Another fat raise

When I saw this headline I thought it was about our Town Manager's %4 bump.

Perhaps this marks the beginning of the Bowles era? Run the UNC system more like a business, complete with bloated top management. At least they can't get their hands on the pension money.

Beginning?

HIs raise could have paid for two of the 50 some class sections they cutting!
Jacquie

You're right, Will ... should have said that Bowles is "open for business" ... so to speak.

Jean, Are you sure about the pension money? Those retirees and soon to be retirees are a huge expense in these tight economic times. I'm a little worried.

Hey Ruby, Is that 309 just direct compensation or does it include the value of housing, car, and entertainment etc. I wonder what the total comp package is worth?

What does Bowles have to do with this? Those who are angry about this ought to direct their anger toward the right people, and it not Bowles or the individual chancellors. There is a position issue here that transends the personal.

If the system had been doing this right all along, they wouldn't have give large increases to just to try to keep pace. Take a look at The Chronicle of Higher Education issue that reports executive compensation and you quickly see the problem, and like it or not, the market is at work here. Same reason that many chancellors are not the highest paid people on their campuses like they were in the old days!

Glad to see Will back to normal and not missing an opportunity to take a swipe at the Manager.

I'm a strong believer in rewarding performance (that's why it was part of my campaign). It's a strategy that's worked well for me in the business world. In my opinion, our Town's current top management is already paid too much for the services (sometimes grudgingly) provided. The additional %4 is even more troubling in light of the excellent work some of our lower paid employees are doing at way less than "Chapel Hill living wages". I'll continue to push for a reworking of our current pay structure so that we can reward excellence, retain mid-tier management that have developed key expertise and bias towards those that do the hands on work of keeping the Town functioning.

BTW, the disconnect between top tier business pay (CEO's, etc.) is considered one of the most pernicious aspects of our style of capitalism - do we want to replicate such a successful Enron-esque system for our public institutions?

I'm as angry about this as everyone, but people should get their facts straight. Erskine Bowles had nothing to do with this; the money for the raises is coming directly out of a $300,000+ appropriation in the state budget, which was passed well before Bowles was selected as the new UNC-system president.

That means the Board of Governors essentially had two choices -- to say to the state "Here's your money back" or to pass on the raises. The right thing to do seems obvious to us, but given the recent tiffs between the BOG and individual campuses, it's really not that simple from a management perspective.

And Ruby, James: No need to ask the chancellor about something that's already common knowledge. His $309K in pay is base salary. It doesn't include the house, car, or membership to the Carolina Club that all UNC chancellors receive.

Makes the idea of a raise even sillier, if you ask me. The main argument in favor of one -- essentially, that we need to keep up with the Joneses -- ignores the fact that our peer institutions are becoming highly privatized, research-driven vehicles that are losing sight of their responsibility to educate the people of the state. That's a far cry from Edward Kidder and Frank Porter Graham, but unfortunately, it's the way we're headed.

This is going to sound like I'm baiting, but I'm really not. It's a genuine request for information.

Does UNC typically get raspberries in the local paper when it brings in a basketball coach at a base salary (putting aside endorsements, fringes, etc.) that dwarfs those in the rest of the university?

Eric,

I can only tell you what the DTH editorial board did at the time, which is question Roy Williams' salary even as we welcomed him to the University.

I think "salary" is pretty exact term and refers to direct monetary compensation. "Non-monetary compensation" is the other stuff--house, car. The entertainment allowance doesn't benefit him personally--it reimburses expenses related to his job.

Chris, did you forget to add state-supported training camps for both the NFL, AFL, NBA, WBA, etc. ;-) ?

There seems to be an assumption that universities themselves are driving the change from the 'soft' organizationial structure of the past to corporate-like operations. I think if you will look further at the data you will find that 1) enrollments are higher than ever and 2) state funding drops lower every year. In order to meet budget, outside funding is required and that funding comes with strings, including administrators experienced working outside of academia. The pool of highly qualified administrators with that experience is not very large.

Some will say that if we didn't pursue research, we could focus on undergraduate education using state funding only. That may be, but that changes the issue to whether current administrators need the big salaries to one of the mission of the university. It also changes the nature of the learning experience for students.

Chris, the DTH has done several articles recently that have
obviously taken a lot of research, e.g., the one on computer
printing. Here's one that the DTH ought to wrap its arms
around:

UNC-CH has three missions; teaching, research, and govt
service, and several major sources of operating expenses
to fund those missions; apprpriations from the legislature,
tuition from students, NIH and other agency research
funding, private and corporate gifts, and UNC Hospitals
clinical revenue. If Chan. Moeser and V.C. Waldrop can make
Carolina North function finanacially as planned, an additional
major revenue source will be added, corporate rentals
and grants.

Since I started grad school here in 1967, UNC-CH has certainly
changed from an emphasis on undergraduate teaching
to an emphasis on cutting-edge research which includes
grad and professional student training of all types.

