Since our favorite tokin' Kitten was so quick to pronounce the death of Miami's athletic department a couple of weeks ago, I took particular interest in this article on the front page of Mom's Sunday paper. It's hard to get at without a subscription, but the overall tone of faculty frustration is similar to what we're hearing at many MAC schools, and it includes the charming factoid that the athletic department budget down there got a bigger increase than all first-tier tenured faculty combined.
Overall, MAC athletic departments are more heavily subsidized by university general revenues (read: student fees) than any others in Division I-A, and if you haven't read this sort of story about your school, chances are it's only a matter of time until you do.
You notice that these reports almost always ignore departmental bloat?
Do we really need a Caribbean Studies department at UB? Maybe that should fold into history or sociology. By giving them their own department you create admins, directors, and professor positions that would not otherwise exit.
Yes there are dozens of specialized departments, and majors, that exist to rub some sort of political entity the right way.
And this is not limited to ethnic studies, some accredited schools are creating degrees in "wireless engineering"! WTF! That's called either Electrical or Computer Engineering with a healthy dose of signal analysis and networking electives.
I think its interesting that the heads of the academia are looking at sports. Here in Michigan state employees have been on furloughs to offset raises and then some, some lay offs, many public school teachers have been laid off and staff cuts, city or local government employees have taken pay cuts, increased health costs, or furlough days.
The only area I see exempt from this type of sacrifice is our Michigan public colleges many who continue to raise the cost of tutution and go on building sprees. There was actually some sensible discussion to let U of M go private to help balance the budget. I have yet to see our public universities in Michigan demonstrate the same cost cutting as other public paid employees. The athletic department is not the first place they should look in my opinion.
(09-07-2010 08:22 AM)DevilGrad Wrote: [ -> ]Overall, MAC athletic departments are more heavily subsidized by university general revenues (read: student fees) than any others in Division I-A, and if you haven't read this sort of story about your school, chances are it's only a matter of time until you do.
Only seven I-A programs made money last year, 113 lost money.
One of the big faux paus in college sports is to speak of is the cash drain Title IX has been on athletic department budgets. Like it or not, no one pays to go see womens sports (as opposed to baseball, football and mens basketball) and no one pays to broadcast those sports, no one pays to advertise at those sports, and as such they bleed cash. Yet many administrators and faculty (the same ones complaining about the cost) fight for equality for women and men. But equality comes at a cost in all colleges, whether they are division 1 or division 3.
Obviously mens sports like wrestling and golf lose money to, but being in the MAC (as opposed to CUSA or WAC full time) means those programs can often travel in a school vehicle and not have to shell out for 20 tickets on United.
Growing budget deficits keep in mind, are primarily pension and health care costs for current and retired faculty. If you want to cut the deficits, I won't disagree that athletics should be looked at, but moving all staff members to 403b (defined contribution pension plans) and reconsidering lifetime health care for employees would reduce deficits substantially.
(09-07-2010 11:59 AM)notauser Wrote: [ -> ]Only seven I-A programs made money last year, 113 lost money.
One of the big faux paus in college sports is to speak of is the cash drain Title IX has been on athletic department budgets. Like it or not, no one pays to go see womens sports (as opposed to baseball, football and mens basketball) and no one pays to broadcast those sports, no one pays to advertise at those sports, and as such they bleed cash. Yet many administrators and faculty (the same ones complaining about the cost) fight for equality for women and men. But equality comes at a cost in all colleges, whether they are division 1 or division 3.
Obviously mens sports like wrestling and golf lose money to, but being in the MAC (as opposed to CUSA or WAC full time) means those programs can often travel in a school vehicle and not have to shell out for 20 tickets on United.
Well, people DO pay to see women's basketball and if schools would cut football schollies dramatically they coudl certainly reduce spending. Other sports rely heavily on walk-ons and partial schollies-why not football? Unknown how that might affect attendance but if everyone did it I suspect people would still pay to see the product.
During a presentation to Ohio University's Board of Trustees last Thursday, Faculty Senate Chairman Joe McLaughlin asked the trustees to re-evaluate their priorities.
