this strikes me as a very modest distinction, achieving it was a strategic goal for the institution. Many senior faculty, who remember darker days for the college, seem greatful that the rising tide of enrollment and tuition has lifted their boats.
. . . To return to the theme of gratitutde, even a 1.38% raise is meaningful in a time of essentially zero inflation. Also, it is meaningful if it is compounded annually over the course of a career. (Not getting a raise in any given year makes subsequent raises less, too). In this sense, getting even a nominal raise is helpfu, and losing it would be harmful, especially over the long haul. Thus, I am grateful for the raise, however modest, and more basically I am grateful to 1) have a job 2) that I enjoy. In this context, I sincerely express thanks for the 1.38%.
Again, I count myself among the blessed of the earth. I adore being a professor. I like many things about Whitworth. I appreciate that the university appreciates that its faculty makes sacrificies, and I even admire our president for his optimisim and spin skills. But whether the university can build a superb business school on the principle of faculty sacrifice is less clear to me. I believe that there is an emerging appreciation among the leadership that doing so seems improbable, but we are yet to see whether the university will make the changes necessary to correct the underlying problems. I fear doing so will require them to make some difficult sacrifices.