The faculty where I teach is at a bargaining impasse with the administration of our university system over our contracts. We are hoping that the administration will come back to the table for a real negotiation*, but in the event that that doesn’t happen, there are plans for a system-wide “rolling strike”, with staggered two-day walkouts at each of the 23 universities in the system.
This prompted some opinion pieces in the school newspaper, including this one. There’s a lot I could say about the claims in this piece (the university is going to hire replacement teachers or drop courses from the catalog because of a two-day strike? unlikely!), but there’s a single sentence that I think merits real attention:
If the teachers care more about getting paid rather than the education of the students, I say let them walk.
Can it be that the author of this opinion piece (a student) thinks that we professorial types should be so dedicated to the education of our students that we should work for free? Does he think that our caring about things like being able to pay for housing, gas, food for our families and the like, undercuts our commitment to the work we’re doing at the university?
Kid, if I only cared about getting paid, I’d be doing something else for a living. (For real, the easiest way to bum myself out is to compute my hourly wage, taking into account all the prep time, grading, student-care, and bureaucratic garbage.)
In fact, I worry — a lot — about the long term consequences of teachers caring so much about their students that they over-extend themselves to get the job done with inadequate resources. Not only does this burn the teachers out, but it convinces the folks who are constantly cutting back the resources that you didn’t really need those resources in the first place. In fact, maybe you could make due with even less!
I have similar worries about the heavy reliance of our local public schools on parent and grandparent volunteers. All those volunteers make it seem like the schools have enough to do all the things they’re required to to by local, state, and federal standards, but if all the volunteers split for a month in Aruba, the whole thing would crumble.
There has to be a point at which the right decision is not to sacrifice more to get the job done in impossible conditions, but rather to state, “These are impossible conditions, and we cannot accomplish what we need to without more resources.”
What do you suppose the kindest way to communicate this to a student would be?
______
*The initial “bargaining” on the contract involved the administration making an offer, the faculty union making a counter-offer, and the administration leaving the table — not quite the back-and-forth with compromise that you might expect from a negotiation.
All the best to you Dr. Free-Ride! May your administration wake up and be more honest at the bargaining table.
In my experience, the only way to communicate to a student the urgency of a union is to build a relationship with that student. The students who know me know how passionate I am, they could articulate my teaching philosophy back to me they’ve heard it so many times, and I let the real me show through, not some performance of me that I think is what a teacher should look like.
Students will always take potshots from afar, because school is often an oppressive situation for them and writing an oped in the school newspaper gives them some feeling of power. Though I do complain about entitlementitis a fair bit, I think for the most part students have had a crappy time of it — overcritical teachers (who were taught that was the only way to be if you were a ‘serious’ teacher), busy work, assignments that weren’t clearly articulated — and that’s just high school.
So I guess I think there isn’t much to articulate. People will always complain about unions because employers are good at making unions look like the bad guys (I mean, universities hire anti-union law firms that have — literally — written the handbook on union-busting). Each individual has to commit to being the good guy and build relationships with those around us. I’ll never change the mind of the neocon kid who wears a bow tie and writes for the paper. But pretty much all the students I’ve ever had have supported my picket lines, and many have come to rallies with me.
I’m not sure that kindness has anything to do with it.
I was a student … let’s see here – 10 … no, 20 … well, OK – late 60’s, if you must know. In some ways, being an impetuous, superior and ignorant snot goes with the territory. Did then, and I can’t believe it’s any different now.
Anyone who would make the sort of statement to which you object probably has never had to face up to supporting themselves based on their own efforts, let alone being responsible for supporting others, maybe even (gasp) children. I don’t think sweet reason will work. Be blunt … and good luck!
There was some talk of a strike about 16 years ago, when I was at SUNY Stony Brook. The funny thing is, I and several people I knew were looking forward to it, not as a chance to stay home, but as a chance to get caught up on research.
