Tue 13 Jan 2009
First off, I want to thank Dave Kane for inviting me to participate in this project. Second, I hope I do not disappoint. I have been out of town for more than ten days and when I got back this weekend had to hit the ground running for the new semester, which started today. Yet frenzied timing notwithstanding, this is an apt time for me to think about the role of faculty within an accreditation process, and to look at how Williams addresses such issues.
For right now my institution, the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, is in the maelstrom of the accreditation process, so these are more than mere thought exercises: What are the characteristics of an effective faculty? (And what does “effectiveness” mean both for the bean counters at the accrediting agency, and perhaps more significantly, for the self-reflexive institution?) What are the desires that an institution has for the faculty within an institution, whether an elite liberal arts college at the top tier of American higher education, or a small branch campus of a major state university. Accreditation can be tedious. It can be rote. It can be about jumping through hoops for the accreditors. It can be about creating patently false measurements and matrixes that take time away from an institution’s mission. In sum, the process of accreditation can at times be more of a headache than it would seem to be worth (and must be even more of an annoyance at Williams, which hardly seems ever to be in jeopardy of not flying through accreditation.
Before us we have two documents. One is the college’s “Self Study” on faculty issues. The other is a pdf document on an issue that occasionally arouses controversy here at Ephblog: Diversity, in this case, faculty diversity, in the form of the college’s 2005 “Diversity Initiative Self Study.” Both reveal some of the characteristic hallmarks of the genre: prose that is at best bureaucratic, at worst just plain clunky; the jargon foisted upon the world by the solons in control of accrediting boards; a sense of simply rewording things that have been written in the past to make them seem au courant; and the general sense of the perfunctory.
In short this is evidence of a pretty tedious endeavor. After all, no one looks forward to this kind of self study. Nonetheless, hidden within, it seems to me, is a reminder of what is special about a Williams education. The Self Study is an affirmation of the college’s longstanding goals with regard to the role of the faculty. The college is committed to recruiting and maintaining a vibrant talented faculty. Williams wants to continue to hold the highest standards in the classroom, and this starts with world-class teachers, but those teachers must also be first-class scholars, writers, and artists. To do this, the college must continue to affirm and expand its support for the faculty. And the college wants faculty (and select others) to be able to advise students to allow them to maximize their Williams experience. There is nothing new here, but the Self Study shows that as the years have passed, these standards have been relatively consistent, and by most measures the college continues to move toward some sort of ideal that it will never achieve, if only because each time it clears a height, it sets the bar another notch higher.
It is clear that among the many values that the college holds dear, the question of diversity continues to be a major priority. “Diversity” is, of course, one of those culture war words that can rouse controversy. And yet for a place like Williams in particular, much of the worst of the controversies associated with diversity ought to be avoidable. For Williams is able to recruit among the very highest ranks of prospective faculty, meaning that once a search is narrowed down to the final few candidates, any of those finalists ought to be able to excel on the faculty and within their disciplines. Nonetheless, by the standards the college has set, it has accomplished much, but has a great deal more to do in terms of achieving the sort of faculty makeup that it envisions as an ideal, though (wisely) no one has come forward and laid out what exactly that ideal would look like.
In recent weeks there has been much talk about where Williams can cut its budget. This was inevitable, and probably wise. Nonetheless, I have been chewing over the old maxim (probably from Warren Buffet or some other insanely rich person who can afford to have his own advice fail him) that says to save while others spree and to spend while others are bunkering down. Might this not be a great time for Williams to continue forward with all of the hires it hoped to undertake, perhaps even to add a few to the wish list? Would this not be an ideal year, when so many institutions are canceling searches across disciplines, for Williams to spend when others are cutting back, to buy when the market is low? Would the economic crisis not offer a wonderful opportunity to target hires that would expand on the diversity of the college’s top-notch faculty without having to engage in some of the zero-sum games that detractors often see in diversity-oriented hiring?
But furthermore, looking beyond the boilerplate, how do people feel that Williams is doing with regards to its faculty goals as expressed in the two self-studies that most of you probably gave a grad school reading (ie judicious skimming)? What goals are not well articulated? Which do you see as overstated, if not unnecessary? Is this whole process useful or necessary? Is the accreditation process useful or necessary? Could we rely on Williams to maintain its own high standards without having to go through this exercise that, as I have indicated, I believe absorbs institutional resources away from the very things that the institution would be doing anyway?
I hope these questions provide fodder for conversation and a starting point for whatever ideas are on the minds of everyone affiliated with Williams. The faculty is an essential component of any college and nowhere is their role more cherished than at Williams, where the teaching ideal still is a professor on one end of a log, a student on the other.
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75 Responses to “CGCL Day 3: Faculty”
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David says:
1) I don’t think that your description (“prose that is at best bureaucratic, at worst just plain clunky”) is fair. I sense that writing of Associate Dean of the Faculty John Gerry and, say what you will about the policies described, Gerry can write.
2) There is so much great insider detail, it is hard to know where to start! Consider:
The interesting thing here is not the growth of the academic faculty but the growth of the coaching staff. Ten years ago, Williams had 23 coaches, now it has 30. But we have the same number of students and (I think) the same number of teams. Did Williams really need to increase the coaching staff by 30%?! I don’t think so. Moreover, I don’t think that this count includes the various short term, assistant coach type appointments. I bet that those numbers have gone up even more.
There is a financial crisis going on. When will Williams start to cut its athletic budget
This growth in the size of the faculty, while total student enrollment has remained relatively constant, has reduced the student-faculty ratio from 11:1 in 1996-97 to 7:1 in 2006-07, thereby allowing faculty to work more closely with students both individually and in small classes.
Notice how much work the “thereby” is doing in this sentence? Just because the number of faculty has increased doe not mean that there is more student-faculty interaction, either one-on-one or in small classes. Consider the extreme case of hiring 50 new faculty who do not teach any classes or work with any undergraduates. (Not unusual as a large research university.) Those new hires decrease the faculty:student ration, but they do not “thereby” lead to more faculty:student interaction.
Has Williams done that? That’s what the report leaves unclear! It admits that the College “reduced the standard faculty teaching load by one course every two years” without calculating the effect that this has on course size and/or the amount of faculty:student interaction. Moreover the Report (unless I have missed something) does not provide direct measures that would allow us to know whether or not faculty, in fact, ” work more closely with students both individually and in small classes.”
Now, to some extent, the rise of the tutorial program means that this has certainly occurred, but it would still be nice to know the numbers.
For example, the decrease in faculty:student ratio is most relevant if faculty today are doing the same amount of teaching as they were a decade ago. Is that true? Besides the decrease in course load, there seems (?) to have been an increase in the number of the faculty who don’t actually teach at Williams full-time. I will mention some high profile examples later. Those faculty aren’t doing anything wrong. Their absences from the College are authorized. But just because person X today is on the faculty does not mean that he interacts with as many students in as much depth as person Y did a decade ago.
January 13th, 2009 at 8:46 amsophmom says:
Derek, thanks for your post. It does not disappoint. In fact, I have lots of questions.
To start, I would love to hear more about the above. I know you are published, and I know that this is something that is encouraged, even expected of top-notch professors. What I’d like to hear more about, is the “support” you mention. What does that consist of specifically? Are professors given paid leave to accomplish the writing? If they aren’t particularly ambitious in that regard, are they considered less worthy? I have seen criticism re the ‘pressure to publish’ and wonder if it’s warranted. Do you think it’s important? For the professor? For the school? In your opinion, does it reflect on the worthiness of a professor?
January 13th, 2009 at 12:40 pmDerek says:
First day of classes, so this is my first break. Let me respond first to Dave then to Sophmom.
Dave:
You lay out two basic issues, one I can dispatch with quickly, the other a bit more extensively:
1) This is not a matter of fairness one way or the other. Gerry may be Fitzgerald. but these ain’t The Great Gatsby. It’s a function of the type of writing, to be sure, but nonetheless, this type of writing rarely rises above the pedestrian.
2) I still do not get the obsession with cutting. Williams’ endowment, and thus its budget, has taken a hit, to be sure, but we are still talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. Williams can afford to do things that other institutions cannot and should leverage that now.
On the issue of coaches, at the risk of playing into the hands of one of Dave’s favorite hobbyhorses, Williams may have more coaches than it used to, but almost inarguably it has too few coaches compared to athletics programs of comparable size and given the number of programs the college offers. from my own background, for example, I cannot imagien the track team doing with fewer coaches, and could make a strong case for more. I’m just not certain where the benefit would be in cutting these coaches.
On the teacher-student ratio, however, I think you are right: We simply do not know what new hires translate to in the classroom, nor do we know what it means if it translates to moderately smaller numbers. Does Williams have the data for average class size? That would be far more telling than faculty-to-student ratio. 11-1, 7-1, these are both great numbers, but in and of themselves they tell us little.These are numbers geared toward parents-as-consumers and US News as much as toward any actual statement of teaching quality. depending on the type of course, 7 students could easily be too few or too many. My ideal number in a Williams history course was somewhere around 12-15. In many intro classes across many disciplines there would be no problem with far more.
