WOUFT Negotiation Blog

Doesn’t hypocrisy make you angry? Doesn’t it just steam your veggies when someone tells you to do your best and then stands in your way, all the while asking why you aren’t doing your best? This is how I feel when I watch the administration of WOU ask the faculty to build competitive programs but then refuse to fund them sufficiently to actually hire and retain faculty.

I have watched as three different departments have struggled with new hires and the low salaries they are offered, and I am sure that other departments have had similar issues. In particular, I am talking about the Business, Computer Science and Composition/Rhetoric departments. The major issue all three of these departments have is that there is a shortage of qualified people needed to fill teaching positions. If there are more positions than people, then the people have the option of choosing their positions carefully. Most of them will take the positions with the best salary. This usually isn’t Western.

In the particular cases of Business and Computer Science, the problem is compounded by the fact that anyone who is qualified to teach at Western in Business or Computer Science (that is with a Ph.D.) can easily make double or triple their starting WOU salary in industry. Although we cannot hope to compete with industry in pay, we cannot even attract those people good-hearted enough to be willing to take a pay cut to teach because the salaries are so low. Every little bit of compensation would help attract and keep these people.

The most surprising of these three cases is the Composition/Rhetoric discipline…they are just writing teachers, right? How is it that we can’t keep them? (joke about serving fries omitted...deemed objectionable and devicive, and we don't want that!) Once again, it is supply and demand. Writing centers and writing programs are in demand now because the “market” says that universities need to produce strong writers. Not many people who major in English want to focus on writing and rhetoric, so there aren’t that many Ph.D.s running around looking for jobs. Those that are out there command about 20-40% more money than the starting salary at WOU. The English department has tried to fill four positions in Rhet/Comp in the last few years, and has succeeded so far in securing two faculty members. Two others left for better jobs, and at least three others refused the position because of pay issues.

So, to get back to the hypocrisy. The administration wants WOU to be distinguished in its fields, but doesn’t want to fund faculty salaries in a way that we can be competitive or even so that searches in highly competitive fields don’t fail over and over again.

Here’s the thing: if we can’t afford to pay for faculty for these fields, then perhaps WOU shouldn’t have these fields. Perhaps WOU should go back to the good old days when we were “the teaching college” and forget all of this liberal arts crap. Let’s forget about keeping up with the cutting edge in technology, understanding the business world, and, oh yeah, helping students learn to write thoughtfully.

Of what value are these things to the overall quality of a college, anyway? Does it affect someone’s opinion of this school if he discovers he has hired a sub-standard computer scientist from WOU? How about if he reads a cover letter from a WOU student that doesn’t follow a thought through a paragraph? What does it matter if manager discovers his employee, a former WOU business student, doesn’t understand accounting?

Of course it matters! Half-assing our way through things doesn’t help the school’s image, and it ultimately hurts its bottom line (which seems to be the only line the administration is concerned about, anyway). Paying for quality faculty and keeping them should be a priority for this school. Faculty trained in cutting-edge fields, be they technical, scientific, or even writing, should be paid what they are worth, and they are worth what the market offers them. Yes, we have people in these departments, working like Trojans to make up for the fact that their departments are under-staffed because they are under-funded (and they are all working on their sainthoods, by the way), but they shouldn’t have to. I mean, for Grover Cleveland’s sake, our English Writing faculty is being head-hunted away from us!

Please do something about this. Pay us all what we are worth.