2008 Woodie Awards
Faculty still waiting for fair offer
Issue date: 4/27/07 Section: Rocket Letters
To the editor:
Higher education, like other enterprises, functions in a competitive environment. In order to recruit teachers, managers proclaim how wonderful the school treats its faculty.
Perhaps when it comes to hiring faculty, Pennsylvania's public universities should use the past tense verb was.
Over the last ten years, faculty salary as a portion of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education budget has declined by 3.8 percent. Over the same period, student tuition as a part of the PASSHE budget has grown 4.5 percent.
Most colleges and universities spend approximately 30 cents per tuition dollar for faculty pay. The PASSHE is at 25 cents. Faculty costs are already less in our state system schools than comparable institutions.
In the 1980s, getting a job in Pennsylvania's public universities was desirable. A position advertisement would attract several hundred applicants. Now, we are having problems recruiting and retaining quality faculty. The number and frequency of "failed searches" grows. More than 25 percent of faculty hired in the last five years quit, and many senior professors are taking early retirement as they experience deteriorating working conditions.
The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that by 2014 the most sought after employee will be the university professor. Demand for professors will be up 32 percent. How does PASSHE plan to compete when current contract offers are unrealistic and insulting?
Management claims that their super-size salaries are justified because qualified administrators must be attracted and retained. Then management offers professors a four-year contract with ZERO raises while tripling the cost of health insurance.
This offer follows a contract that had two years with no raises, and sub-inflationary increments in the final two years. Governor Rendell said if faculty would "bite the bullet" for the state in the last contract, then the next contract would reward faculty for their sacrifice.
The faculty is waiting.
Sharon Sykora
Associate Professor
Political Science
Higher education, like other enterprises, functions in a competitive environment. In order to recruit teachers, managers proclaim how wonderful the school treats its faculty.
Perhaps when it comes to hiring faculty, Pennsylvania's public universities should use the past tense verb was.
Over the last ten years, faculty salary as a portion of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education budget has declined by 3.8 percent. Over the same period, student tuition as a part of the PASSHE budget has grown 4.5 percent.
Most colleges and universities spend approximately 30 cents per tuition dollar for faculty pay. The PASSHE is at 25 cents. Faculty costs are already less in our state system schools than comparable institutions.
In the 1980s, getting a job in Pennsylvania's public universities was desirable. A position advertisement would attract several hundred applicants. Now, we are having problems recruiting and retaining quality faculty. The number and frequency of "failed searches" grows. More than 25 percent of faculty hired in the last five years quit, and many senior professors are taking early retirement as they experience deteriorating working conditions.
The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that by 2014 the most sought after employee will be the university professor. Demand for professors will be up 32 percent. How does PASSHE plan to compete when current contract offers are unrealistic and insulting?
Management claims that their super-size salaries are justified because qualified administrators must be attracted and retained. Then management offers professors a four-year contract with ZERO raises while tripling the cost of health insurance.
This offer follows a contract that had two years with no raises, and sub-inflationary increments in the final two years. Governor Rendell said if faculty would "bite the bullet" for the state in the last contract, then the next contract would reward faculty for their sacrifice.
The faculty is waiting.
Sharon Sykora
Associate Professor
Political Science
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