SophMom —
“Support” means many things. Sometimes it is simply financial: Money for research or conferences, sabbatical leave, etc. Sometimes it comes in the form of teaching load. My standard argument about wanting a lower teaching load is that it is a matter of punctuation. I do not want to teach less well. I want to teach less, well. There is also another factor that many faculty would not consider in all of this but that most of us really want above all: The leave me the hell alone factor. Let me do my work. Don’t browbeat me about the little stuff. Don’t guilt me into yet another committee. Don’t come by with picayune criticisms of unimportant stuff.
I’m uncomfortable with phrasing any of this in terms of “worthiness.” But a big part of a professor’s job – and the exact expectation varies based on institution – is to be productive. If you are not productive with research, scholarship, writing, creating, what have you, you are in a very real way not doing your job, and even being great in one is usually insufficient to compensate in another. Publishing is important at places that expect you to publish. That’s a bit tautological. i know, but it really does vary based on expectation. For my own career productivity is hugely important. I could not imagine not wanting to be a productive historian, a writer whose work is read. But at some institutions professors mostly teach — and have the teaching load to accompany that expectation. At a Research I, the teaching load is far lower and as a consequence there are research expectations to reveal as much. In many ways Williams is far closer to a Research I than to a place that solely emphasizes teaching even if as a small liberal arts college the Willism mission is tied up in teaching excellence. This is why for many of us who value both our teaching and our research Williams has evolved as a model — it was a model for us when we applied to and attended Williams, and now we realize just how special it is when we inevitably land at a place that is not Williams.
I hope this helps. I’ll be able to check in throughout the afternoon from here on out.
dc
January 13th, 2009 at 2:36 pmsophmom says:
Derek,
Worthy was not a good choice. But thanks for giving me a better understanding of the importance of publishing, and how it is supported by the school. In particular, it’s nice to hear such praise about Williams in that regard. When my son first started school, I googled a few of his professors, and was amazed at how many, and to what extent, they had been published. It seems like a lot to accomplish given everything else expected.
As for all the emphasis on cutting, I feel pretty much the way you do. Granted, I know zilch about finance and budgeting, especially on the Williams scale, but it just seems to me that the wise choice at this point in time, would be to tread very carefully on making any dramatic cuts and changes to faculty and programs, while putting the brakes on the really big expenditures, like building and expansion.
January 13th, 2009 at 7:30 pmDavid says:
1) Derek does “not get the obsession with cutting.” I am not sure that “obsession” is the best word, but I am confronted with a certain lack of seriousness among many members of the Williams community. They seem to feel that, because a) Williams is rich and b) Williams has recently spent X dollars on their favorite desirable activity (whether that is more coaches, local school funding, visiting professors or whatever) than this means Williams can continue to spend X in the future.
Williams can’t. Williams is facing a major budget crisis. Williams will need to cut its budget over the next few years by more (whether in dollars or as a percentage) than it has had to do in a generation or more. Williams can no longer afford to spend as much as it has been spending. Cuts must be found. To deny this is to deny reality.
Fortunately, the trustees are smart enough and serious enough to realize this. They are looking for major cuts. If you have suggestions, then make them.
2) Derek writes:
This is almost certainly false. (HWC is the expert on this data.) Williams spends a huge amount on athletics, both absolutely, per athlete and relative to its peers.
I just ask Derek if his athletic experience at Williams was so horrible. If not, then can’t we go back to the budget (and number of coaches) that we had in his era?
3) Sophmom asks “If they [professors] aren’t particularly ambitious in that regard [publishing], are they considered less worthy?”
Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: All communities have their status hierarchies, their group judgments for what matters and what does not. At a place like Williams, how much you publish matters, both in obvious ways (Are you hired? Tenured? Promoted? Given a named chair?) and in less obvious ones.
Now, obviously, no on thinks you are a bad father just because you stopped publishing after getting tenure at Williams, but there is a sense in which you are not fulfilling your obligations, you are not a full member of the scholarly community, you are not a credit to the department.
January 13th, 2009 at 9:33 pmDerek says:
This is in response to dave’s post, which as so often embodies the almost Platonic form of Dave’s approach to argumentation.
Dave ascribes to anyone who disagrees with him a lack of seriousness. Dave makes arguments and they are serious. Disagree with those arguments, and by Dave’s own solipsistic definition, you are not serious. Dave is the only one who has ideas about Williams that matter. Dave is the only one who has a conception of what colleges face in these tough times. Dave is the master of all things Williams. Which of course makes me wonder why Dave invited anyone else to throw their opinions out there. It’s a sort of mock charitability — he’ll invite other people to do work, then when they perform that work they get castigated for a lack of seriousness. Please dave, continue to tell me about how higher education works: I have no idea.
Of course then there is the Straw Man. Dave loves him some Straw Men. One can see why: they don’t fight back. So Dave writes the following: “I just ask Derek if his athletic experience at Williams was so horrible. If not, then can’t we go back to the budget (and number of coaches) that we had in his era?” First off, I won’t give Dave rudimentary lessons in inflation. But second, at what point did I ever hint that my athletic career at Williams was “horrible.” How could anyone draw that from anything I have ever written here? However, in four years at Williams I never did have a coach on staff whose first and foremost priority was the jumping events. My track career was fine at Williams. It could have been better. The idea that there is no space for discussion between nirvana and “horrible” revals Dave’s rather static approach to the world of higher education and seemingly just about everything else about which he’s developed opinions.
As for Dave’s response to Sophmom, he writes the following: “Now, obviously, no on thinks you are a bad father just because you stopped publishing after getting tenure at Williams, but there is a sense in which you are not fulfilling your obligations, you are not a full member of the scholarly community, you are not a credit to the department.” Maybe that “sense” emerges because if it is true. If part of your job expectation is to publish, and you do not publish, you are not doing your job. Of course Williams is lucky because it is blessed by so many people who do want to do their jobs, and who do it well, and who do it irrespective of the economic climate at the college. What fatherhood has to do with anything is beyond me.
dc
January 13th, 2009 at 10:42 pmhwc says:
I agree with this statement. And… it applies to every college and unversity in the United States.
I have no idea whether Williams will demand budget cuts from the Athletic Department (Harry Sheehey may have compromising photos of board members for all I know), but Williams will most certainly be reducing the size of the faculty. They’ve already started.
So, before we sing the praises of a high jump coach, let’s keep in mind that it’s a zero sum game now. Coaches stay. Professors go.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:02 pmDavid says:
Derek writes:
“Expand?” Surely you are joking. The Report is, for several pages, a litany of all the wonderful things (more money, less teaching, more leave, more money while on leave) that the College has done for faculty over the last 10 years. Since the College is run by the faculty, it is unsurprising that so much of Williams (now gone) wealth has been funneled to our professors.
But does Williams really need to “affirm” much less “expand” all these beanies? No. The central reality of the relationship between Williams and its (tenured) faculty is that the vast majority (at least 75%) could not get as good a job (in terms of pay or prestige) any place else.
That doesn’t mean that they are bad people or bad professors but it does mean that Williams did not need to hand out all this money over the last 10 years to keep them. It also means that Williams could cut back on much of this spending (and could easily stop “expand[ing]” it without have more than a handful leave for Hamilton or wherever.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:31 pmDerek says:
Dave —
No. I’m not joking. And I’m also on the verge of no longer interacting with you. You accuse me of not being serious. You accuse me of joking. Fine. Go discuss this issue with your other faculty friends who have devoted time to your little project.
dc
January 14th, 2009 at 12:15 amDerek says:
HWC —
No one asked for another high jump coach. You and Dave are just kicking the piss out of the Straw Men tonight. Read what I wrote rather than take the Kanian route of reading what you wish were there. I simply pointed out, when asked by Dave about my “horrible” experience back those many years ago, where in an ideal world things would have or could have been been better. because again, I do not see the world in dualities in which things are either horrible or they are perfect.
And no, it’s not necessarily a zero-sum game between coaches and professors. When did these two groups get paired off with one another? The budget at Williams, I would bet, has never been written with some coaches-v.-professors formula in mind. The coaches stay-coaches go argument has no evidentiary basis behind it from what I can tell. There are loads of areas to cut. Or not to cut. And besides, I have not asked for more coaches, simply for not cutting what we have. And I disagree, as I have said, with the idea of absolutely cutting professors lines just for the sake of cutting professors’ lines. I realize the sky is falling and that soon Williams will be solely relying on tuition money. And that this will last forever. Nonetheless, I believe that there are opportunities here for the institution and that pursuing perceived needs might open up chances to get top-flight people while everyone else is cowering for cover. Do you believe every single institution in the United States has stopped all hiring? Do you believe, if the answer is no, that every one of those institutions is simply insane? Do you believe, if all of those institutions are not insane, that maybe they have decided that there are multiple variables at work and that cutting faculty lines is not the only way to be sane? In other words: Are you so absolutely certain of the infallibility of your argument that you are unwilling even to entertain the possibility of alternatives?
Finally, I would think that people here would be a little less self-righteous in their assertions about matters economic. As I seem to recall, the last few months have sort of put the lie to the unchallengable status of the so-called financial authorities out there. I happen to believe that faculty are the lifeblood of any college. And while Dave hints at a sinister cabal at work at Williams, I maintain that faculty in many serious ways make an institution and that it is hardly a useful argument to maintain that you ought to pay a professor only one dollar more than what it would take for her not to get poached rather than to decide on a value that you think serves the faculty and the institution.
