Provost S Report

Provost’s Report

October 25, 2007

Itook offense, great offense at Adams Haverstock’s sleight of UPBG. It smacked of Huey Long antics. Now the fact of the matter is that we seem to have a social justice paradigm for thinking about fees and a--pardon--market frame. Social justice argues for no fee increases, highest faculty salaries in the country for a MA1 system and a cap on executive salaries because they are not fair. I simplify, but not by much. Social justice would also require a reversal of prison policy and funding, the rollback of prop 13, progressive fees tied to income, etc. Social justice as rhetoric vs. social justice as philosophy is a farce; it makes no connection between fees and general public policy because its practitioners generally admit that they are politically powerless.

Now, the market says, unfairly, that where professors and lecturers average 70-75k, students pay $5400-6000, and execs are paid circa $350k. In a bargaining world we operate by peer analogies. Sorry, those are market facts. And oh, it is not true--I attribute no motive--to say CSU is underfunded by CA. Ok, social justice can make thiscase by appealing to a utopic standard. But mortal fact is that per FTES, the CSU receives more funds than nearly any other MA 1 in America. So, please, let's not be grossly inaccurate. We look foolish.

So how does the illogic play out? Business deans make an end run to get money for their colleges because fees are insufficient to fund salaries. Is it fair then that business faculty will get more than humanities? Is this gap just a business issue?

Library Science runs through Extension because the general fund is insufficient for a grad tech-intensive program that is, in part, on line. Offer it stateside and we must rob HHD to pay for it. Is that fair to HHD? Is it fairer not to offer the program at all in order not to transfer revenue? If you want this funded stateside, then you want your college budget cut.

There are no easy answers. That is why people turn to character assassination and misinformation. They paint a melodrama. President bad, fee badder…oi.

Nothing new at the Provost’s meeting last week. Word was that FTF numbers were up all over the basin. Fullerton was up by nearly 500 FTF. No one knows why yet. I will have the Dept. of Finance data when it is run.

The WASC draft is done!! huzzah!

We await HHD and EDUC to elect their search committees.