It pains to pay Financial woes cast bad light on increases

A university, like any individual, gets what it pays for.

 

A BMW Z4 Roadster is going to cost a lot more than a Ford Focus.

 

Reputation and prestige cost dollars.

And in order to get top-notch faculty to a university such as CMU in a city such as Mount Pleasant, they have to earn competitive wages.

Professors here are paid less to do more than professors from other universities.

Faculty Association President Kevin Love said professors can earn a $5,000 to $15,000 higher starting salary teaching one to two fewer classes at other universities.

While some professors with flashy résumés and lofty academic ranks earn soaring salaries, most professors are paid modestly.

The quality of education is important and that quality depends largely on the quality of the faculty.

It is difficult for students and staff facing tuition increases and job losses — 69 employees were moved into other positions, bumped down to part-time or saw pay reductions last year — to stomach pay increases.

But some of the increases are a justifiable way for the administration to maintain faculty that might otherwise wander to more lucrative markets.

CMU’s faculty received a 4.1 percent pay increase in the last year, barely above the rate of inflation. Staff received a 3 percent increase. Pay raises amounted to $6.95 million.

It is bothersome administrators, who are not union members and do not have direct and regular contact with students, saw a 3 percent salary increase.

It is easier to see the worth of a well-published or long-standing member of an academic department, than a high-ranking official with a fancy title, such as Vice President of Finance and Administrative Services George Ross.

Ross, whose dedication to CMU came into question when he was found by Central Michigan Life in December to be a finalist for Tennessee State University’s open presidential position, has only been at the university since December 2002.

Ross is the fifth highest paid CMU employee.

Executive Vice President and Provost Thomas Storch, two pay positions up from Ross, has only been at CMU since August 2003.

While pay increases in the face of forever looming cuts in state funding and programs seem greedy and sometimes unnecessary, students cannot expect to get the education they deserve from an underpaid faculty and staff.