Citing inconsistencies in financial support for faculty and Intercollegiate Athletics, McLaughlin stated that faculty compensation should receive more attention than the Intercollegiate Athletics budget because it is one of the board's six stated strategic priorities.
The Board of Trustees compiled a list of six priorities in 2009 that focused on curriculum, research, enrollment and a $350 capital campaign to support academics.
Trustees amended one of those priorities today by voting to increase the capital campaign goal to $450 million, but in the area of faculty compensation, more could be done, McLaughlin said.
Board of Trustees Chairwoman M. Marnette Perry said she believes the financial decisions being made reflect the board's priorities.
"We're putting our money where our priorities are," she said. "... we have lived up to that strategic commitment. It's just plain important to us," she added.
A report released by the American Association of University Professors indicated that OU fell from third to seventh in Ohio university faculty salary rankings. The decline removed OU from the top percentile, a distinction McLaughlin cited as being historically important to the Board of Trustees. Anecdotal projections for raise pools in fiscal year 2011 suggest OU's rankings won't improve.
"We're losing grounds to other institutions that face the same economic challenges," McLaughlin said, later adding, "I think (the trustees are) listening. I think they understand it's important. What I didn't get a sense of today is how seriously they take this fairly significant decline in the rankings."
The discussion of faculty compensation and the Intercollegiate Athletics budget isn't a new one, nor has it been forgotten, OU President Roderick McDavis said.
"Intercollegiate Athletics started the year with a balanced budget, and we anticipate them to live within that budget," he said, adding the recently announced $750,000 merit pool for faculty is an example of the efforts OU's administration has made in the past several years regarding faculty compensation.
Pam Benoit, OU's executive vice president and provost, proposed the creation of the merit pool. As OU's administration makes compensation decisions, it is important to realize that all aspects of compensation are being examined, not just faculty salaries, she said.
I'm sure the women's studies department loses money too.
But here's the difference: ESPN's not televising women's studies classes and alumni aren't donating money or buying gear when the women's studies department has a good year.
(09-07-2010 12:36 PM)zibby Wrote: [ -> ]I'm sure the women's studies department loses money too.
But here's the difference: ESPN's not televising women's studies classes and alumni aren't donating money or buying gear when the women's studies department has a good year.
A few comments from the faculty side of things.
To use BiE's example, I think you will find that departments like "Carribean Studies" are going to be scrutinized as budgets continue to tighten. If they are bringing in students' tuition $ they will be spared, even if they don't have lots of majors.
Cost cutting among faculty ranks is also going on. You see this in the form of lots of adjuncts instructors being hired to teach classes rather than tenure-track faculty. While I think some (probably most) adjuncts do a great job they don't serve on thesis committees, supervise undergraduate/graduate research projects, have labs to run, serve on university committees, write research grants, etc. Of course this is a broad generalization as some adjuncts do many of these things, but most are there primarily to teach large intro courses.
I don't think too many universities have defined benefits anymore, at least not in MI. It is entirely 403b type plans now. Lifetime health care is gone too unless you have been at a school for quite a long time.
The one column on the graph that is always raised is the administrative bloat. We have so many Associate Vice Provosts for __________ that it is hard to keep track of them. They don't come cheap either.
Fact is that cuts can be made in a number of places, but the NIMBY principle is always in effect.
(09-07-2010 12:36 PM)zibby Wrote: [ -> ]I'm sure the women's studies department loses money too.
That's why they need to be re-evaluated at state schools. (Private schools can do what they like, the market will take care of that).
Why? Simply this, state funded schools got their start based on an offer, a conctract: fund us and you'll have your kids trained so they can help the economy. Yours, theirs and their children's.
Well universities seem to have forgotton that deal. They hire profs who are Marxists. They add departments that offer no value to the economy, often they serve to destroy it. Their training of students has been poor and is spiraling down. (VDH alludes to some of this in a very recent column http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanso...epage=true)
They've violated their terms of the agreement. Things need to change.
