[Vision2020] [Spam] Should Former Deans Retain Their High Salaries?

Joe Campbell joekc at adelphia.net
Wed Oct 25 19:45:12 PDT 2006


Dear Donovan,

Tax payers take risks; they profit (or not) from their government; they have choices, e.g., payment or prison; they contribute to corporations, etc.

People with university degrees benefit society. Investment in universities provides a large bang (to the tax payer) for the small buck.

Or is your point that you are an anti-Education advocate?

Best, Joe

---- Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote: 

=============
Joe,
  
  You wrote:
  
"Lastly, if it is OK to stick stockholders with the costs of paying for 
an inadequate CEO, then it is OK to stick taxpayers for the cost of 
paying for an inadequate president."

No, there is a difference here, a huge one. A stockholder takes an assumed
risk when purchasing stock in a company in order to gain a substantial profit.
The taxpayer has no choice but to pay and has little to gain personally in return. 

The goals are also different. The purpose of a university is academic success of
its students. The purpose of a corporation is to make a profit. The risks are different
too. A business that doesn't beat its competition goes under. A university is going to be
around even if it has the worst President. There is also a difference in size. The Home 
Depot is a giant company that has billions of dollars, and bigger than many countries. 
A university only has a few thousand students and a relatively small budget.

Government operated schools have no clue how to spend money properly. In part, because it
is given to them for free with zero accountability for its misuse. This results in devalued 
degrees, unhappy students, economic hardships, higher taxes, and former teachers that lose their
retirement benefits like what is happening now at UI. 
 

Best,

_DJA

  

Joe Campbell <joekc at adelphia.net> wrote:  Donovan,

I  was not making any presumptions about Roger's views. I was just trying  to get some clarification. I usually agree with what Roger has to say  on Vision 2020.

Lastly, if it is OK to stick stockholders with  the costs of paying for an inadequate CEO, then it is OK to stick  taxpayers for the cost of paying for an inadequate president. Both are  competitive markets. If you want to get the best CEO or the best  university president, you have to make a competitive offer, and we've  gotten to the point now where the competition calls for a huge package  in the event that the CEO/president is forced to resign.

Best, Joe

---- Donovan Arnold  wrote: 

=============
Joe wrote:
  
  "I didn't SAY anything; I just asked a question:
  
  Does Roger think that CEOs should be treated the same as, or different  from, university presidents wrt lucretive resignation packages?"
  
  No Joe, you didn't ask a question, you made a statement. You said, 
  
"Roger,

I'm wondering if you'd say the same thing about CEOs."

That is public speculation as to what someone is thinking, not a
question. 

Second, Joe, you stated,

"I think that CEOs and university presidents should be treated
equally in this regard."

So Joe, are you saying that the taxpayer should continue 
compensating former university presidents that underperformed
and sank their school into bankruptcy or financial hardship just
because some private companies do that?

Care to explain to us why that sounds like a good idea to you? 


Best,

_DJA

  
Joe Campbell  wrote:  Whoa, Nelly!

I didn't SAY anything; I just asked a question:

Does  Roger think that CEOs should be treated the same as, or different from,  university presidents wrt lucretive resignation packages?

I  haven't said how either group should be treated. If you can read  something into the question, it is only that I think that CEOs and  university presidents should be treated equally in this regard.

--
Joe Campbell

---- Donovan Arnold  wrote: 

=============
I  agree with Roger. People that are not working should not be paid the  same salary as those that are, regardless of if they were Deans,  grocery checkers, or teachers. They should been treated like everyone  else. Your salary should be for the work that you do or the value that  you add, not work that you once did do. 
  
 If Mr. Campbell  believes that it is unjust to do that with private company CEOs which  we are free to choose to not support with our dollars, then he should  also agree it is unjust to do that with government jobs that we have no  choice but to pay into. 
  
  Best,
  
  _DJA

Joe Campbell  wrote:  Roger,

I'm wondering if you'd say the same thing about CEOs.

--
Joe Campbell

---- lfalen  wrote: 

=============
I'm in a hurry and havn't read this yet, but in response to the title, No they should not.

Roger
-----Original message-----
From: nickgier at adelphia.net
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 13:17:51 -0700
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Spam] [Vision2020] Should Former Deans Retain Their High Salaries?

> 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
> =======================================================



=======================================================
 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
=======================================================

   
---------------------------------
Get your email and more, right on the  new Yahoo.com


   
---------------------------------
Stay in the know. Pulse on the new Yahoo.com.  Check it out.


 		
---------------------------------
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates starting at 1¢/min.



More information about the Vision2020 mailing list