by Professor Johann Klepp, ret., MSU-Northern
Taxpayers, students in the Montana U system, friends, Romans, countrymen; is anybody listening?
Last year we were informed that Montana U system student fees would have to be raised to accommodate the massive financial burden of faculty raises. The tuition increase went through. The faculty raises--on many campuses--did not. On one campus--MSU/Bozeman--the pay raises were initially approved, but now the school's president is threatening to recant. A $3 million budget shortfall has suddenly materialized; this despite record enrollments at Bozeman and tens of millions of dollars being spent on new construction projects at the Bozeman campus.
And, fees are going up again, and, again, the state's commissioner--and other U system bigwigs--are citing faculty pay raises as a cause. It's time for a quick and sober examination of some pertinent facts:
FACT #1--According to a recent national survey, the pay of Montana's tenured and tenure-track university faculty has a nationwide rank of 48th out of the 50 states.
FACT #2--According to another national survey, the average pay raise being sought by the Montana U system's faculty--if granted--would amount, if you factor in inflation--a cut in pay on most campuses. Yet faculty at MSU-Northern for one can not even attain these meager increases.
FACT #3--MSU-Bozeman's president Mike Malone, among others, cites a high incidence of dropouts among first semester freshman as one of the problems negatively affecting faculty pay. Where is the quantitative evidence? But let's say it exists: Malone and his ilk go further and blame bad academic advising as a major factor that leads to the high dropout rate. Ignored in this scenario are overcrowded classes at MSU-Bozeman and Montana U often taught by even more woefully underpaid part-timers or graduate students and inferior and/or inadequate physical facilities at many of the state's smaller campuses. Also, most U system schools have no formal requirement for students to ever meet with their academic advisors.
FACT #4--Malone and his cohorts go on to note that U system finances are also being hurt when many so-called full-time students do not register for 15 hours a semester. The cant goes something like this: Fees are high (because of that greedy faculty); therefore, students must take part-time jobs to pay those exorbitant costs and don't have time to take a full (for state funding purposes) load. However there is compelling anecdotal evidence that most full-time students in the U system who are registering for less than 15 hours a semester are doing so because they are closed out of classes that they need or that classes that they need are not offered in frequent enough rotation (that is, they show up on the schedule once every four semesters, rather than once every two). For example, at Northern the party line is that we have too many faculty and not enough students, yet virtually every full-time student can not get every class s/he needs every semester which would not be the case if there were indeed too many teachers and not enough pupils.
FACT #5--Ergo, given FACT #3 and FACT #4, it would seem that there are not enough full-time teachers in the state's U system. How do the powers-that-be face this obvious problem? At one campus--MSU-Northern--seven teachers have been fired or notified that next academic year will be their last and another, given this less than promising scenario, has left under her own volition to accept another position. This accounts for over 10% of Northern's faculty.
I'll leave it at that. Reach your own conclusions. Don't let President Malone and his pals reach them for you.