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March 04, 1983 - Image 25

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1983-03-04
Note:
This is a tabloid page

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F acuity
from 1
Texas in favor of the rich traditions and
prestige of Ann Arbor.h
In fact, even those who have left the
University in recent years say that
financial considerations had little to do
with their decisions. They say they left
for opportunities that the University
couldn't provide in times of prosperity
or poverty.
For a long time, administrators
recognized the threat posed to the
University by growing institutions
hungry to build up select departments
with top-notch faculty. But the ad-
ministration was never worried
enough to do anything about it. There
wasn't even sufficient concern among
top-level administrators to survey the
schools and colleges to see just how
many professors were leaving.
That attitudechanged suddenly last
summer. Fearing that the University's
pay scales were falling behind in higher
education markets, the administration
earmarked $5 million specifically for
faculty pay increases. That controver-
sial decision left University clerical
workers without a pay raise and
marked the first time that the ad-
ministration distinguished between
academic and non-academic staff in
granting raises. (Several months later,
non-academic staffnmembers were
given a smaller pay increase.)
Administrators say the pay decision
was necessary to keep faculty mem-
bers from fleeing to greener pastures.
"If we hadn't done it," says Billy Frye,
vice president for academic affairs
"the level of anxiety and uncertainty
would have increased substantially. It
would have set the stage for further
deterioration."
For certain schools, at least, Frye's
analysis appears to be right.
Engineering Dean James Duderstadt
wears a worried look as he leans back
in a chair in his North Campus office
which overlooks the art school. The
engineering college has grown tremen-
dously since Duderstadt took over two
years ago, but the college is not im-
mune to the University's financial dif-
ficulties.
The dean knows that in order to main-
tain a top-flight school, he must have
top-flight faculty. To keep top-flight
faculty, he must offer top-flight
salaries.
Duderstadt says one Sun Belt univer-
sity offered a University engineering
professor $100,000 up front, a $50,000
annual salary, and a department chair.
Another engineering professor was of-
fered $100,000 up front, $70,000 for a
nine-month appointment, a $20,000 ex-
pense account, tenure for his
technician, and a department chair.
The dean says offers like these for top
faculty are not unusual.
"Some of the offers our people are
now. receiving are becoming in-
creasingly attractive and we're finding
it hard to keep up," he says. "We're on
the knife's edge, and we've got to run
very fast."
To stave off the raids, the college has
devoted $1 million in discretionary fun-
ds to supplement faculty salaries in the
last two years.
If the University had not boosted
faculty salaries last fall, there would
have been a mass exodus of faculty,
Duderstadt says. As many as 40
professors-would have left his college,
he estimates.
"Once that faculty exodus starts, it's
going to be tough to stem it. If you lose

the people, you've lost the quality of the
institution."
Engineering is not the only discipline
worried about faculty flight. Two LSA
departments already have seen large
numbers of faculty members depart
from Ann Arbor.
Five senior faculty members in the
political science department have
either left the University or are on their
way, including Prof. Alan Whiting, who
went to the University of Arizona last
fall, and Prof. Thomas Anton, who is
going to Brown University in Septem-
b er.
In the economics department, senior
profs. Gavin Wright and Glen Loury left
last year for Stanford University and
Harvard University respectively.
Another senior faculty member, Prof.
Dan Rubinfeld, is going on leave at
Berkeley next fall and expects a per-
manent position.
In addition, one assistant economics
professor went to the University 'of
Pennsylvania, two went to the Univer-
sity of Washington, and another
resigned to set up a consulting agency.
"The University of Michigan cannot cut
faculty salaries because it will turn into
a cruddy university very quickly," says
Richard Porter, the department's
associate chairman.
'Some of the offers oui
are becomingly increasi
finding it's hard to keep
and we've got to run ver3

University offered him a more substan-
tial increase of 30 percent, but he tur-
ned down that option because it was an
appointment in a developing depar-
tment, which makes for a career gam-
ble.
Peter Clark, former chairman of the
communications department, says he
left last year for the deanship of the
University of Southern California's An-
nenberg School of Communications to
concentrate his academic efforts on
organizational management-a field
not emphasized at Michigan.
"The combination of (Michigan)
being reasonably competitive in salary
and overwhelmingly competitive in in-
tellectual dynamism made it a place
that once you got to, you didn't want to
leave," Clark says.
Other factors indicate that substan-
tial salary increases last year had little
bearing on faculty members' decisions
to stay.
Professors in architecture, for in-
stance, rely on outside incomes from
consulting and research to provide the
balance of their incomes. And a
universally poor housing market has
meant hard times for the professors
nationwide.
The three schools that recently have
gone under budget reviews were put
r people are now receiving
ingly attractive and we're
up. We're on knife's edge,
y fast.'

