Stuart,

The problem with relaxing in the joys of a free market economy and just going to whichever institution pays you the most is that it ignores the fact that some of us might argue for higher salaries in non-technical fields because we believe it's good for education in TN, which in turn we believe is good for the people of TN.  

I don't just want higher salaries for faculty because that way I'll get paid more.  Sure, I could use more money, who couldn't, but I'm not dying for it or seething over THAT aspect of the issue. I want the higher salaries so that we can recruit the best faculty and keep them, and so that those faculty will have the tools and resources to pass on all they know.  I want our students to have the same opportunities to work with the best and brightest that other blue-state public university's give to their students, without having to rely on the good will of talented individuals.  I happen to think that the free market is not always the best judge of what matters.  I'd like my children to have the opportunity to study music, but if we rely entirely on markets to determine what's valuable then we end up with students who can program computers and/or play ball but who can't play a tuba or read a poem.  I happen to think that's not good even for the programmers and ballplayers themselves.  It's not good for the world.  The free market is a rather arbitrary standard of value.  It currently pays guys millions who happen to be very good at lodging balls into small hoops at ten feet.  Undoubtedly, only in this century has that ever been considered a valuable skill.  

In short, the salary discussion is not about you, Stuart, or the job market for band directors.  It's about whether or not we can convince the legislature that the world is better off when our children are educated about the arts, history, economics, political science, etc..  If they are, then it might be worth paying for it, and for those who are the best at teaching it.  I always enjoy watching the gymnastics that you and other conservatives have to perform on Raven in order to A) express their anger at THEC and  their wrong-headed priorities (you agree with that right?(Although I realize that you've washed your hands of that issue because the rest of the faculty were too slow on the uptake.)), and yet B) how they also argue that the market takes care of everyone just fine, and if you don't like it, move.  

Moving might help Stuart Benkert's salary, but it doesn't help TN's cultural impoverishment.  Putting more money into the arts and those who teach them really might.  So the salary issue is much larger than your paycheck or mine, and it's only those at THEC and in the legislature who say, "Don't like it? Move!" who want us to think that the issue is so small, narrow, and selfishly motivated.

That's my statement of faith, but I'm a liberal from the North where states have graduated income taxes (that, shockingly, seem not to have impoverished their middle class), and where the public universities generally have better reputations and are better funded.  And there is, too, a correlation.  

Chris Stuart



-----Original Message-----
From: Stuart Benkert <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] 
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 00:26:13 -0500
Subject: Re: [UTCSTAFF] Thinking THEC

Comment:
This, in turn, would set a new, higher standard for salary among teaching faculty.  By the time the rest of us are raised to that standard we should be sitting pretty.

Response:
Wrong. What are most of us teaching that can not be taught at a hundred other universities? I think I am a pretty good band director but there happen to be a lot of pretty good band directors out there. Certainly there are more band directors than "SIM" qualified researchers. Salaries are based on a type of intellectual market... if you have the same knowledge as a large number of other people... you don't get paid as much. Funny how that works. Guess what... when I want a raise... I will move... see... thats how they told us it works when I was in my doctoral seminar:

1. Bargain your best salary coming in because compression will kill you
2. Renegotiate when you prove you can do something other than complain
3. Use lateral moves between institutions to develop higher income
4. Stay connected with your peers as they progress through the ranks and hit them up for higher paying jobs when they become department heads and deans
5. Apply for gigs every two or three years to keep yourself fresh and see what the market requires
6. If you get offerred a better job.... TAKE IT.

Well, in retrospect, the above looks much like what people in "regular" jobs have to go through. We special intellectuals ought not to be faced with such cold realities. We should get paid more just cause we have learnin. If we are going to start talking about fair salaries we should pay each person the same whether faculty or staff. Otherwise, you are just as guilty of submitting to the intellectual market as those you complain about. The philosopher in me sees the obvious conflation here folks so don't bother picking it apart. The case could be made though, and has been throughout history, that all tasks are equally important... it is simply a matter of timing and availability. For instance.... when you are being beaten to death in the parking lot... the hourly paid campus police officer might be more important to you at that moment than say... a salaried Chancellor or Provost (no offense guys... I am not slighting your ability to "open up a can" on someone). The importance and relative merit of the knowledge or ability is directly related to the proximity of the person possessing it to the person requiring it. Otherwise, it (salary) must be based on intellectual content (specific knowledge gained and based on levels of speciality which acquire additional merit and value through the limited number of individuals possessing said knowledge and the ease or difficulty with which this knowledge can be obtained or transferred). If not this... then what? 

Folks... I am not saying that we are all getting exactly what we deserve. I am saying that some of us are... some of us are getting more... some of us are getting less... and some of us are lucky to have a job. But... and here's what you're going to hate... the "SIMS" people are also being paid acccording to their field... some a little more... some a little less. There is a ray of hope for those of you still concerned over the income of others... you can go back to school and learn what they know... then you can make that kind of money too. Or you can struggle to make the argument that sectioned introductory courses offerred by some institutions via video and internet are just as marketable as these highly specialized engineering fields. This, however, like my younger daughter, simply doesn't hold water so bring a towel to clean up the mess.

stuart

Christopher Stuart
UC Foundation Assistant Professor
English Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga