From a report (http://www.baycitizen.org/education/story/protesters-demand-uc-regents-raises/) on the Regents’ meeting yesterday: “The regents also approved salary raises for 10 administrators and managers, including a 9.9 percent increase for Meredith Michaels, vice chancellor of planning and budget at UC Irvine, whose annual salary will increase to $247,275 from $225,000.
“Six campus attorneys also received salary increases. The largest increase, 21.9 percent, went to Steven A. Drown, chief campus counsel and associate general counsel at UC Davis. His yearly salary will rise to $250,000 from $205,045.”
Let’s remember what the protests are about, shall we? After already raising tuition by about 40%, the Regents are poised to vote on an 81% additional increase for UC Students.
I accept that there will be a great divide between my salary and the salary of those above me, even though, in all honesty, someone making 250,000 doesn’t not actually have 6 times the experience I do, nor 6 times the education. I know for a fact that that person doesn’t put in 6 times the hours, either.
It is disconcerting, though, that in a time of recession in California, of educational crisis, that someone’s salary could pay for 6 of me, allowing thousands more students to take the classes they need to graduate. It is odd to consider someone’s raise being more than my entire salary, as my own union has to fight to make sure we get 1% a year, which does not make up for inflation.
The big bosses say that these raises are necessary, or else we won’t have good people doing these jobs. It’s disheartening to know that good people doing the actual teaching aren’t considered near that important. Neither are good students in the classrooms, since admittance will surely soon be about being able to afford education, not to thrive in it.
They also want you to know that serving on this committee, the one where they get to vote to give themselves raises, is an “unpaid” service to the university. What is my unpaid service? Serving on two department committees (chairing one); serving on two university-wide committees; attending meetings and events; mentoring students; teaching “special” one on one courses (for no pay at all); advising on dissertations; writing hundreds of recommendation letters; giving lectures for other people’s classes, programs, and the book project; answering emails from students every single day of the week and on holidays; publishing, attending conferences, and staying current in my field.
It’s interesting that the regents feel it notable that they attend regents meetings without bonus pay.
There’s a clear message from the regents to the students, parents, and teachers in this system. They didn’t need to have a big meeting about it–just flipping us the bird would have saved a lot of time.
Consider this also. As I know you’re aware, UCD farms out their remedial courses to SCC, has graduate students teaching introductory courses, and lots of unprotected lecturers teaching not only lower, but upper division courses (I’d actually be curious to see what percentage of classes are taught by non-tenure track faculty). They built their institution on the backs of people with no protections – sometimes with no benefits. Most of these are people who can’t strike for fear of reprisals. Especially those who teach UCD students, but don’t actually work for the school. They’re saving a ton of cash hiring these people, but also they’re lying to students and parents about the education you receive at a UC. When they recruit, the don’t trot out all the people employed by SCC who teach the remedial classes, they don’t brag about the fact that grad students teach lower division courses (grad students with very little teaching training, by the way), they don’t (though they should) brag about their non-tenure track lecturers. And they sure as hell don’t sell students on the university by saying, “Oh we have attorney Steven Drown working for us. He’s just the bees knees.”
Derek mentions also, isn’t there some hungry, young, competitive attorney out there willing to work his ass of doing Drown’s job, for 200,000 or 150,000 dollars. With the economy the way it is you’d think it’d be a buyers market.
This might be your best post, Karma.