Yes. I said “expand.” And I believe it. And I am not joking. And I’m also not accepting ipse dixit arguments about what absolutely must be done with no possibility for variance from the proscribed path. I do not believe Williams categorically must hire more faculty. It is just an option I do not think we should dismiss out of hand.
dcat
January 14th, 2009 at 12:29 amPTC says:
Dave- How do you know such a large % (at least 75%?) of Williams faculty could not get equal or better paying jobs at other institutions? Where do you get those numbers? I would think that a lot of institutions, especially places that have graduate programs, could offer faculty more money, opportunity and variety. Take a place like Cornell, for example.
My guess is that faculty give up higher paying jobs in order to live in the Berkshires, much like most of the local population does.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:44 amsophmom says:
Dave,
Where in the archives can I find the first few announcements from Morty re the financial crisis? You know, the ones where he was so harshly criticized for taking on too much of a tone of “gloom and doom”?
If I remember correctly, there were at least a half dozen criticisms running through just as many threads, the gist of which was that Morty and team were over-reacting. And surprise, surprise, HWC now thinks budget cuts should come fast and furious, and even bigger surprise, those cuts should start at the athletic department.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:03 amsophmom says:
And of course, there would have to be some extreme reason why those cuts aren’t being considered. I wonder if Harry Sheehy finds this funny.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:12 amhwc says:
Sophmom:
You may or may not be aware that a lot more information about college financial problems came to light between October and the end of the year. Specifically, two major issues came to light that may impact Williams: variable demand rate bond issues and cash calls for hedge fund and private equity partnerships.
In retrospect, I believe that Morty began cutting the size of the faculty almost immediately because he saw this year’s budget getting rocked by soaring interest rates in the daily auction market for the College’s variable rate demand bonds.
For the record, I do not believe that Williams will cut the athletic budget at all (beyond some token window dressing cuts).
January 14th, 2009 at 1:46 amhwc says:
Frankly, I don’t give a damn what Harry Sheehy thinks. I didn’t find it funny when two of his high school recruits were transported to North Adams Regional Hospital in comas with near-fatal alcohol poisoning during their campus visits. The second one occuring after Sheehey failed to adopt the schoolwide form requiring overnight prospects to acknowledge the rules against their drinking. Sheehy should have been fired then, IMO.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:52 amsophmom says:
hwc @ 14
Being aware of it, and the reaction to it here on EB, was precisely why your all too quick initial criticism stood out so clearly.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:22 amsophmom says:
@15
Good God, hwc. Don’t start.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:26 amPTC says:
David- IRT #8- In fact, I’d be willing to bet that over half of the faculty could get jobs that provided more opportunity and more prestige somewhere else. People stay in Williamstown for the lifestyle, not the money and opportunity.
January 14th, 2009 at 5:57 amjeffz says:
One note: one varsity sport has been added since 1997, Women’s Golf. Williams’ athletic program is certainly facing the crunch in other ways. The renovation to the football field area has been postponed, and this is badly needed — the track is woefully inadequate, as are the bathroom / locker room facilities, and moving to field turf (like most of NESCAC) will save a ton on field maintenance in the long run and avoid some muddy disasters the team has suffered through in the past. Chandler is a confusing maze that, and other than remedying the “estrogym” situation, it hasn’t been updated in any material way in the nearly 25 years since it’s been built. The fieldhouse is also outdated and woefully inadequate. Hockey arena needs work. It seems like planning for renovation of these facilities is also on indefinite hold. So when you look at athletic budgets, you can’t just look at faculty costs, but also facility expenditures, and basically every facility at Williams has received or is in the midst of a massive capital expenditure over the past decade, except for athletic facilities. So to the extent HWC and DK suggest institutional priorities are out of whack, just compare Williams’ facilities (which serve more varsity sports in every case) to most of the rest of NESCAC.
Interesting article on teaching physics at MIT in NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/13physics.html?em
Of course, a lot of expense is involved in moving from large lectures to small classes, so I am not sure Williams, or anyone else, is going to be rushing to move away from intro-level lectures in Div III classes.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:45 amDavid says:
Derek: My apologies. I think that this is one of those cases where, if you and I were talking in person there would not be a problem, but because we are writing (and because I am often unable to convey the tone that I want/feel in the written word) problems arise. I do not mean to twist your words or set up Straw Ephs. So, let me try again.
There were X track coaches while you were at Williams. You (I think) and many other runners/tracksters among my friends had a fine experience (keeping in mind that no one’s experience is ever perfect). Today, there are X + Y track coaches at Williams.
(I do not know if track has grown more or less than other sports but, regardless, I mean this argument to apply across the board. There is no doubt that there are many more coaches at Williams then there were in 1999, much less 1989.)
Athletes today also have a fine experience. Reasonable people believe that Williams would be even better with X + Y + Z track coaches. If coaches are good (and all agree that coach-athlete interactions are wonderful, on average) then more coaches are better.
Obvious point: Even if it is true that a Williams with X + Y + Z track coaches would be better than Williams today (and I am happy to grant that), Morty and the trustees have made clear that this is not going to happen (baring magical market rebounds). The money is not there. This, I think, is acknowledged by all.
My main point: Williams can no longer afford X + Y track coaches. It seems that there are many people at Williams who don’t yet understand this. (Not necessarily you! I don’t know what your opinion on this for Williams. Feel free to expand on it, if you like.) As I have tried to explain ad nauseum, there are major problems with Williams’ current spending levels. Millions of dollars need to be cut. Given that half the budget is spent on compensation, there is no doubt that positions need to be eliminated. I think/predict that some of those positions will be coaching positions.
My dispute (and I don’t know if we disagree about this) is with those who deny that reality, who think it is plausible that Williams 3 years from now will/should have the same number of coaches that it has today. It won’t and it shouldn’t.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:51 amDavid says:
PTC asks:
Short answer: I have asked Williams faculty members this question. That’s what they say.
Longer answer: This isn’t written down anywhere, but those with experience in the academic marketplace can look at he CV’s of Williams professors, consider the standards at other schools that pay the same (or more) than Williams, and see that the vast majority don’t make the grade. There is no shame in that. I can’t get tenure at Harvard either! But it is important to understand the actual market.
Note that I am not claiming that Williams professors could not get other jobs. That’s false! Scores of Williams professors could easily get jobs at, say, MCLA. But those jobs would pay less, require more teaching and be lower prestige.
Keep in mind that pay/benefits/prestige at Williams are already in the 95th percentile. So, my claim is just about other elite schools: other top LACs (which prefer to promote from within), Ivy’s and some research universities.
Derek could probably shed some light on this topic in terms of History. He can easily look at the CVs of Williams professors and determine who might plausible get a job offer from, say, Cornell. There might be a couple but there are not many.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:00 amDavid says:
Derek: Perhaps a good question for making progress is the following:
My claim is that very few will leave and that most of those few would have left anyway. As both readings make clear, the major reason for (tenured) faculty departures are the same as always:
Outside of workload, these issues are virtually unavoidable for anyone choosing to teach at Williams.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:10 amDavid says:
Jeff writes:
I am not sure if Williams institutional priorities are “out of whack.” Right now, Williams spends X% on athletics, both operating costs and, over a longer time period, capital costs. Maybe X% is too high. Maybe it is too low. I don’t have a strong opinion.
My main point is that the overall Williams budget needs to come down substantially. Unless you argue that X% is too low, then Williams needs to spend less on athletics, just like it needs to spend less on almost everything else. I am just trying to point out areas in athletics were those cuts should fall.
Jeff: If you had to cut the athletic operating budget, what would you cut?
January 14th, 2009 at 8:14 ameyetolduso says:
At Stanford, just as an example. A school at a minimum an academic equal, and for just 3 teams. Many Williams coaches do other things, like teach, and the coaching aspect is just part time.
Jim Harbaugh – Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football/Head Coach
Lance Anderson – Assistant Coach – Defensive Line
Andy Buh – Co-Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Coach
Chris Dalman – Assistant Coach – Offensive Line
Tim Drevno – Assistant Coach – Tight Ends
D.J. Durkin – Assistant Coach – DE/Special Teams
Ron Lynn – Co-Defensive Coordinator/Assistant Head Coach
David Shaw – Offensive Coordinator/Wide Receivers
Willie Taggart – Assistant Coach – Running Backs
Clayton White – Assistant Coach – Defensive Backs
Mike Sanford – Offensive Assistant
Shannon Turley – Strength and Conditioning Coordinator
Matt Weiss – Defensive Assistant/Special Teams
Matt Doyle – Assistant AD/Dir. of Football Operations
Mike Eubanks – Assistant AD/Director of Football Administration
Dave Forman – Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach
Mike Gleeson – Video Director
Jon Haskins – Director of Player Development
Nick Holz – Football Operations and Recruiting Assistant
Coleman Hutzler – Defensive Assistant
Theresa Miraglia – Administrative Associate
Casey Moore – Offensive Graduate Assistant
Jon Oswald – Video Assistant
Jordan Paopao – Recruiting Assistant
Dorrick Roy – Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach
Basketball Staff
Johnny Dawkins – The Anne and Tony Joseph Director of Men’s Basketball
Dick Davey – Associate Head Coach
Rodney Tention – Assistant Coach
Mike Schrage – Assistant Coach
Jeff LaMere – Assistant A.D./Dir. of Basketball Operations
Preston Greene – Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach
Charles Payne – Dir. of Student-Athlete Development/External Rel.
