Op-Ed in The Blade about BGSU Faculty Negotiations

[professorjackson]

I LOVE that our salaries are so readily available for all to see. I wish it were that way for the private sector as well. I hope their numbers are the same, but if you prefer to get your numbers from a less rabidly ideological organization, here is another source for some public employee salaries in Northwest Ohio.

I'm the third highest paid "Jackson" at BGSU!

http://www.toledobladedata.com/caspio/

[Rightupinthere]

If a US presidential election winner got 57% of the vote with 87% voting, would you say it's a mandate? Even Reagan and Johnson didn't come anywhere close to that.

BGSU has two classes of faculty: Tenured/Tenure Track (Professors, Associate Professors, and Assistant Professors) and Non Tenure Track (Instructors, Lecturers and Senior Lecturers).

NTT are real professors (usually have the terminal degree, do research, know how to teach, advise students, serve on university committees), they're just not paid like it. One of our goals is to improve their situation with greater compensation, job security and overall respect.

Neither Johnson nor Reagan deserved the title "mandate" even though both latched onto the term. A supermajority would have carried a mandate, in my mind, but you would have needed 77% of those members voting.

Thanks for the info on the faculty classifications. I believe the tide needs to flow and BG needs to loosen some additional cash to get the faculty into a better pay situtation regardless of the classification. As I stated, all classifications are well below [except "lecturer"] the average for state insitutions. You have to pay for quality and increasing compensation will not only keep the better profs but attract higher caliber teachers to replace some dead weight [and yes, there is dead weight in the faculty].

[transfer2BGSU]

I LOVE that our salaries are so readily available for all to see. I wish it were that way for the private sector as well. I hope their numbers are the same, but if you prefer to get your numbers from a less rabidly ideological organization, here is another source for some public employee salaries in Northwest Ohio.

I'm the third highest paid "Jackson" at BGSU!

http://www.toledobladedata.com/caspio/

Yep! No more having to trudge over to the library to pull out the big thick notebook. Just jump on-line and look it up.

I forgot The Blade had that site.

And I'm the second highest paid "Rice" or the lowest paid in 2010 (depending upon if you're looking at the glass half-empty or half-full).

[Rightupinthere]

I LOVE that our salaries are so readily available for all to see. I wish it were that way for the private sector as well. I hope their numbers are the same, but if you prefer to get your numbers from a less rabidly ideological organization, here is another source for some public employee salaries in Northwest Ohio.

I'm the third highest paid "Jackson" at BGSU!

http://www.toledobladedata.com/caspio/

I love information more than anyone, but I stop short of knowing these types of specifics unless it directly affects me.

I refuse to click the link. I would rather deal in classifications and averages than specific line items specifically for the reason that it's none of my G.D. business.

[factman]

.........but doesn't the "public" pay those salaries at a state university.........therefore we should know what they are and what we are getting for those $$$$$.

[PGY Tiercel]

How can you do that from the database? Those databases don't list publications, grant money brought in, courses taught.. etc. Are you going to go back and compare those so that you know? Do you know how to search grant databases or publication records?
As someone beginning to apply for faculty positions this attitude pisses me off. Do you realize what somewhat with my skills will bring in? 1: My Salary-many research institutes require faculty to support themselves off their own grants. 2: Rent: Faculty pay a rate per square footage. For example, if I need $1million dollars to run a lab, I have to ask for $1.5million, so that I can give $500K to the university to pay overhead. 3: Employment of others: work in a lab isn't done by one faculty member. The lab I'm in now has 8 people. We are paid from my bosses grants (well, I pay my own salary and benefits from my own grants). If my boss (or me) doesn't bring in grant money, then folks lose their jobs. So in fact faculty at many universities are small businesses, what their salaries are provides no information to what you are getting.

[professorjackson]

Some of our salary comes from the state. About 25 to 30%. The majority comes from tuition...

[Flipper]

Prof...I don't feel like reading a 50 page PDF...just explain what you want and why you think the U can afford it...unless you'd rather do something else as well....

