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Opinion Tuesday, April 10, 2012
The Cavalier Daily “For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” —Thomas Jefferson
Matthew Cameron Editor-in-Chief Aaron Eisen Kaz Komolafe Executive Editor Managing Editor Gregory Lewis Anna Xie Operations Manager Chief Financial Officer
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Faculty compensation figures reveal a number of important facts about higher education which the public deserves to know The Cavalier Daily publishes the salaries of faculty and staff each April, to the disapproval of some. Releasing these numbers is traditionally accompanied by a justification of why we do so. We have a right to print these numbers, of course – employees of the University are public employees who are ultimately accountable to taxpayers. No one doubts this, and announcing public salaries can be a non-controversial gesture of transparency if done without highlighting individuals. But, socially, how much a person makes is often taken as private, even if public by law. For many, listing names next to numbers is just in bad taste. We could have withheld employees’ names and averaged salaries by position, department or school. But the data would not have been as thorough. Students do not receive an education from universities or schools, but from specific people. Teachers grade us and, in turn, students evaluate them. These course evaluations are one part of the review of individual faculty undertaken by each department. Presenting salaries by name allows the public to join in this process and hold its teachers responsible. The disparities in wages earned by professors across different disciplines may seem unfair. But in several of these fields such as medicine — where there are alternative employment options available to those teaching — the University aims to pay a competitive salary to retain quality professionals. And, compared to peer public institutions such as the University of North Carolina and the University of California, Berkeley, what the University pays is reasonable.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) yesterday released figures of its own collected from national colleges. The AAUP also provided a report on the data to explain its relevant conclusions. This report, “A Very Slow Recovery: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2011–12” juxtaposes salaries from public and private colleges, and compares them to tuition. The report finds the rise in faculty pay cannot explain hikes in tuition, because faculty salaries have increased by a negligible amount during recent years. The report also sympathizes with public universities for having fewer resources and less funding than private institutions which are able to pay more to their faculty on average. The AAUP dataset is nearly comprehensive, but unlike The Cavalier Daily’s numbers omits one significant group — adjuncts. Also known as “contingent academics,” adjuncts are graduate students or faculty members who work part-time or off the tenure track. They also compose at least 75 percent of teaching personnel, according to the report. To be fair to the AAUP, it does acknowledge the difficulty of tracking the salaries of nomadic instructors. But teaching so much without receiving financial security seems hardly fair to adjuncts. And it all comes back to fairness. The AAUP report ends with a clarion call which echoes the Occupy movement, saying “The struggle goes on.” But, before seeking political goals, the public must have information available to it, and publishing these salaries is our contribution to education.
Editorial Cartoon by Stephen Rowe
Featured online reader comment “I’d like to see schools like UVA start some top notch vocational programs which could help provide a different kind of education and path to the job market. Nurse techs, paralegals, food prep, etc. It would be much better than many of the private or online programs out there and it seems like an idea both the Republicans and Democrats endorse. ”
“simple idea,” responding to the Managing Board’s Apr. 9 lead editorial, “Turning down the volumes”
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