Mark Sembrowich – Academic/Recruiting Coordinator
Tomoo Yamada – Athletic Trainer
Coaching/Support Staff
Womens Basketball
Tara VanDerveer – Head Coach
January 14th, 2009 at 8:24 amAmy Tucker – Associate Head Coach
Bobbie Kelsey – Assistant Coach
Kate Paye – Assistant Coach
Eileen Roche – Director of Operations
Marcella Shorty – Athletic Trainer
Ben Fleming says:
Note: the next person who compares Williams’ athletic department to Stanford’s will be horsewhipped.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:43 amJG says:
I really shouldn’t engage, but I have to stand up for the fabulous professors at Williams whom I respect and admire.
David @21
So let me get this straight: Williams is the #1 liberal arts school in the country, you continually wax poetic about how fabulous it is, but the teaching staff is somehow subpar and unable to get jobs at other schools (except for MCLA of couse)? Are you joking, willfully obtuse, even more of an as*hole than I thought, or off your meds? I can’t think of any other reasons for that insane comment.
Please answer for me how is it that Williams maintains its status as a top academic institution if the faculty are the lower end of the liberal arts barrel (because that is the natural extension of what you just said – only employable elsewhere at “say, MCLA.” Btw, this is not to knock MCLA but to take the tone in which you intended the comment to its natural extension)? Where does this elite Williams education come from if the faculty doesn’t provide a basis for it? Who sits at the other end of that Mark Hopkins log? Why are our professors so often published, cited, invited to speak, poached by other schools, and otherwise acknowledged as excellent teachers? How do you account for the professors who have moved on from Williams to other prestigous institutions (or were they all part of they mythical and worthy 25%)?
When you make statements like that, many in the Williams community take it as license to discount anything else you have ever and will ever say about the school, but it is so ridiculous, misinformed, and insulting.
Also, given my experience with professorial egos, 75% of which professors admitted to you/told you they were unemployable elsewhere? Since you looooove to throw around random stats based on personal anecdotes, what is your sample size? More than 2? Since I bet you’ve based your wonderful statistical analysis on a single or perhaps 2-3 conversations with people who are likely ragging on fellow professors in other disciplines rather than commenting on their own abilities, I’m going to take your “75%” comment with the gargantuan boulder of salt that accompanies anything you say/write.
And now back to ignoring EphBlog because any attempt at good, productive, positive discussion inevitably comes back to David Kane insulting people with little basis for it. Thanks to the authors of the CGCL posts for attempting to do something positive here, I’m sorry it was hijacked. This exemplifies why I refused to participate.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:01 amBen Fleming says:
I don’t think this affects Derek’s main argument, which I take to be that the college should investigate dipping even further into the endowment now to hire top-level talent at a discount and lock it up for the long-term. Some “Moneyball” hiring. Now, the viability of that strategy is obviously going to depend on: A) the availability of any such talent; B) the measure of the discount; C) the level of commitment the college can extract from that talent; and D) consideration of the educational/institutional gains the college will reap from that talent balanced against the cost of being that much poorer in the future. I like the idea, even though I think it would be extremely tough to implement, much less to find someone at the college willing to take on the responsibility of carrying it out. Really quite a “stick your neck out” kind of thing.
That said, David’s stance still works for me as it relates to athletics. For any number of reasons, Williams isn’t and shouldn’t be looking to poach Div. I assistant coaches, even if they’re going to be available at a discount. A majority of assistants are short-term hires, it’s tough to envision the comparable macro gains that would come from hiring better assistants, etc. So, I suppose my point is one can believe that the athletic department budget can and should be slashed across the board without necessarily thinking the same about the faculty budget, if you’re leaning towards Derek’s counterintuitive approach.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:03 amDavid says:
JG claims that I think:
I don’t believe this and did not mean to write it. If that’s the impression you got from my words, then I am sorry.
Let me try again: Run the experiment were 50 randomly selected tenured Williams professors try to get a job at Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/Amherst/Swarthmore/Dartmouth/Columbia/etc. How many of them will succeed? Certainly fewer than 10 and probably fewer than 5.
(Some would. Joy James, being tenured at Brown, could almost certainly get a profile job. Other Williams professors have in the past.)
Does that mean that they are bad teachers? No! They are great teachers. Does that mean they do lousy research. No! Many of them do solid research. But great teaching and solid research do not get you a job at those sorts of places.
And the same is true of professors at Amherst/Swarthmore and other elite LACs! Williams is no different in that regard. As a rule, these professors do not have the research CV that would get them a job at an elite research university. And LACs, in general, do not do many lateral hires. So, tenured professors at elite LACs are generally of similar quality (yes, they have great teachers doing solid research at Amherst too), but those same professors could not get jobs at Williams because Williams does very few lateral hires. (It does do some and certain fields, like economics and computer science are always in high demand.)
Again, I did not mean to claim that 75% were “unemployable elsewhere?” I meant to claim to that 75% could not get a tenured position with similar pay/benefits/prestige. And that is just the reality of the academic marketplace. As I have documented, Williams pays in the top 5%. I did mean to use MCLA to be dismiss. Insert the name of any school you like that is in the bottom 95% of the distribution. All these schools pay less than Williams. If a Williams professor moves there, he takes a pay cut.
I checked the 75% number with two Williams professors in different divisions. If you think that 75% is wrong, what percentage would you give?
Another easy way to see this is to surf around the faculty pages. Any tenured professor who is not actively pursuing research (many articles and books in the last 5 years) could not get a similar job elsewhere.
Finally, although this has always been true, it is even more true now during the financial crisis. There is almost a cross-country hiring freeze. So, even those professors who might have been able to get a similar offer while times were flush could not get that offer today.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:22 amanon says:
Much as I hate to do it, I have to agree with DK on his comments about the tenured faculty getting jobs elsewhere. First of all, it’s important to keep in mind that he’s talking about TENURED faculty. There are far far fewer job openings each year for senior positions than for junior/tenure-track ones in the academic world.
Moreover, the scholarship expectations for getting tenure at Williams have changed substantially over the last few decades. Junior faculty now have much higher scholarship expectations than those 20 years ago. This is as it should be, as the teaching load at Williams 20 years ago was substantially higher than it is now. Thus some (but certainly not all) senior faculty have not published as much as even their junior colleagues at Williams.
And as DK pointed out, Williams is VERY generous to its faculty. The fact that it would be hard to get a job that is equal or better somewhere else says more about what a great place Williams is to work than it does about the faculty themselves.
The problem with DK’s overall argument is that this situation could change. As junior faculty at Williams now have greater publishing requirements, they maintain their attractiveness to other top schools. If Williams stops being such a great place to work for whatever reasons (and many of the suggestions DK makes from time to time, including ending all funding for local schools to name a big one, would make it less great), it could have a bigger problem with faculty retention than it does now. At present, the biggest problem remains spousal employment and that looks to be getting worse, not better.
January 14th, 2009 at 10:47 amsophmom says:
Jeff @19:
Interesting article.
I was surprised at the size of a couple of the classes my son took freshman year. And, if I remember correctly, one of those was the one with which he struggled. Of course, part of that had to do with the fact it was freshman year and he was trying to get his bearings.
But that article is a pretty good example of the pitfalls of adding more students while cutting back on teachers. If, in those larger classes, the attendance rate falls to 50%, and the failure rate is as high as 10% to 15% percent, then it ends up costing the school much much more in the long run.
Of course, Psych 101 is not Electromagnetism, but still, a couple of Williams big selling points are the student-teacher ratio, and the percentage of admits who graduate. As a tuition-paying parent, I believe that any inkling of a change in that reputation, could seriously damage William’s appeal.
January 14th, 2009 at 10:53 amDerek says:
OK, loads of points. Apparently the Ephblog Winter Study seminars are like pasta sauce — even better the second day after the flavors merge.
Let’s for now set aside the athletics issue. My preference would be for Williams to ride the wave for a bit, get a sense of where it is going to break, and then make decisions in all areas. Capping spending is one thing. Making cuts in any programs quite another. I’d prefer to see the college avoid cutting anyplace where actual jobs would be at stake. The track needs to be resurfaced, but it is not essential. Fine. But I’d prefer not to fire any coaches, or anyone else for that matter.
Let’s hit the meatier question of Williams faculty moving on. First, I think we’ve created a false dichotomy. The question is not a Williams professor either moving to Harvard or else moving to MCLA. And I am wary of making MCLA our whipping boy — the vast majority of us in academia teach at places like MCLA and not at Williams or Harvard. That does not necessarily speak to the quality of our work, or even the quality of our vitas. The job market is miserable, and very talented people in very competitive fields can get slotted early on. I’ll place my vita at my MCLA-caliber institution with any Williams faculty member in the history department similarly placed in terms of time of tenure at the institution. There are lots of very good people doing very good work at places that are not Williams. Let’s not disrespect them and simultaneously reaffirm the beliefs that many have about those from elite institutions. Arguably the best historian of the Mexican-American experience in the United States is at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. Williams would be incredibly lucky to have him and probably could not get him. Be careful of the generalizations we are making here. At minimum they can be false, and in many cases flat-out offensive.