I like Miami U's approach that you pay different rates for different majors. While challenging to implement (if someone wants to post an update to that, I'd appreciate it) it's the right thing to do. You want to pursue Lesbian theology, or Caribbean poetry? Fine, but you pay the full cost of those studies. (Actually, there will be some synergy by using existing university classrooms, course listings, registration, etc.)
This isn't radical, it's living up to the terms of the original agreement.
It might be added that the original focus of the university was to give a broad-based, liberal education, something that has begun to disappear as well as we turn the universities into glorified (and expensive) trade schools. Give me someone who has a classical education and a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature and that person can be taught the particulars of most jobs and have a better perspective on how that job fits into the whole. People who are simply trained in narrow fields lack perspective and tend to define everything in terms of the one thing they know well.
(09-07-2010 01:52 PM)axeme Wrote: [ -> ]It might be added that the original focus of the university was to give a broad-based, liberal education, something that has begun to disappear as well as we turn the universities into glorified (and expensive) trade schools. Give me someone who has a classical education and a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature and that person can be taught the particulars of most jobs and have a better perspective on how that job fits into the whole. People who are simply trained in narrow fields lack perspective and tend to define everything in terms of the one thing they know well.
and give me an economy where someone with no practical skills but with a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature can get a job as anything but a college professor...
Don't get me wrong I love the idea of liberal arts, but kids used to graduate from HS with "a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature" thats where thei failure is, not at the university level..
(09-07-2010 01:52 PM)axeme Wrote: [ -> ]It might be added that the original focus of the university was to give a broad-based, liberal education, something that has begun to disappear as well as we turn the universities into glorified (and expensive) trade schools. Give me someone who has a classical education and a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature and that person can be taught the particulars of most jobs and have a better perspective on how that job fits into the whole. People who are simply trained in narrow fields lack perspective and tend to define everything in terms of the one thing they know well.
and give me an economy where someone with no practical skills but with a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature can get a job as anything but a college professor...
Don't get me wrong I love the idea of liberal arts, but kids used to graduate from HS with "a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature" thats where thei failure is, not at the university level..
Really? I must have missed that era because it wasn't in the last half of the 20th century and the graduation rates in the first half would kick a good number of folks out of that equation.
And I would argue that being taught to think well is the one skill most essential to any enterprise and ultimately the most practical of all.
(09-07-2010 01:52 PM)axeme Wrote: [ -> ]It might be added that the original focus of the university was to give a broad-based, liberal education, something that has begun to disappear as well as we turn the universities into glorified (and expensive) trade schools. Give me someone who has a classical education and a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature and that person can be taught the particulars of most jobs and have a better perspective on how that job fits into the whole. People who are simply trained in narrow fields lack perspective and tend to define everything in terms of the one thing they know well.
and give me an economy where someone with no practical skills but with a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature can get a job as anything but a college professor...
Don't get me wrong I love the idea of liberal arts, but kids used to graduate from HS with "a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature" thats where thei failure is, not at the university level..
Really? I must have missed that era because it wasn't in the last half of the 20th century and the graduation rates in the first half would kick a good number of folks out of that equation.
And I would argue that being taught to think well is the one skill most essential to any enterprise and ultimately the most practical of all.
My father learned Latin in HS, today we show kids how to put a condom on a banana and still have a 30%+ drop out rate.. Kids used to read the classics in HS, now they read Time or newsweek (if were lucky)
Some rather famous professionals throughout history had no college education.
I never said that being taught to think well is essential, ask me if I would hire an entry level engineer with no engineering education... I don't care how well they 'think'....
If you want College to be what it was back in the day you have to make HS what its used to be, until then the need for remedial education is too great to expect anything else.
(09-07-2010 01:52 PM)axeme Wrote: [ -> ]It might be added that the original focus of the university was to give a broad-based, liberal education,
Yes, liberal in the traditional sense, "liberating". It was to liberate people from being serfs; being tied to the land, and oppressed by a landowner, and by superstition, lacking the tools and discipline to innovate and improve their lives.
Quote:something that has begun to disappear as well as we turn the universities into glorified (and expensive) trade schools.