In the last few years, we often read articles that
UNC-CH has taken an X pct reduction in funding and must therefore discontinue Y class sections. However that pct is presented in the context only of appropriations from the General Assembly. Today such appropriations are an
ever-shrinking part of total UNC-CH operating revenue,
so such figures, while distressful, tell only a very small part
of the true story.

It would be a great service to the entire UNC-CH community
if the DTH would lay out Carolina's complete financial picture,
where all the money comes from and where it goes. With
such a spread, we could understand what UNC-CH is
truly all about, and why the administrative decisions that we
discuss here are made as they are.

Roy is worth every penny.

It's also important to note that the 2% raise for most state employees is a pay cut. Most people forget about inflation, which was only below 3% for two months thus far this year. Since July, the premlininary numbers have all been from 3-4.5%... I imagine it's due partly to China and India driving up gas demand.

For those of you who are really interested in undergraduate education, the Association of American Colleges and Universities surveyed high school and college students last year to better "understand their attitudes about and perceptions of liberal education, as well as the degree to which they recognize the value to their own futures of a liberal education and its key outcomes. The findings of these focus groups reveal that the learning outcomes business, civic, and academic leaders consider the most important either are not understood by, or are low priorities for, today's students."

The full article is available at:
http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-sufa05/le-sufa05leap.cfm

Very illuminating article, Terri. I copied the authors' definition of a liberal education to give to my daughter to read (see next paragraph). I will ask her to explain it to me in her own words. All parents, teachers, and guidance counselors should do the same, preferably by the time children get to middle school. For one thing, though a bit reserved for my own expansive tastes, it's a much more encouraging and inspiring definition than most high schoolers who guessed at the definition. I will no longer wonder at the teenage perception of education as drudgery, and the negative attitudes directed at those who study hard and get good grades. I would be inclined to join the mass of anti-intellectual bullies if my own future landscape looked so bleak. The present-day emphasis on testing can only have the effect of disinclining our youth even further from seeing the true value and purpose of a liberal education.

"Liberal education is a philosophy of education that empowers individuals, liberates the mind from ignorance, and cultivates social responsibility. A liberal education comprises a curriculum that includes general education that provides students broad exposure to multiple disciplines and more in-depth study in at least one field or area of concentration."

...it's a much more encouraging and inspiring definition than MOST OF THOSE GIVEN BY SURVEYED high schoolers who guessed at the definition.

David--my purpose in sharing the article was to illustrate the disconnect between what some of the adults writing here think the university should be doing (liberal education), the legislature's expectation (rapid graduation), the administrative goals (research), and the career orientation of students. I believe that parents need to be taking a more active role in helping their children understand the purpose of college as part of an effort to re-focus the academy back onto high quality undergraduate education, hopefully funded through our federal and state tax dollars rather than through reliance on the corporate economy.

Terri, I agree with that framing of the problem, and I understood the context in which you proffered this article. I was commenting on the article, not on your purpose in linking the article. Yet, my comment still relates: I was giving voice to a practical solution to this disconnect that I think addresses each of these concerns, because they are necessarily connected.

Students who cannot visualize the life-fulfilling and self-actualizing reasons for studying and yet are placed in pressured situations to study will end up disgruntled rather than inspired by a liberal education; will probably be more likely to drop out from college or have an episodic or disorganized academic experience; will be less likely to be motivated to make the kind of grades that would send them to post-graduate research programs of study; and will be disincentified from pursuing careers that relate to her program of study, and certainly from high-level careers that require continuing education.

Society, driven by its necessarily utilitarian and thus consequentialist priorities, will continue to encourage its children to engage in acts of learning as means to several socially beneficial ends. Parents, and to some extent teachers, driven by more profound hopes for the personal actualization of their children, MUST inspire children to embrace learning as a self-edifying, self-empowering, and liberating process.

It is in the actions that arise from this confluence of separate and somewhat equal needs (the age-old balance of the interests of society and those of the individual) that a child will be instructed. It is only when society has lost its will or when parents have failed to inspire, that the breakdown of liberal education occurs. Rare is the child who succeeds absent a adequate educational system or parents who care. Rare is the autodidact.

The public policy focus, IMHO, then, should be on holistic solutions. We do this by understanding the various needs inherent in our system of education (which you have summarized well) paying particular attention to the criteria imposed by resources (society's willingness to pay, economic environment), limits on efficiency, and child-based considerations (developmental disparities, home environment), and the uncompromisable aspects of stakeholder goals. It is within the rubric of this criteria that public policy solutions should be fashioned.

I understand the concerns of many people of the what they see as the corporatization of colleges and universities, and the increasing heavy reliance on commercial monies to gap school budgetary shortfalls. This situation is here to stay. What we need is a regulatory regime that benefits all stakeholders--but the student and his liberal education above all--and which maintains the spirit of the academy: transparency, the free sharing of scientific discoveries, the legacy of progressiveness, an engagement with the community, and the preparation of future leaders of society.

When my Uncle Charlie Woollen was UNC Comptroller, he never dreamed UNC upper management served as the road to riches!

Anne Russell PhD