I’m not sure we were completely clear on the concept, in other words.
My sympathies on being represented by a faculty union, by the way. Ours at Stony Brook too 1% of my pay, and actively worked to keep my salary down.
I cringe every time an undergrad refers to their instructors as teachers — it just sounds wrong to me. Back in my day (less than 10yrs ago) we stopped calling them teachers after highschool. Sure, some of them aren’t professors, but we didn’t call them teachers. Ugh.
That’s ridiculous. I take it the author is NOT an education major. Perhaps he expects those of us who intend to work for schools to do so pro-bono? Maybe he’ll let us all crash at his house. I’ll bring beer.
This student needs to be reminded that he’ll be relying on professor rec letters to get into grad school or a job. These letters are an essential component for his future applications for which professors are not compensated.
I was going to leave this comment, but the site is hosed: the logo and search box are on top of the random character generator… Oh well…
Yeah, isn’t it cool that in the heart of Silicon Valley, the school newspaper’s website is so far from functional?
Dr. Freeride,
I think it’s funny that you actually bring up the volunteers at public schools and then ask the students at your university if they think that you’re a volunteer teacher.
Is volunteering that below you or is it just a bad analogy? And would you volunteer if you didn’t have an upper middle class income?
It seems that you’re very good at not bringing up the main issue that the students likely have with this entire debate: you’re already paid a lot, and now you’re asking to be paid more. Don’t pass yourself off as a volunteer (ha!) or a inner city high school teacher that has toiled and sacrificed to make the world a better place for the students. You’re in it because a college professor salary, benefits, and lifestyle are things to be highly sought after, and your union is fighting to uphold that lifestyle. And you’re helping to perpetuate the myth that college professors are underpaid and under appreciated.
Cry me a river.
Skeptical,
I have the utmost respect for volunteers. However, I need to work for money, else my children go hungry and unclothed and the bank takes our house. I do not, in fact, have an “upper middle class income” (not given the cost of living in my area). And, I’m not paid anything close to what many people with my level of education are paid.
That’s fine. I didn’t become a college professor in a state university system so I could roll in dough. If I had wanted to roll in dough, I’d have become an administrator.
My point, though, is that no matter how dedicated one is — and I really do see teaching as my calling — there’s something problematic about depending on that dedication alone to get the job done. Even if we love teaching, we still need to eat (and that’s not free). We still need to live someplace other than our (shared) offices — and to commute, since most of us can’t afford to live close to campus. Hard as we try to mark the stacks of papers with useful feedback and get them back to our students quickly, we still need to sleep.
Make no mistake, the students are getting screwed, too. Their classes keep getting bigger (while being offered less frequently) and their student fees keep exploding. But that money isn’t making its way to my pocket.
Education isn’t something we can pull out of thin air or spin out of straw. Just as it costs students money to live, it costs the people teaching them money to live. No amount of creative accounting changes that. And frankly, the moment I have to choose between following my calling and making sure my family doesn’t slide into financial crisis, it won’t matter how much or how little people “appreciate” the education I’m providing — I’ll be looking for a job that actually pays well.
Ask them to come and do their education in India; in ANY of the top schools that they prefer.
In a state run engineering school, the typical Asst. Prof. (with a Ph. D. and tenure and all that) salary here is slightly above $500 / month. Outside of such a school, a typical Ph. D. gets about $2000 / month. An UG degree holder from such a top engineering school (in which the Ass. Prof. works and “educates” that UG student) gets a startup salary of about $1000 / month in India itself!
(To put things in perspective, house rent in the city for a two bedroom apartment is about $200 / month; a good meal is a dollar; a cheapest new car for indian roads cost about $6000)
Point is; once those students see this economic disparity, they could realize only the so called “passionate” (read bone headed, if you want) become “professors”. The rest of the educated lot are smart as well and stay out of this education business for life. So your students may not complain that much when a pay-raise is called for by their “teachers” to meet up with the salaries of their students.
