Thank you Mr. Benkert for the reminder. Like so many, I am rankled by the 
inequities of salary distribution, offended by largesse in a time of 
austerity, but you remind me of what is good here. Whatever may go on with 
the administration, whatever the hub-bub on e-mail, it is an absolute joy 
to walk into that classroom.
         True, I envy the salaries received by the upper administration, 
and the perks!. Lord, how I would love to have just one of those (pay my 
mortgage for me?). But, I would not take Stacy's salary, his house, his 
perks, to do what he does, even if I could. He and the other administrators 
get to deal with paper, committees, budgets and legislators. I get to see 
my students every day. I get to watch them grow, learn, achieve, and see 
their pride in their accomplishment. Our administrators never get to see 
this.  Poor souls.

Katheryn A. Thompson
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Foreign Languages & Literatures.


At 08:34 PM 8/29/2003 -0400, Stuart Benkert wrote:
>To quote a colleague,
>
>
>“It’s about ideas, not people�
>
>I find it a dangerous activity to compare salaries to job titles. There 
>may well be administrators who are not worth their salary. In fact, there 
>may well be administrators that are not worth any salary. The same may 
>also be said of professors and other staff members. For UTC to succeed we 
>simply must have the best people on board. Poor leadership results in poor 
>management and a loss of resources. Poor leadership results in wasted time 
>and effort as well as rising frustration. UTC finds it necessary to invest 
>in leadership and I concur. The question is not how much is spent, but on 
>who it is being spent. The evaluation should not be on the dollar but on 
>the value of the ideas the person receiving the dollar contributes. The 
>ultimate comparison should be as follows:
>
>Given that UTC is willing to spend a certain amount for leadership, can we 
>say that we have obtained the best leaders that this amount will allow?
>
>This however, is not what we seem to be saying. Once again we get caught 
>in the trap of looking at how the dollar affects us as a daily source and 
>not as an invested source. I find the leadership of Dr. Stacy to be worth 
>far more than he is being paid. I find the leadership of Steve Sloan and 
>Matt Pope to be worth far more than their salaries indicate. I find the 
>leadership of Lee Harris to be priceless. I see a university that is 
>surrounding itself with the right people and I arrive excited each day as 
>good leaders provide endless potential for my program and the future of 
>the university.
>
>To Missy Crutchfield I say welcome and I look forward to the ideas that 
>you will contribute to our university as it struggles to compete in a 
>market that grows tighter each year. I am optimistic about our future when 
>I see leaders with unique skills and abilities placed in positions where 
>they can most be effective.
>
>To Dr. Stacy I say lead on and let your vision continue to build our 
>university into one of regional if not national status.
>
>To all administrators I say, you are now being held to a higher level of 
>accountability and your market of comparison has just been increased. I 
>imagine many of you will be spending extra hours ensuring that, if given a 
>national review of your new financial peers, you stand out as the most 
>appropriate choice for your position at UTC.
>
>To faculty I say that I am not implying that comparing salaries is 
>incorrect. I am simply pointing out that there is much more to the 
>equation than that which is contained in the job title as well as the 
>amount of hours worked. I would not take any amount of money to be the 
>administrator of a faculty full of people like me. I am abrupt, often 
>times disrespectful and have very little time to suffer fools. I would 
>rather dig my own heart out with a stick than work on the same project as 
>some individuals in this university. Furthermore, I tell them so. I find 
>many professors too pompous, many staff members too bitter and I often 
>find myself to be too much for even me to handle. Yet, someone has to be 
>my department head, Dean, Provost and Chancellor. They earn their wings 
>every time I walk in the door. I teach because of my kids. You hear me 
>yell at them in rehearsal and I often sound like a trucker but I love each 
>and every one of them and when I do something that gets me in trouble 
>(which is not uncommon) it is most often because of them. I love this job 
>and somebody making more money is not going to make me love it less, just 
>hope that they love theirs as much.
>
>Discuss salaries but keep it real and keep the comparisons even. Compare 
>like to like and take a brutally honest look at what you contribute that 
>no one else could. If you still don’t like the results work to fix it 
>but do so in a positive manner. If you still can’t fix the problem…. 
>there are two major freeways that run through town ¦ get on one of them.
>
>GO MOCS!
>
>stuart