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The DialogueQuestion:
As a 22- year faculty member in the mathematics department at San Francisco State University and a member of long standing in the California Faculty Association, I am backing the new Faculty Merit Increase plan recently agreed to by CFA and California State University. This merit plan provides $4 million to Cal State faculty this year and faculty at the department level will play a major role in deciding who gets the increases. This is as it should be, because merit is best evaluated by members of the department in which the faculty member is housed. Of course, most of my interactions are with members of my own department, and I am well aware of the professional activities of these individuals. It is generally known who are the truly excellent instructors in my department and which faculty are engaged in research and professional activities. I have also served on several university committees where I learned about the activities of my colleagues in other departments around the campus. I am truly impressed by the level of professional activity being performed in departments at SFSU. But I am also aware that some faculty are either burned out or have lost interest in the subject matter they teach. Quite frankly, I do feel that it is not fair to productive faculty if non-productive faculty are given equal pay increases. In the math department at SFSU, 85 percent of our faculty were recommended for Faculty Merit Increases and 85 percent of our faculty received the merit increases. This indicates that only a few faculty were given poor evaluations of their professional activities. * David Ellis is a mathmatics professor at San Francisco State University and an active member of the California Faculty Association.
Supplemental pay that rewards extraordinary performance sounds like a great idea! Each of us wants to be recognized for our work and financial enhancements can be considered recognition. The managers of university systems link merit pay to this notion of rewarding those who perform beyond the ordinary, believing that this process will be the carrot necessary to urge the mules to move faster, harder, or with greater quality. But it's not working. Most university faculty do what they do for the intrinsic joy of it---being a scholar turns them on or the teaching-learning process keeps them stimulated. I doubt that many entered the academy planning to get rich. And the academy works as well as it does because we are colleagues in a community creating a learning environment to enhance the common good, namely the minds and souls of our students. Merit expects us to quantify these actions. How? Dogs and chickens and rats seem to respond well to external stimuli as Pavlov, Skinner, and others have proved. But had these same researchers used cats for their experiments, the results would have been significantly different. Merit decisions treat us like dogs, but faculty are independent, creative thinkers who are intrinsically motivated. Merit plans are subjective and the merit-pay process demoralizes a community of learners by promoting unnecessary competition. And its evaluative nature is managed by administrators who are invited to use their power in destructive ways. Merit implies that faculty are not doing their best. There is much evidence to the contrary. * Cynthia McDermott is an associate professor in teacher training at California State University-Dominguez Hills. She is also active in the California Faculty Association and the CSU- Dominguez Hills academic senate. Take a stand! Post your comments on the dialog discussion board. |