On the other hand, there could be a “reverse effect” of your students coming back there and advocating even less pay for you… 😉
How one responds to this post really reflects their life’s experiences, and where they are at in their life’s journey. I think a decade ago (20’s), my sense of “self” would have come off with the feeling of angst, similar to that of skeptical. Now in my mid 30’s with a wife and children, I’d answer to the bold statement of “go ahead and walk…” with a tone of sadness and a willingness to re-communicate the central issue. To be professional in what one does requires a belief that the hard work, dedication, sacrifice, and even rewards are within the experience of the job/role position. “I’m sure that there are a lot of college level teachers out there that will gladly take a job at San Jose State University to make money.”–I’d think twice about this bold statement before putting it into action. Making money, and making a living are two different things.
with sadness and sincerety,
Jes
The best way to teach students about unions is to allow them the opportunity to unionize themselves.
Explicitly appeal to the students’ own self-interest. Poor salaries and budget cuts can potentially have a large and detrimental impact on their grades and career prospects; good staff will leave, it will be difficult to attract new talent, and hence the reputation and standards of the University will suffer.
I just hope that the students are being kept properly informed of how the situation will (or won’t) affect them. When one of the UK lecturer’s unions went on strike last summer, I was called in at quite short notice to mark and viva mapping projects, and when I started contacting the students to arrange examination times I was shocked to discover that they’d all been left in limbo – no-one had bothered to tell them what was going on.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent report (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.toc.htm) only about 12% of American workers are members of a union, public employees are much more likely to be union members than people working in the private sector, and union members are on average better paid than non-union workers. The students may believe that unionized public employees are already better paid than their peers and thus professors at a public university aren’t deserving of an increase. I suggest countering this perception with a comparative salary report for public and private universities.
When I majored in computer science during the 1990s, I discovered many of my fellow students believed professors (and other instructors) made ‘a lot of money’.
No, really. People believe professors ‘get rich off of the public dime’. That is the illusion you must counter.
Blunt end of a shovel? I apologise on behalf of all self-indulgent undergrad punks everywhere. The perception that universities (and their staff) are solely concerned with advancing the careers of their students is widespread, in my experience.
As a public school educator this sort of issue I really struggle with as well. We’ve come very close to striking as well. In the long run, the students are better off if I do walk out of my class. But it’s so hard to think of my kids losing out because of issues they have no control over. Especially considering that for many of my students, their teachers are the only stable adult figures in their lives. The district depends on this. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “If you care, you’ll accept it” or “Good teachers will teach anywhere.” Of course, on the flip side our school lost half our staff last year (about 70% of those were teachers who wanted to start a family so they went to other districts with better benefits). We have rotating subs in the science and the math department because they’re hard to find and we pay less than the average district. We have a special ed class taught by a parent. She’s actually very good but because of the law she has to rotate out every 20 days. I would also be a much better teacher if I didn’t have to work a second job just to live.
I read the remarks of which you speak and was also disgusted. My professors have changed my life profoundly. I cannot fathom the disrespect the writer of such drivel seems to bear toward the faculty. Please, please know that many, probably most of us, feel enormous respect and gratitude and are behind you one hundred percent.
*The initial “bargaining” on the contract involved the administration making an offer, the faculty union making a counter-offer, and the administration leaving the table — not quite the back-and-forth with compromise that you might expect from a negotiation.
Negotiations of this nature are not about compromises. They are about each side trying to wring the best deal out of the other side, using whatever tricks or acting skills or fake responses necessary. Walking out of a negotiation is a standard technique. I suggest your side needs to find an expert negotiator to speak for you. Maybe you have one, but if your negotiator is genuinely surpirised or pissed off with the other side walking out, then he/she is not one. I assume the administration side is negotiating as though they were in a business situation; if you don’t do so too, you will be stuffed (sorry, don’t what the Amercian is for that!).