The reality is that there are dozens of possible places a Williams professor might move to that from their perspective might be a better place. Let’s give one example. I know a very prominent professor at the University of Maryland. Martyland is a fine university in a location that, for many faculty, might be a whole hell of a lot more appealing that Williamstown. It provides access to myriad world-class institutions for research and the like. Maryland might be a great landing spot for some faculty. Yet in a conversation with that professor, the issue of going up for full professor came up. Basically, Maryland is remarkably like most places, big or small: Two good books will get most history professors to the rank of full professor there. I think many people have this image that being a full professor at a research university requires one to have written a dozen books. That is not necessarily the case. And there are lots of comparable institutions like Maryland. Indeed, the vast majority of places named “The University of (State Name Here)” might well qualify, depending on discipline, as might a whole host of places named “(State Name Here) State University.” A typical Africanist, for example, would likely prefer to be at Michigan State than at Williams. A good civil rights historian might well prefer to be at the University of South Carolina, which has poached senior professors from places such as Emory and Harvard in recent years. The static view of academia that some here are putting forward warps more than it reveals. People leave Williams all the time for other institutions, of their own volition, that we might or might not on first glance understand. But there is a host of factors that go into these decisions.
Now the question right now is whether any particular professor could move on. This is a question about the market more than anything else. Lots and lots of Williams professors are certainly well published enough to move on. But are the jobs there now? The question is not whether Brown (Or Virginia, or Texas, or Auburn or Wisconsin or ….) would hire a Williams professor. I think a tenured Williams professor would likely be quite competitive in many, many cases (These places are often looking to poach — from SLACs, from mid-range universities, from smaller state schools, from places like mine. An old advisor once told me “there is no job that two good books can’t get you out of”). But the question is whether the jobs are there. If they are not, the vita question is quite beside the point. If they are, Williams professors who want to move could. The 75% figure seems not to take into account almost every factor that actually might matter in terms of determining whether a professor from Williams could or would move on. Many here might not think of Michigan State or South Carolina as comparable in status to Williams, but if they came calling in certain areas, some faculty would jump at those opportunities so quickly we’d see cartoon speed lines as their pens and hovered in the air. Again: Avoid the static view of academia. It is unhelpful.
But this leverage or lack of leverage is beside the point in many ways. Williams faculty have been great for Williams’ rise in the last couple of decades and beyond. I see no sign that the institution is going to be so short-sighted or Machiavellian as to decide to say “Many of you cannot move on, so we’re putting the screws to you.” If Williams did, it’s reputation would take a huge hit, and it would lose precisely those faculty members who do unquestionably have the ability to move on by simply pushing that trial ballon out into the air of academia from their office window.
dcat
January 14th, 2009 at 1:36 pmSam says:
Tim Cook left for LSU
January 14th, 2009 at 1:40 pmGary Jacobsohn left for University of Texas
Marc Lynch left for George Washington
David says:
I appreciate Sam’s specific examples and I am happy to add to them:
Samuel Fleischacker went to University of Illinois at Chicago.
Craig Wilder went to Dartmouth (and then MIT).
Dennis Dickerson went to Vanderbilt.
Regina Kunzel went to the University of Minnesota.
Since, each year, one or two tenured members of the faculty leave, more examples could be given.
So, I would be wrong if I claimed that no tenured member of the faculty could get a similar job elsewhere. Some can and a handful do. But compare the research productivity (and other desirable qualities) of these professors in the five years before they left Williams with the professors they left behind. Notice a difference? Do you think that Cook, Jacobsohn and Lynch were producing about the same amount/quality of research as their colleagues who remain? Untrue.
Again, this is a tough discussion to have because without diving into specific examples it is hard to make clear the realities of the marketplace but, at the same time, the last thing I want to get in fight about is the claim that professor X could not get a similar job.
Sam: You could help us all out by giving us your estimate. If Williams College vanished tomorrow, what percentage of the tenured faculty could get equal/better jobs (in terms of pay/benefits/workload/status) at other colleges/universities?
January 14th, 2009 at 2:06 pmDerek says:
Once again: The “equal/better jobs” question is not at all useful because there are too many variables involved. If a professor from Williams left to go to UT San Antonio, that might not meet your criteria. But what if that person does work on Mexican Americans? Or what if their spouse is from San Antonio? What of the examples I gave: South Carolina? Michigan State? What if a Williams person left to teach philosophy at Auburn? I just do not understand why you ask for answers to questions if you won’t read answers. I just left a long response to this very question and it’s as if you do not even want to acknowledge it. “Equal/better” is based on a whole host of factors far too complex simply to hypothesize about. My answer to the question you asked Sam is that the answer might be anywhere from 0% (if your argument is that Williams is the greatest place on earth) to far, far more depending on what “better” means and if you assume that the college vanishing tomorrow would of course be impossible for a large percentage of the faculty. I’d say a large percentage would be able to do so if told tomorrow that the college was going to vanish in 2014.
dcat
January 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pmDavid says:
Derek: Apologies for the delay, but I wanted to compose a thorough response.
1) I agree with almost everything you say in #31. I do not mean to set up a dichotomy between Harvard and MCLA, nor do I mean to disrespect other schools. But there is an academic job market which I am trying to describe. People who get offers from Harvard and MCLA choose the former.
2) I also agree that every job decision is highly personal and that all the issues you highlight (specific departments in specific schools in specific parts of the country) are important. All your examples are well-chosen and reasonable. Although I don’t know much about Vanderbilt or UNM, it is possible that Dickerson’s and Kunzel’s decisions were similarly motivated to the examples you use.
3) So, I do not claim that any given professor would necessarily choose Williams over “The University of (State Name Here).” As the College documents, issues of spousal employment alone make Williamstown a problematic destination. There are plenty of faculty, even Williams faculty, who would rather have a job a State University X even if it paid less or required more teaching or featured less intelligent students because the other benefits to State University X (better access to archives, great job for spouse, interaction with graduate students, warmer weather) make the total package a better deal.
4) I don’t think we really differ on the realities of the academic marketplace. I often link to this post of yours on the topic. My main goal is to educate those who are unaware of these realities. My focus is specifically on pay, benefits and undergraduate student quality. Williams provides those things (leaving aside prestige and workload) at the 95th percentile. If you go somewhere else, you would most likely lose on those dimensions. Most people (not you!) don’t know that. (See PTC above.)
5) Again, we agree that money isn’t everything and that someone like Fleischacker (who wanted to live in a community with a thriving Jewish community) is perfectly reasonable to take less money (I have no idea if he did) to leave Williams.
6) I like your two book quote. Count up all the Williams professors in Div I that have written two books in the last X years. (You tell me what X should be.)
7) The larger issue is with those who argue that, if Williams makes life less wonderful for the faculty (salary freeze, less spending on faculty fun), the result would be a significant increase in faculty departures. But that would not be the result. If Harvard can freeze faculty salaries than so can Williams, and so should Williams.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:42 pmJG says:
To the list, add:
* Grant Farred (whatever issues you may have with him) who left originally for Duke and is now at Cornell
* Mark Taylor who left for Columbia where he gets to be head of his department
* Louise Glück who now teaches at Yale (and was US Poet Laureate)
With the others above that David and Sam listed, all seemed to have gone on to better situations (at least better for them). Again, I find it beyond insulting to say that 75% of the Williams faculty couldn’t find a position someplace with better benefits or more “prestige,” however you define it. It is disrespectful to them, their choices, and Williams.
Your supposed explanation of your comment actually reinforced exactly what you had said David. As Derek explained, the academic marketplace is a complicated one, another reason why blanket statements like that are pointless in addition to being insulting and uninformed. What one faculty member considers prestigious or what might be the best in their field or a “benefit” for their family or considered “better” pay in their new locale based on CoL varies wildly.
There are many ways to say that Williams treats its faculty generously, particularly in the current market, without insulting the quality of those professors. But I’m not positive that is what you were trying to say. With your repeated defenses of the initial comment, you continue to denigrate the abilities and quality of Williams faculty unnecessarily.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:46 pmSam says:
what dcat said.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:53 pmDerek says:
David —
Now we’re getting somewhere, as there is less and less light between our decisions.
We clearly fundamentally disagree on how to solve the financial crisis. I would not freeze salaries (though I might slow the rate of raises) and I would not freeze hires. Indeed, I would, as I have made clear, think of this as an opportunity to increase hiring. But lots of other things are on the table.
I think you are right in terms of your assertions being factually accurate — yes, if Williams imposes its will on the faculty, in the near term not many faculty members would leave. The job market is terrible and most do not act out of pique, picking up their lives and changing jobs and parts of the country out of annoyance. But the long-term ramifications could be serious, both to the school’s reputation and by providing conditions that would push those who would consider leaving to do so.
