The economy is catching
fire. Wages are going up. Americans are measurably more optimistic
about what the future holds. So what do
the Georgia governor, the legislators and the Board of Regents do? They decide to commit arson. They agree to burn down a big chunk of the
University System of Georgia.
While everyone else is getting
raises, we at Kennesaw State University are receiving neither merit nor cost of
living adjustments. In the past, we were
asked to do belt tightening when state revenues decreased. Now we are told to do so as they are about to
rise.
The cat is finally out of
the bag. It is plain that the
authorities intend to dismantle state sponsored higher education. Their goal is evidently to starve places like
KSU into second-rate institutions.
Let me explain. I have published sixteen books, edit a
professional journal, write columns for the MDJ and Cherokee Tribune, direct a
non-profit foundation and am a first rate teacher, but I earn less than some
elementary school counselors and many police officers.
Meanwhile my wife, who also
teachers at KSU and received the highest possible evaluation in terms of her
teaching, scholarship, and service, will likewise earn not a single additional
dime this year.
What makes this especially
galling is that the lowest level of college administrators earn tens of
thousands more. Indeed, upper-level
administrators are paid hundreds of thousands more. In one case in my own college, a newly hired
department chair obtained twice what I do, despite my achievements and
quarter-century of service.
On top of this, there is the
problem of compression. Freshly hired
professors must be paid more in order to entice them to come, whereas full
professors receive crumbs. The
difference between a novice and a seasoned professional can therefore be as
little as six thousand dollars.
Worse yet, recently revised
salary policies exacerbate this problem. The purported solutions only tighten the
differences between the top and bottom.
So I ask you, where is the incentive to do a good job? Why jump through hoops to be promoted when
there is no reward for doing so?
Many readers may say this is
no more than what professors deserve. As
left-wing hacks, they merit as little compensation as possible. Nonetheless, if this policy continues, even
less qualified folks will be attracted to academe. Why expend the time and effort to become a competent
Ph.D., if at the end of the road there is penury and disrespect?
The powers that be seem not
to care. Complete Georgia demonstrates that
their chief concern is what looks good on paper. If they can boast of more college graduates
in less time, it matters not one whit if these alumnae have learned anything.
And so we get increased stress
on online learning. Once decent rubrics
are in place, masters and bachelor level employees can administer them. Who needs expensive professors to inspire
intellectual growth or produce new knowledge?
Eliminating them drastically reduces costs, while ostensibly making
higher education available to everyone.
In the end, what we will get
is a two-tier system. On the top will be
a few elite private and public schools that are open only to the super rich and
super bright. Everyone else will be
stuck with what amount to diploma mills.
Theoretically they will get college degrees, while in reality they will
have received neither the knowledge nor the attitudes to obtain well paying
jobs.
Here then is the supreme
irony. In an effort to give everyone a
college education, many fewer will receive one.
Policies that are expected to promote social mobility do the
reverse. The votes of the poor will thus
have been purchased with assurances of social success, whereas they will remain
mired in the same old places.
This is a horror story. Americans have grown so accustomed to empty
political promises that they have difficulty distinguishing fact from
fiction. They are told about the astonishing
improvements to expect from modernization, but seldom recognize the repugnant consequences.
Well, you may think, Dr.
Fein is not a disinterested observer. In
this you would be correct; I am not. Yet
I am a person with first hand knowledge of a dire situation and a fervent
interest promoting genuine learning.
That should count for something.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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