boosting its priority areas-such as
business and engineering-than in-
creasing faculty salaries per se. She
cites the relatively low amount of
money designated toward salary in-
creases for her low priority school.
Allowing the faculties in the schools
under review to become vulnerable to
raids from other institutions might not
be too bad an idea, from the ad-
ministration's perspective. As each
school's budget gets trimmed, faculty
positions must be eliminated too. If
some leave now, there's less chance
that other professors will have to be
laid off in the future.
Looking at the overall state of higher
education in America, many University
professors are happy to be right where
they are. Michigan is by no means
alone in cutting back appropriations to
its colleges and universities.
Many states are facing budget
deficits, and the recession is even hit-
ting the South and Southwest.
Other schools in the north have been
hit much harder than the University of
Michigan, in terms of faculty flight.
More faculty than ever are looking
into offers from other schools, says
Kenneth Anderson, chairman of the
University of Illinois' faculty governing
body. "Where a year or two ago
someone would say no to a nibble,
faculty are nowdmore prone to say yes."
The University of Wisconsin has lost
faculty members not only because of
salaries but also because budget
restraints have increased teaching
loads and the furthered deterioration of
facilities, says David Berman, who
chairs that school's faculty executive
committee.
Even the Sun Belt states are starting
to bottom out financially. "They're
really beginning to feel the pinch here,
says the University of Arizona's faculty
chairman, Oliver Sigworth. "Arizona
is getting in bad shape too.
(Michigan's) auto industry has vir-
tually shut down and our copper mines
have virtually shut down. We will con-
sider ourselves lucky if we get the same
appropriation for 1983-84 as we did in
1982-83."
Private schools are beginning to feel
the crunch also. Stanford's Prof.
Wright, formerly of Michigan, says

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-COVER STORY
Faculty flight Page 1
To flee or not to flee. That is the question many
University professors are wrestling with in the face
of attractive offers from other universities and in-
dustry. Popular opinion, says professors are leaving
for greener and sunnier pastures, but a close look at
University faculty shows most are true blue.
Cover illustration by David Meissner.
THEATER

Michigan Theatre for a roarin folk show with a
unique style. Over at Hill Auditorium, the world's
oldest orchestra, the Dresden State Orchestra,
revives its talents for an evening of classical enter-
tainment.
FILMS
Hollywood lobotomy Page 6
Frances Farmer was one of Hollywood's most
flamboyant and controversial stars.-- Her tale of
downward mobility, out of pictures and into in-
stitutions, provides the basis for Jessica Lange's ex-
cellent portrayal in the film, Frances.
THE LIST

RESTAURANTS.

Radio daze

Page 4

The Conservator
Visitors to 516 E. Libe
fine music at the Second C
door. Those who elect the
atmospheric visit of tasty
BANDS
Twin friction
Ben and Larry Miller m
tion, one of Ann Arbor's 1
wave twist. With loads of
the fraternal twins are att
tention as they grow int
retaining three-member n
DISCS
Little criminal
Randy Newman is grow
have no reason to live" s
out insightful, funny, and a
by his latest album, Troub

PTP's 1940s Radio Hour brings the golden age of
the air waves back to life on stage. Meanwhile, a very
distinctive acting teacher leads Master of Arts
students in a new production of Strindberg's The
Father.
MUSIC

Happenings

Pages 7-10

Prine time

Page 5

Your guide to fun times for the coming week in Ann
Arbor. Film capsules, music previews, theater notes,
and bar dates, all listed in a handy-dandy, day-by-day
schedule. Plus a roster of local restaurants.

Singer John Prine drives his pink Cadillac into the

i

-James Duderstadt,
Dean, College of
Engineering

B UT THOSE departments are the
exception, not the rule at the
University. Only those few disciplines
that have high student and private sec-
tor demand right now are the ones that
are in danger.
Because everyone wants to be an
engineer or economics major, the art
history department has to sit back and
watch the rich get richer. In that
discipline, like many others, there
hasn't been pressure to boost salaries
because the demand isn't there.
Says Jacob Price, chairman of the
history department, another discipline
that lacks severe competition: "We
haven't had the resources to go out and
raid other people and other people
haven't had the resources to raid us.
In most departments, salary plays
only a minor role in career decisions.
The quality of students, colleagues,
graduate programs, facilities, research
opportunities, and teaching loads are
other important considerations.
Even some of those professors who
have flown the coup, so to speak, in
recent years did so for reasons that
stretch far beyond the salary issue.
"Offers from a place like Stanford
don't come along every day," says
Economics Prof. Wright. "(The
University) matched the Stanford offer
in straight dollars. It was a hard choice
to make."
Economics Prof. Loury left for Har-
vard because, well, Harvard's Har-
vard. "I was made an offer that at this
point in my career I couldn't resist," he
says. In 1980, Princeton University of-
fered him a $10,000 raise over his
$42,000 salary, but he says he turned it
down because he was not ready to make
a major career move. New York

there, in part, due to a feeling that there
is an overabundance of people in their
fields, much less any competition for
faculty.
Education Dean Joan Stark says the
University is more concerned with

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Firday. March 4. 1983
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Associate Editors ...................... Larry Dean of the Daily every week during the University year
Mare Hodges and is available for free at many locations around the Copyright 1983, The Mic
Susan Makuch campus and city.
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Billy Frye: Trying to remain competitive

14 Weekend/March 4, 19838 3. ....

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