The x books in x years issue is tricky. And it would depend on field. And the nature of the second book. Historians take multiple paths. My next books (not sure which will be out first; and for now let’s not count the Red Sox book, despite its Ephblog provenance) will likely not be especially long, with one considerably shorter than my book that just came out (you all should buy it, by the way . . . !). but others take a different tack, pursuing a project that might take ten or more years. So I’d be less interested in developping a formula than looking at the body of the work. Two books in history is a good rule of thumb, but then there are journal articles, edited collections, and other contributions. This is not to evade the question. But simply to say that it is tough, but two books is a good rule of thumb. (By the way, did you look at the DI totals? I have to admit it’s not a process I’mm likely to undertake soon!)
The queston, of course is whether this justifies Williams making decisions with all of this in mind. I’d say no. And it is my hope that the college will not do so.
dcat
January 14th, 2009 at 2:56 pmrory says:
what sam said about what dcat said.
here’s a fun thought experiment. rank these departments in terms of desirability to a sociology grad students with a job offer:
-University of South Florida
-Yale
-Williams
Now add in the fact that the sociologist is a quantitative researcher.
Now add the fact that the sociologist studies immigrants and educational attainment.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:06 pmPTC says:
David @21- I do not know much about “the academic marketplace”, but I know a lot about Williamstown, and I know a lot of people who teach and do a lot of other jobs at Williams. My experience is that people work for Williams because Williams provides some of the best jobs in the area… not because they could not get paid more anywhere else. I do not know a single person who lives in Williamstown for the money… not one. What you are suggesting does not pass the common sense test to me. People move away from the Berkshires when they want to make money… rather than moving their to do so. I find it very hard to believe that profs who are good enough to teach at Williams fall into a different job demographic than the rest of the entire region…
January 14th, 2009 at 4:26 pmhwc says:
I doubt if anyone is interested in more reading, but if you want another reaccreditation report, Swarthmore just released the first draft of their self-study report yesterday:
Link to PDF
I haven’t finished skimming it yet.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:33 pmDavid says:
If Sam agrees with dcat and I agree with dcat, then Sam agrees with me! Truly, these are the end of days. ;-)
JG writes:
I agree that “prestige” is not the most useful metric. Allow me to stick to pay, benefits and undergraduate student quality. Derek now grants (I think on this point) that “I think you are right in terms of your assertions being factually accurate.” Anon at #29 offers similar support.
I am sorry that you find it “beyond insulting” but that is just the way of the academic world. It is unbelievably competitive, especially for tenured faculty seeking to move elsewhere. Williams pay/benefits/undergrads are in the top 5% or higher. Such jobs are hard to come by. It is not my intent to be “disrespectful.” I am just trying to describe that realities of the academic marketplace.
So we can’t say anything? I am sorry, but we can. Consider Derek’s claims about the job market. You think that his statements are false? You think that they are “pointless?” I disagree, even though, especially though, he is making “blanket” statements about the history job market across the country, and even though his claims apply to many similar fields (as he will tell you).
It is always hard to know what any individual could do on the job market but we can discuss averages.
Two claims: First, Williams’ financial situation is way worse than people seem to realize. Second, Williams could make substantial cuts in faculty-related spending (say, a two year salary freeze for those making more than $100k and an elimination of many/most of the programs discussed in the Report) without major problems in terms of senior faculty retention. (I also think the same applies to junior faculty and new hires, but that is a different, more complex debate.)
Derek writes:
Yes and no.
Yes: I agree that the College should not do some unfair cram down of the faculty. It would be immoral to say to some 60 year old professor, “We know you can’t get another job, so we are cutting your pay in half.” And I agree that, no only would it be immoral, it would hurt Williams in the long run since having a reputation for screwing people over would make recruitment/retention very difficult.
No: At the same time, we need to cut costs and the President/Trustees have an obligation to do so in a way that minimizes the harm to the quality of the undergraduate education. Everyone will need to take a hit, including faculty. And I think a wise president needs to use his knowledge of the academic marketplace to adjust salaries/benefits accordingly.
The key, obviously, is that the faculty do not perceive the now almost-inevitable major cuts as an unfair cram down. They need to be fully informed (more transparency, please!) about the budget/endowment issues so that they understand the cuts to be “fair,” even if undesirable.
Will the faculty think it fair if (when!) Morty announces that there will be a salary freeze for 2009-2010? I hope so. That announcement is coming.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:42 pmPTC says:
As far as “tenured jobs” caveat goes…. that is like asking if a person who has worked his way up to a senior level of management at company X could pull up and get an equally senior level at a job with company Y in a similar field. A completely misleading caveat.
Can my friend who is a senior cook at Williams quit and get a job as a senior cook at Amherst that pays more… I doubt it. Amherst is most likely going to hire from within…
January 14th, 2009 at 4:51 pmhwc says:
It’s inevitable. Faculty and staff costs are the biggest piece of the budget pie. The cuts required over the next three years are too large to be achieved without addressing payroll. Williams has already started reducing the size of the faculty with the hiring freezes.
January 14th, 2009 at 5:01 pmhwc says:
David’s 75% estimate seems to be confirmed by Swarthmore’s success in hiring their first choice candidates (22 out of 27 tenure track offers) as touted in the self study released yesterday:
Stated as an inverse equation, 81% of the first choice hires were unable to find a better offer, close enough to Dave’s 75% for government work.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:50 pmhwc says:
BTW, I think Dave’s point was that jobs at luxury joints like Williams are pretty sweet gigs. Very tough to find better academic jobs.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:52 pmRonit says:
Hmm. So, David/hwc, did either of you call the housing crash in 2004 or the credit crisis in 2005?
January 14th, 2009 at 10:40 pmhwc says:
Here’s the operating budget:
Here are the three contingency levels that every college is America is planning for. The first level will be for Fiscal 2009 beginning next June.
Find 10% in cuts ($16 million)
Find 20% in cuts ($32 million)
Find 30% in cuts ($48 million)
January 14th, 2009 at 11:10 pmDerek says:
To correct a couple of misconceptions:
PTC writes: “As far as “tenured jobs” caveat goes…. that is like asking if a person who has worked his way up to a senior level of management at company X could pull up and get an equally senior level at a job with company Y in a similar field. A completely misleading caveat.
Can my friend who is a senior cook at Williams quit and get a job as a senior cook at Amherst that pays more… I doubt it. Amherst is most likely going to hire from within…”
I don’t know what to say except you’re wrong. Faculty move from elite institutions to other elite institutions all the time. Your Amherst cook comparison is silly and irrelevant. Again: Senior people move on with fair regularity. This is not an arguable position. It happens. It’s a fact.
PTC also falsely places the hiring market for a school like Williams withon the context of the economic and job market in Williamstown. When it comes to hiring and paying professors, the local economy is largely irrelevant. Williams has to pay a fairly competitive salary based on national liberal arts colleges and a large swath of universities. A professor or prospective professor does not care what the local economy means in terms of people taking lower salaries. Williams might be able to geta cost of living discount (until someone asks about housing prices in Williamstown, anyway) but what you know about the local economy and salaries has almost nothing to do with the negotiating process for a professor who is almost certainly not from Williamstown or even Western Massachusetts.
hwc writes: “David’s 75% estimate seems to be confirmed by Swarthmore’s success in hiring their first choice candidates (22 out of 27 tenure track offers) as touted in the self study released yesterday”
This is not really an apt comparison. The markets for a person applying for an entry-lever assistant professor position is different from that of a senior faculty member. The nature of application and recruitment is different. The leverage someone has on the market is different. Those Swarthmore numbers actually do not tell us all that much, especially ina tough job market where most places get pretty high yield rates when it comes to acceptances of jobs offered. That swarthmore got 80% or so of its tenure-track offers to be accepoted tells us literally nothing about the ability fo Swartmore’s senior faculty to move on.
And please, hwc, don’t provide absolutes like: here are the three things every college in America will be looking to do. All it takes is one example to utterly invalidate the argument. We do not even know that your assertion applies to Williams. But I know you have no idea if it applies to my institution. It’s really tiresome to read so much in the way of categorically absolute assertions from people in no position to assert so categorically.
dcat
January 14th, 2009 at 11:22 pmhwc says:
Contingency planning for those levels of budget cuts applies to your institution. I don’t even need to know the name of the institution.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:52 pmeyetolduso says:
Hmm. So, David/hwc, did either of you call the housing crash in 2004 or the credit crisis in 2005?
I did, and they are correct, in my opinion, about the coming problems. The yet to be recognized losses in the private side of college endowments will be very bad. There are simply no buyers for this asset class. Endowments are in the trade jargon “stuff accounts”. You feed them things that are very difficult to swallow and even harder to spit back out, as in monetize. I express no opinion about wages and the like or what to do with less money. When the dust settles Harvard will have around 18 billion and Williams around 1 billion and they will still be near the top of their peer groups on a per student basis. One thing that should be done, all colleges should refuse to fund any unfunded commitments and if need be sue to hang on to their cash. Given the fraud and failures on the street those lawsuits should be easy to win.
January 15th, 2009 at 12:05 amDerek says:
hwc —
Yeah, you do. Seriously — you have to know what you’re talking about. And while contingency planning does happen everywhere, for you to aver specifics (and you gavce specifics) about places about which you do not know is facile nonsense. And facile nonsense is, among people talking specifics, worthless as contribution to a serious conversation. 10% not 15%? 20% not 25%? Are these numbers pulled out of your ass or do you have a special sachel in which you carry them for just such occasions?
dcat
January 15th, 2009 at 12:10 amhwc says:
I agree with refusing to honor the unfunded commitments. There’s just one problem with that. As soon as colleges do that, their existing investments in those funds drop to zero as the funds go belly up. That’s a real catch-22.
