[Vision2020] Should Former Deans Retain Their High Salaries?

[Jerry Weitz]

Nick, I have been told by folks in the know that University of Washington's 
President makes $750,000/ year plus benefits.  If this is the case, seems 
to me reforms ought to be undertaken. Jerry



At 01:17 PM 10/23/06, nickgier at adelphia.net wrote:
>Greetings:
>
>This is my radio commentary for KRFP FM 92.5 for tomorrow.
>
>Nick Gier
>
>SHOULD FORMER COLLEGE DEANS RETAIN THEIR HIGH SALARIES?
>
>Deans have the toughest job in today's universities and colleges.  Like 
>their presidents, they are reluctantly spending less and less time on 
>academic matters. Unfortunately, their institutions have gradually become 
>corportized, so it is only natural that they should act more like CEOs.
>
>What makes deans' jobs difficult is that they sit in an uneasy seat 
>between their faculty and the upper administration.  Do they represent the 
>interests of their faculty, or do they do the bidding of the upper 
>administration?  Sadly, my experience is that they usually do the latter.
>
>Deans at European universities have an easier time resolving this 
>dilemma.  Unlike our deans, who are appointed by the upper administration, 
>European deans and presidents, according to a tradition that goes back to 
>medieval times, are democratically elected.  Therefore, European 
>university administrators are totally accountable to the faculty they 
>represent.
>
>Another sign that higher education administrators have become academic 
>CEOs is their huge salaries. From 1982-2005, UI administration salaries 
>have increased 251 percent, while full professor salaries have increased 
>only 154 percent.  (The CPI for that time period was 193.)  Faculty don't 
>want their administrators to be paid less; rather, they also want to earn 
>professional salaries that match their long years of training and hard 
>work on the job.
>
>In the old days, if new administrators were chosen from the UI faculty, 
>they were given a 12-month salary and an administrative increment.  That 
>is not the case any more. When I started teaching in 1972, President 
>Richard Gibb made three times as much as I did, but now President Tim 
>White makes seven times more than new assistant professors. More and more 
>deans are also hired on the open market at much higher salaries than ever 
>before.
>
>It was also understood that when administrators returned to teaching, they 
>would receive a 10-month contract and lose their administrative 
>bonus.  But that has not happened for many years. In some instances, but 
>not always, there is a "step-down" agreement with some reduction in salary.
>
>There is one benefit that former deans receive that I believe is well 
>earned.  After grueling years straddling the fence between faculty and 
>administration, former deans who stay on campus are given sabbatical leave 
>so that they can retool for the classroom and restart research 
>projects.  Faculty, however, must take full-year sabbaticals at half pay, 
>so there is no reason why former dean's cannot do the same.
>
>As I look at the faculty union's salary surveys for the past five years, I 
>note the following examples:
>
>•       An associate dean of liberal arts earned $8,074 per month in 2005, 
>but now she is back in her department at $9,090 per month. Her department 
>colleagues make an average $5,239 per month.
>•       The liberal arts dean recently resigned in disgrace, and he is now 
>on sabbatical earning his dean's salary of $137, 134.  As in the case in 
>private industry, there is no discount for poor performance.  His salary 
>will go down 15 percent at mid-year, but that was due to a prearranged 
>step-down agreement.
>•       An earlier liberal arts dean took a 6.43 percent reduction when he 
>returned to teaching, but he is now making $10,669 per month as department 
>chair in contrast to the full professor monthly average of $8,003.
>•       The former dean of art and architecture makes $8,561per month, but 
>the current interim dean makes only $7,708 per month. The other full 
>professors in the college earn a monthly salary of $7,063.
>•       The former dean of business experienced no step-down reduction and 
>stays at $137, 322 per year.
>•       In 2005, a former dean of engineering returned to the UI after 
>five years in private industry at a monthly salary of $10,537.  His 
>successor was still on the faculty at $11,758 per month.  That same year 
>the average monthly full professor salary in their department was $8,413.
>•       The former education dean took a 14 percent reduction, and the 
>former law dean went down  18.8 percent, placing him below many of his 
>teaching colleagues.
>This issue is especially crucial when 24 UI staff employees have been laid 
>off because of funding cuts, and students are paying higher fees and 
>walking into ever larger classes.
>
>Administrators work very hard for their high salaries, but surely not any 
>harder than their equally diligent faculty.  Former deans return to their 
>departments with tenure; they are awarded full-salary, full-year 
>sabbaticals without competing for them; but there is no way to justify 
>this huge salary advantage over their peers, on which they build 
>financially for the rest of their careers.
>
>Nick Gier is President of the Higher Education Council of the Idaho 
>Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO.  He taught philosophy at the University 
>of Idaho for 31 years.
>
>
>
>=======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>=======================================================