The Cavalier Daily reported Monday that the University "has mitigated tuition price increases in recent years by limiting salary adjustments [and] managing workforce size through attrition" ("BOV approves tuition hikes," Apr. 16). The article attributed this information to Michael Strine, University executive vice president and chief operative officer, albeit without any indication that this was a direct quotation. Still, the diction sounds to me like that of a trained professional administrator rather than an undergraduate student, so I thought a brief translation might be in order, for the benefit of those readers unfamiliar with the code in question.
I am particularly keen to translate the expression "limiting salary adjustments." I must assume that Strine is referring, among other things, to the fact that faculty salaries were completely frozen in December 2007, and in recent years, just enough money was allocated to cover certain essential "salary adjustments," such as the raise which a professor receives when he gets tenure. He is referring, in other words, to the fact that the vast majority of the faculty, at least in the College, have not received a raise of any kind, not even a cost of living adjustment, for the past five years.
I think readers of The Cavalier Daily should understand exactly what this means. If we use the inflation calculator available on the website of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to explore how the buying power of a dollar has changed during the past five years, we find that if a professor made $70,000 in 2008 and has had no raise since, his salary is now worth $65,700. In short, the buying power has gone down by almost 7 percent. Keep in mind, the amount of work has actually grown, because during that same time the University has gradually accepted more students, and administrative responsibilities have also expanded in the inexplicable way they tend to do here at the University.
It is not hard to imagine the effect this has on a faculty member. You work just as hard, if not more, and the buying power of your salary actually declines. You see no prospect of things changing, because the University cannot - and perhaps should not - raise tuition more than it does, and more importantly, the General Assembly continues to shirk its responsibility to adequately fund public education. What was once a stopgap measure in a time of crisis, the salary freeze seems to have congealed into a fiscal strategy. Despite your hard work, despite your years of graduate training, despite your national and international reputation as a scholar, despite your excellent teaching evaluations, your effective salary will continue to decline. The effect? You lose faith in your employer, who seems quite happy to sacrifice basic equity on the altar of efficiency. You become demoralized, deeply and profoundly.
On the same day this article came out I had the opportunity to speak with a colleague of mine who has recently resigned her position at the University in order to accept a job at a wealthy private university. Did I point out to her that she was leaving a great group of colleagues and a highly ranked department? I did not need to, because she knew quite well she was doing so. Instead, I told her I envied her. I joked about going with her, and I confessed to her that I was hoping my own ship would come in soon, so that I could leave as well. How many of my colleagues, I wonder, harbor similar feelings?
This is the reality behind "limiting salary adjustments," a devastating devaluation of the very people who do the teaching and the research at the heart of the University's mission. If this is efficiency, then it is not without its cost.
Richard Padron is an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.
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