We aren’t hearing the full extent of the budget cuts because nobody wants to fess up to the cuts in faculty and programs until they’ve got an enrolled freshman class in April.
January 15th, 2009 at 12:21 amhwc says:
dcat:
I gave a range of 10% to 30% because I want Ronit to look at the size of the dollar amounts attached to those percentages before going on about coming up with the necessary cost reductions out of the coffee fund.
Feel free to disagree with my range of 10% to 30%. I’m quite comfortable saying that virtually every college and university in American has planning underway within that range. The only ones who might escape will be those that were at the very low end of their endowment spending and have the luxury of major increases in endowment spending percentages (like a 33% increase from 3.75% to 5%). However, these schools tend to be conservatively managed and will begin implementing budget cuts sooner rather than later.
Your own state legislature meets tomorrow to begin grappling with a 10% reduction in state revenues in 2009 and an even larger reduction in 2010. They may have a rainy day fund to save higher education budgets for 2009, but that leaves 2010 in a world of hurt. The state can’t reduce expenditures by 20% without gutting the higher ed budgets.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:20 amDerek says:
hwc —
What I find so remarkable is that you use your conjured statistics — and thanks for effectively admitting as much by saying now that you provided a range for illustration purposes — to then claim that there is only one conclusion. And then you have the audacity to engage in your pedantry about the situation in my state. Thanks, man, really — no idea how I’d finction as an academic in the UT system without your useful commentary.
But here’s the thing: Your argument is that Williams’ (and other institutions’) cutting faculty is inevitable. And yet no one explains why it is inevitable. For all intents and purposes, my university has no endowment. Perhaps not zero, but less than a million. Well less. And so Williams literally has between 800 and infinite times more resources than my institution just in endowment alone. Yet just today we sent back on a plane a candidate for our open position in history, a position we still plan to fill. We will have our last finalist in next week. We hope to hire soon. And so that pretty much puts paid to the inevitability argument you have been putting forward. It is absurd to propose that there is only one true solution, especially when you have shown such a faltering grasp on the nature of academic hiring to begin with.
Once again, all I ask is that people not be so damned ardent about maintaining that their solution is the only one possible. I have no idea why that is such a crazy thing to ask. Perhaps hwc can make up some numbers and misinterpret evidence to explain. My institution is hiring. My example of one invalidates your entire argument about what must be done, what will be done, what is being done. Just a little humility hwc, especially on the issue of smug economic pronouncements given events in recent months and years, might be welcome.
dcat
January 15th, 2009 at 2:03 amhwc says:
dcat:
Get back to me when they whack your pay next year. Harvard has a hiring freeze and you think that UT is going to escape unscathed when the state is facing a 25% budget shortfall over the next two years?
What do you think is going to happen when your state legislator passes a tuition freeze bill tomorrow?
I love how you find fault with my economic pronouncements and then say that Williams shouldn’t cut any track coaches when they’ve already started shrinking the faculty with a hiring freeze on leave replacement visiting profs.
January 15th, 2009 at 2:48 amRonit says:
You’d almost have thought that the one thing we would have all learned in 2008 was to be a little more humble with our economic prognostications.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:39 amDerek says:
HWC —
Ok, I’m going to quote you and respond, because your latest comments drip with such uninformed arrogance that it boggles the imagination. I’ll precede my words with ***:
“Get back to me when they whack your pay next year.”
*** Ok, smart guy. You know my institution, my institutional culture, and my institutional approach so much better than I do, I’ll give you the opportunity to back it up: I will bet you that my institution will have merot raises next year. And I’ll bet you that I get one. I’ll bet $100 right now on this proposition. You’re so certain that you’re the font of all knowledge about what’s what in academia, and especially in my own institution, put the money where the mouth is.
“Harvard has a hiring freeze and you think that UT is going to escape unscathed when the state is facing a 25% budget shortfall over the next two years?”
*** Here is what I know. On Monday our last finalist is coming in to do his on campus interview. As of right now we will be hiring one of the finalists. We will be thrilled and will be getting a great candidate BECAUSE other people are not hiring. I am flabbergasted that I am telling you that we are hiring, and you are somehow exrapolating that we could not possibly be hiring because Harvard is having a freeze. So, are we not hiring? Am I lying? Was I also mistaken to see many schools interviewing at the American Historical Association annual meeting? I mean, seriously. harvard isn’t so therefore no one else can be?
“What do you think is going to happen when your state legislator passes a tuition freeze bill tomorrow?”
*** Here’s what’s going to happen: Nothing. You see, despite your infinite wisdom about my school, this little tidbit must have missed your omniscience: My university never planned on asking for a tuition hike this year. Twice since I have been here we have gone forward with tuition hikes. Both times we asked the students to vote for it. Both times they did so. Then they added a third hike in order to build our new student center. So despite our reliance on tuition, we are not planning on asking for tuition hikes, assuming that’s what my legislature did today. Does that answer your question? Your little google efforts to try toi trump me on the politics of education in my state appear to have left a few gaps.
“I love how you find fault with my economic pronouncements and then say that Williams shouldn’t cut any track coaches when they’ve already started shrinking the faculty with a hiring freeze on leave replacement visiting profs.”
*** I have read this five times. Now six. And I have no idea where you are finding the parallelism between your many absolute promouncements here and the supposed assertion that . . . Wait for it . . . I never made. I never said any such thing. What I said was that in my ideal world I would have had more coaching in college not less. And it is my belief that Williams should not be cutting any positions. But that’s different from your assertions here about what WILL happen, about what MUST happen. That you see the two things you placed to one another as being in any way akin is a pretty perfect encapsulation of your facilities throughout this discussion.
So a review:
hwc insists I will not get a raise next year.
hwc insists that my institution is in trouble because the state is going to freeze tuition hikes today.
hwc insists that two things that have nothing to do with one another are somehow connected.
Words defy how giddy I am about the perfect storm of idiocy hwc just brought to us all. It’s an unintentional comedy gift that keeps on giving. hwc is like the herpes of argumentation!
(So, on the table: $100 that I get a raise next year. Put up or shut up, fount of all wisdom.)
dcat
January 15th, 2009 at 7:09 pmhwc says:
Must be nice to work for the only university branch campus in the country that is immune to the effects of a recession on its revenue streams.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:15 pmhwc says:
Middlebury is laying off 100 staff members according to an article in today’s student newpaper. They are facing a $10 million budget shortfall for 2009-2010.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:16 pmDerek says:
hwc —
Who said we are “immune to the effects of a recession on its revenue streams.” Are you really that intellectually dishonest or are you that pathetic? We are constantly up against the wall, which is why we know how to be smart but also not to panic or fall for hwc-esque grand pronouncements.
In any case, it’s quite clear you’re losing the argument and you know it. You have made these overarching assertions that you cannot back up, and now you are trying to taint with innuendo. And you try to place words into people’s dialogue boxes that they have never used. And use sarcasm when you’ve been thrashed on the evidence and facts and other such ephemera that gets in the way of your little God Complex.
In fact, were you not so obtuse you’d get the larger point, which stands in direct contradistinction to what you just snidely wrote about my institution and that connects directly to Williams and thus this discussion: My university is ten thousand times more vulnerable than Williams is, (and literally hunders of millions of times more in terms of pure resources) and yet we don’t fall for these categorical generalizations that you find so compelling. So while we freeze most hires, we do not freeze all hires. While we cut across the board, we have not cancelled two major building projects. While we keep an eye on things like travel money, we try hard to maintain very modest faculty raises. While we freeze spending one type of institutional money, we do make available other kinds of institutional money. But you’d prefer not to think in the terms that real people whose thoughts have consequences have to think: Pare here, be smart there, conserve elsewhere, plan for the future but not wholly at expense of the present, and oh yeah, hope enrollments at least hold steady and possibly rise. No, you’d rather come in like a brain-damaged version of Solomon, preaching to we benighted lessers, informing us (in a half-informed way, of course) of things in our backyards as you go.
You know what hwc? Maybe, just maybe, you’re not the only person who knows something about higher education. And maybe rather than come in with your Teutonic Rules by which all must abide, you’d consider have a conversation like every single other person here, including folks like Dave who fundamentally agree with you.
dcat
January 15th, 2009 at 9:38 pmhwc says:
It sounds like The University of Texas of the Permian Basin has things well under control and is able to deal with a recession with a little paring here, a little pruning there.
It’s a shame all these other colleges and universities around the country are so mismanaged that they actually are struggling with budget reductions, hiring freezes, layoffs, and salary caps in the face of declining revenue streams.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:57 pmhwc says:
After all the radar jamming flak, I’m still waiting on somebody to propose $16 million in cuts at Williams without touching the faculty (or coaching) ranks.