[pdt1081]

How can you do that from the database? Those databases don't list publications, grant money brought in, courses taught.. etc. Are you going to go back and compare those so that you know? Do you know how to search grant databases or publication records?
As someone beginning to apply for faculty positions this attitude pisses me off. Do you realize what somewhat with my skills will bring in? 1: My Salary-many research institutes require faculty to support themselves off their own grants. 2: Rent: Faculty pay a rate per square footage. For example, if I need $1million dollars to run a lab, I have to ask for $1.5million, so that I can give $500K to the university to pay overhead. 3: Employment of others: work in a lab isn't done by one faculty member. The lab I'm in now has 8 people. We are paid from my bosses grants (well, I pay my own salary and benefits from my own grants). If my boss (or me) doesn't bring in grant money, then folks lose their jobs. So in fact faculty at many universities are small businesses, what their salaries are provides no information to what you are getting.

Correct me if I'm wrong (probably am), but I don't think BG is a research school. I'm sure there is research going on, it's just not in the same scale as say that school up north.

[professorjackson]

The Carnegie Foundation provides a basic classification of BGSU as “research university—high research activity.”

http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/ir/page83756.html

Here is the BGSU-FA salary proposal:

http://bgsu-fa.org/wp/wp-content/upload ... aryFA1.pdf

[PGY Tiercel]

Correct me if I'm wrong (probably am), but I don't think BG is a research school. I'm sure there is research going on, it's just not in the same scale as say that school up north.

Absolutely right that it isn't the same scale. However, these Salary databases are popping up for all state schools, mostly to raise ire at what faculty make (which is nothing compared to private sector), without realizing that the bulk of our scientific understanding and drug discovery comes from academic institutions and not the private sector.

However, My point still stands about the fact that the databases don't report a faculty members duties and accomplishments. As professor Jackson pointed out, there are lots of faculty publishing papers. They are training masters and Ph.D. students. All of those aren't included in a salary database. I've seen it at other schools in other towns, the purpose of these databases is largely create some outrage that a professor might be earning $75K-100K as if that is some crime.

[h2oville rocket]

Correct me if I'm wrong (probably am), but I don't think BG is a research school. I'm sure there is research going on, it's just not in the same scale as say that school up north.

Absolutely right that it isn't the same scale. However, these Salary databases are popping up for all state schools, mostly to raise ire at what faculty make (which is nothing compared to private sector), without realizing that the bulk of our scientific understanding and drug discovery comes from academic institutions and not the private sector.

However, My point still stands about the fact that the databases don't report a faculty members duties and accomplishments. As professor Jackson pointed out, there are lots of faculty publishing papers. They are training masters and Ph.D. students. All of those aren't included in a salary database. I've seen it at other schools in other towns, the purpose of these databases is largely create some outrage that a professor might be earning $75K-100K as if that is some crime.

Ah, yer all a bunch o' overpaid, pansy liberals. (can we say that now that Grant's gone?)

[1987alum]

I've read through this thread twice and I'm still shaking my head.

This is the one black mark on an otherwise outstanding period in our alma mater's history. Sadly, I think it's long-term effects will lead to an era of a totally different sort. Sad that a supposedly smart and well-educated group of people couldn't find a more graceful way to settle differences.

[BGorDeath]

From the wall of the West End Tavern in Findlay (before they redid the bathroom). Quite possibly the greatest thing ever written:

Scribe #1: "If it weren't for unions, you would be making $2 an hour."
Scribe #2: "If it weren't for unions, I could buy a car for $500."

[PGY Tiercel]

I've read through this thread twice and I'm still shaking my head.

This is the one black mark on an otherwise outstanding period in our alma mater's history. Sadly, I think it's long-term effects will lead to an era of a totally different sort. Sad that a supposedly smart and well-educated group of people couldn't find a more graceful way to settle differences.

I'm not really taking sides either way, as in my situation, it seems that bio-med faculty are far better off being able to negotiate as individuals, at least when we have grant money and the threat of taking it to another university is realistic. Although on the flip side, under the current situation (not unionized, lets say at an Institution up north), sometimes faculty with large amounts of money and getting recruited to other institutions are able convince/force a University/Department to hire an unqualified spouse for tenure track position, which then makes it harder for the rest of us, but I digress.

My question is honest '87, I've seen you say multiple times that this will be damaging, and that an alternative should have been pursued, but I'd like to know what alternative you think would have worked? Is it not that sometimes one crappy outcome is the best of the alternatives?