Bah. What "trade schools"? What are the top awarded degrees? Business, psychology...those aren't trades. Those are academic circle jerks.
(http://www.collegecrunch.org/best-of/top...ge-majors/
I'd say #3, 4, 10 would be your best excuse for trade school grads)
And frankly it's the universities themselves that are pushing degrees that offer no value, no liberation, to the awardee. In fact high tuition costs and ubiquitious student loans have led to a new era of serfs.
Quote:Give me someone who has a classical education and a grasp of the great ideas of history, philosophy, language, arts, and literature and that person can be taught the particulars of most jobs and have a better perspective on how that job fits into the whole.
Sure, but where are those people? Classical education has been twisted so much that people get degrees w/ no understanding of those subjects.
And don't dismiss math and science simply b/c they didn't teach it at the Sorbonne in 1300. Understanding those fields are far more liberating than reading Chaucer or Petrarch's whining.
Quote: People who are simply trained in narrow fields lack perspective and tend to define everything in terms of the one thing they know well.
Says who? That's a common claim w/o much evidence to back it up. Being an expert in a field often means having tangential skills in a wide variety of fields. The classical astronomer knew something about glassworks and polishing. Today's mathematician likely is an adequate computer programmer.
(09-07-2010 01:04 PM)CMUprof Wrote: [ -> ]Cost cutting among faculty ranks is also going on. You see this in the form of lots of adjuncts instructors being hired to teach classes rather than tenure-track faculty. While I think some (probably most) adjuncts do a great job they don't serve on thesis committees, supervise undergraduate/graduate research projects, have labs to run, serve on university committees, write research grants, etc. Of course this is a broad generalization as some adjuncts do many of these things, but most are there primarily to teach large intro courses.
Probably the most profitable part of a university is the adjunct teaching the intro courses. Large revenues (tuition) low costs (adjunct salary).
It is my understanding that research professors rarely carry their costs, in large part because the university doesn't get enough out of the grants to cover the costs of the salary of the researcher. I'm wondering if that is true in your experience, CMUProf.
(09-07-2010 01:04 PM)CMUprof Wrote: [ -> ]Cost cutting among faculty ranks is also going on. You see this in the form of lots of adjuncts instructors being hired to teach classes rather than tenure-track faculty. While I think some (probably most) adjuncts do a great job they don't serve on thesis committees, supervise undergraduate/graduate research projects, have labs to run, serve on university committees, write research grants, etc. Of course this is a broad generalization as some adjuncts do many of these things, but most are there primarily to teach large intro courses.
Probably the most profitable part of a university is the adjunct teaching the intro courses. Large revenues (tuition) low costs (adjunct salary).
It is my understanding that research professors rarely carry their costs, in large part because the university doesn't get enough out of the grants to cover the costs of the salary of the researcher. I'm wondering if that is true in your experience, CMUProf.
We don't have many research professors. I know Akron does in the Life Sciences and some of them are expected to bring in part of their salaries. A decent grant usually returns 50% in overhead costs to the university so someone that is a research factory can do pretty well. However, that person is likely buying out their teaching (adjuncts again) and strictly running a lab. In this case a handful of undergraduates may be impacted in any given year. I think this is the rare exception at MAC schools. I have 3 classes and over 350 students this fall. We don't have the research expectations that Big 10 schools have (successive multi-million $ grants) but we are expected to be productive researchers, teach and advise a fair amount.
Quote: People who are simply trained in narrow fields lack perspective and tend to define everything in terms of the one thing they know well.
Says who? That's a common claim w/o much evidence to back it up. Being an expert in a field often means having tangential skills in a wide variety of fields. The classical astronomer knew something about glassworks and polishing. Today's mathematician likely is an adequate computer programmer.
Which may be different than being trained in a narrow field- what you are saying, I think, is that most fields aren't narrow and I agree- you can't be really good at something without being pretty good at other things. Yet, while I have no evidence other than the anecdotal, I can often tell when I get new employees what their educational background is within minutes of starting to talk to them.
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