January 15th, 2009 at 10:00 pmDerek says:
hwc —
Jesus, you cannot control yourself, can you? Snide references to my university? Really? Have I not been clear that UTPB is facing tough times but within a specific context? Since you’re so willing to lecture me on the situation in Texas have you not considered that Texas is faring better than much of the rest of the country and that sitting in oil country the Permian Basin is doing all that much better? Seriously, hwc — are you so unwilling to hear other points of view that when you get crushed amidst argumentation driven by evidence your only response is to insult not only the person at the institution you’re so superior to whose presenting you with uncomfortable facts, but by extension everyone who teaches there, who attends the school, who works there?
I have laid out the facts about my institution. And I have laid out my view that I would prefer Williams not yet resort to touching faculty salaries, to engaging in across-the-board freezes, or to cutting coaching or staff positions. And I have asked to avoid categorical my-way-or-the-highway assertions about what MUST be done. For that, I get the fatuousness of someone incapable of dealing with evidence that counters his world view and insults about the place that I teach, where my wife teaches, and where many of my friends teach. Fine. You’re brilliant. I’m dumb. Yet I’m winning this argument.
You’re lucky, hwc, that you have the benefit of distance so that I am only kicking your ass in this discussion. And for that alone, shouldn’t you be rather embarassed since I teach at such a lamentably insultable institution worthy only of your contempt? Imagine if you were dealing with someone from one of them there smart schools. Then you’d really look bad.
dcat
January 15th, 2009 at 10:11 pmhwc says:
I’ve been nothing but complementary of your university and its obviously superior fiscal management. It must be very reasuring to know that faculty hiring continue and the raises will continue.
From now on, I will say that all colleges and universities (except The University of Texas of the Permian Basin) are contingency planning for significant budget cuts. I wouldn’t want to unfairly include your fine institution.
BTW, do they have a lot of assholes teaching there or just a few?
January 15th, 2009 at 10:16 pmDerek says:
Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll let that last post stand for everyone to judge from here. I’ll let you judge my contributions to this discussion and hwc’s, and then I’ll let you weigh what he has said in the last couple of posts about my institution versus the merits of the arguments I have made using my institution as an example.
dcat
January 15th, 2009 at 10:25 pmhwc says:
Screw you. I made the point that colleges and universities across the country are contingency planning to cut 10% to 30% of their future budget. And you have to bust my chops for two days because your school is the one exception in the entire damn country that isn’t going to be hit with budget cuts.
Great, so what? I’m thrilled for school. But seriously, who cares? As if that is supposed to invalidate the financial squeeze that thousands of collegea and universities are under right now.
What is the matter with you? I mean, seriously, do you honestly want to bust my chops because I didn’t say “all colleges but one are facing serious budget shortfalls”?
January 15th, 2009 at 10:31 pmhwc says:
Do you really want to argue that the vast majority of colleges are not looking at 10% or more in budget cuts? Do you seriously want to continue arguing that I am wrong for saying that?
January 15th, 2009 at 10:33 pmDerek says:
No one is arguing about budget cuts hwc. You are beyond intellectually dishonest. You have argued that every single institution in the United States faces the exact same challenges in the exact same ways. I gave you an example of an institution addressing comparable problems in different ways. You insulted that institution repeatedly. Then you insisted that every institution but mine adheres to your model. Then in the last post you changed your standard to “the vast majority of colleges” and asked if I was going to comtinue arguing something I never argued in the first place.
My argument, which has been my argument since I wrote the initial post that this discussion is based on, is that I do not believe that Williams must curb spending in terms of faculty hires.
In the last two days along 118 new jobs have been posted on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s job listings. In the last two days alone. But yes, hwc, there is just one true way, yours, and my institution is the outlier. All this other evidence just shows how wrong everyone else is but you.
dcat
January 16th, 2009 at 1:36 pmhwc says:
Not any more I don’t. I have seen the light. From now on, I will clearly state that every college and university in the country is facing extreme budgetary pressure with the exception of The University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
I suggest that you take your beef up with Morty, then. You may have missed it, but Williams College has already cancelled 8 of 14 approved on-going tenure-track searches and 14 of 20 approved on-going visiting searches. I don’t know what ya’ll mean by “curbing spending in terms of faculty hires” in the Permian Basin, but around here cutting the faculty by 22 approved slots for next year would count as curbing faculty spending.
In other news this week:
Middlebury lays off 100 employees.
University of Florida announces 10% cut in next year’s budget.
On top of the hiring freeze previously announced, Temple University announced an interim 5% budget cut for next year, a freeze on all non-union wages, and pulled its offer to the faculty union off the table to be replaced by a scaled back package.
University of Washington is being given a proposed 13% cut in state funding for next year on top of a mid-year 4.5% cut for this fiscal year.
Cornell University announced a target of cutting 5% of the budget for next year and the need for 10% in cuts in the three year time frame.
These are cuts. Compared to budgets that were projected to grow substantially over the next few years, the cuts are deep and serious.
You should thank your lucky stars that The University of Texas of the Permian Basin is able to weather the economic downturn while continuting to hire new faculty and increase faculty pay. That’s fantastic.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:36 pmhwc says:
One more:
To deal with a 10% budget shortfall in the current year, Stanford Business School announced layoffs of 49 staff members (12% of its staff), plus hourly cutbacks for 8 more, plus elimination of 12 contractor positions.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:46 pmDerek says:
Listen hwc, I know now that obtuse is your game. It is both your modus operendi and your modus vivendi. I realize you are dishonest and only partially pay attention to what you read. These things are all clear.
I never said that UTPB is not facing economic difficulties. I have, in fact, said on multiple occasions and explicitly precisely the opposite. I have laid out facts, however, about what we are doing. And then you mock my school (you were saying something about assholes?), and then you claim that only UTPB must be the only university in the country not facing difficulties despite the fact that I never said any such thing. Then I point out how dozens of other universities in the last two days have listed positions. No response from you — and why should I expect any when you have made selective ignorance the foundation of everything you have argued here?
And then you return by arguing something no one disagrees with — that schools are cutting back. No one is arguing against that fact, hwc, and I have reaffirmed it myriad times. All I am asking you to acknowledge is that institutions are dealing with this crisis differently, as the literally hundreds of jobs still being filled at hundreds of institutions clearly indicates. You are thus making your points against a straw man. My only point is that none of this necessarily means that any institution has to freeze all hiring — many, many, many universities quite clearly are not (Harvard just today posted a spot for a professor of Asian history, for example). You’ve made the catagorical assertions. I have not. So every example of evidence that I put forward to show how other institutions are acting differently from your Word of God proscriptions undercuts your argument, while every example you cite of schools cutting is irrelevant — its evidence for something no one else is arguing.
Furthermore, I have no idea why you place the comments about Morty in bold font. For one thing, Morty’s example would be a sign of splitting the difference between your case and mine. I have said I would not freeze tenure track searches. You would freeze all searches. Morty has not frozen all searches. How you think that redounds to your benefit to the point where you would place it in bold, the equivalent of screaming, is beyond me. After all, I have never said here that cutting searches is unacceptable, because I have not spoken that categorically here. Only you have. And so while I have kept my views as to what Williams and other schools should do fluid, you have not. You have taken the my-way-or-the-highway approach, and then have cited evidence in which Morty has clearly rejected that approach. I have taken an “I would prefer Williams to consider another route” path and you find that sort of thing objectionable, apparently.
Again: No one denied that cuts are happening all over the country. No one. I have no idea who you think you are arguing with on these points. This has nothing to do with what must be done at Williams, what options are available, whether or not faculty should get raises, whether or not some searches should go on, or whether or not jobs are going to be cut. It has even less to do with what must be done. I would prefer Morty to take a different tack. By your own argument up to now, you are the one who thinks he is 100% wrong, because in fact he is going forward with a good number of searches.
I await your arguing something else no one has contested. In bold font. With your favorite didactic hectoring approach, as if you are the foundation for all knowledge about college and university operations.
Hey, what’s this? The University of Texas-Pan American has multiple faculty searches open? Just announced today? But, that’s impossible! hwc says so! Wait, Princeton has a position? Stanford? Yale? Marshall? Louisiana State? Dartmouth? Wesleyan? That cannot be. It simply cannot be.
dcat
January 16th, 2009 at 4:33 pmhwc says:
Here ya go. More news in bold from a college that faces more severe fiscal challenges than The University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
Wellesley College faces a 10% shortfall in 2010-11 budget:
In addition to staff layoffs and hiring freezes for all but the most critical faculty and faculty leave replacement positions, Wellesley also plans to freeze faculty pay:
January 16th, 2009 at 5:07 pmhwc says:
And the hits just keep on coming (for public universities other than The University of Texas of the Permian Basin). Governors have proposed the following cuts in funding for their state univerity systems:
Nevada 36%
South Carolina 16%
Idaho 10%
Kansas 9%
It will be interesting to see how these university systems deal with the cuts “in different ways”.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:28 pmDerek says:
Once again, Rainman, you’re making a case against which no one is arguing. This does NOTHING to undermine my argument. (And how many times do I have to say that UTPB faces financial challenges far more significant than any of the places you have listed? That UTPB can still hire and give raises indicates to me that there are other options than your dogmatic proscriptions. That’s all. But keep making digs at my institution. I’m going to give you a little hint: It’s not making my school look bad. It is making you look insufferable.)
dcat
January 16th, 2009 at 5:28 pm