A Little Taste of Class

\ Leave a Comment \ by

Recent news about the University of Illinois furlough program shows a touch of class in two senses (Illinois Education Association, “In the News, Jan. 5“). It’s great that Governor Quinn excused workers who earn less than $30,000; it also shows that the public can only handle the tiniest little whiff of the class hierarchy. Or, at least, that our so-called populist governor doesn’t feel he can get away with much populism at all.

It’s too bad that the higher paid administartion and faculty– say, those making over $90,000– aren’t taking an active stand on the inequities of the current fiscal crisis. Almost across the board it’s students and low paid staff that are taking the biggest hit. It’s true, of course, that this is in the end a political problem– a kind of deadlock between the governor and the legislature over funding, particularly over the state income tax– and no none should have to sacrifice much of anything.

Still, wouldn’t be great– a refreshing touch of class– if a few very highly paid administrators, or faculty, or even a coach, got together and called for a salary freeze above a certain level as well as a process that would address the huge gaps between the best and the worst paid in Illinois education. So far the crisis seems to have only created an opportunity for the well off to consolidate their positions via these ‘we all share the sacrifice’ initiatives. It’d be great to see a few privileged academics do more.

Posted in: Economics, Professional

Good News, Maybe

\ Leave a Comment \ by

We’re haunted by a reactionary Republican party; it’s “reactionary” in a specific sense, too, unwilling to posit any ideas other than to resist the Democratic majority. No push to privatize Social Security or the public schools, not even a ‘balance the budget’ neurosis to push. All we got were Tea-bagging flash in the pans. I didn’t buy Reagan, either, but it’s hard to take Palin seriously.

So it’s impossible to see any mainstream political idea as unambiguously good news. Even if you are one of the 30 plus million slated to be helped with health care, the news is mixed. You have to wait, for one thing (hoping that you don’t get ill or die) and who knows what bureaucratic maze awaits anyone attempting to take advantage of the new laws. It’s three steps forward, and then two steps back.

Still, the idea that we might be able to take 87 billion away from banker-middle-men-confidence artists is very good news indeed. That’s just what Mr. Duncan, the current Secretary of Education, plans to do over the course of the next year or more. Apparently, even a lot of Wall Street Journal types see this as a good idea (“Banks Don’t Belong in the Student Loan Business“). That may be the best news of all.

Posted in: Economics, Professional

Do the Right Thing

\ Leave a Comment \ by

Interestingly, Insider Higher Ed pitches this story as a survival story (“Survival — Through Open Access“) but I think that’s hardly the most interesting point. What’s interesting is that the Utah State University Press’ recent self-transformation brings us one step closer to a systematic embrace of open access as the governing principal in the U.S. academy.

I don’t like the “survival” label for the same reason that I don’t like the idea that “green energy” is going to “save” the U.S.– and world– economy. In some technical sense both of those things might be true but these are also things that move the economy in novel, more democratic directions. We don’t need the old ways to survive, we need to build something new.

The idea of open access in education is not to allow traditional academic culture to survive unchanged once the current fiscal problems have passed. The goal is to take the opportunity– created by technological change as much as the financial dilemmas– to make academia (and the energy sector) into something very different. Let the banks survive; we need a better higher education system.

The Utah strategy will be one of the important tests of the old status system under a new ‘open’ era. Will free journals become the “lower tier” of academic publishing, less valued as cultural capital by the upper tier of journals funded through paid subscription? Will we have two tiers of publishing, one for the wealthy research institutions, and another for the rest of us? Time will tell.

An addendum: I was just pointed (via the TechRhet list) to an “Inside Higher Ed” piece, “A Call for Copyright Rebellion,” which summarizes a recent talk by Lawrence Lessing, “the Harvard University law professor and renowned open-access advocate.” Lessing seems remarkably distant from political economics, given his subject, but I like the way the piece ends:

“We should see a resistance to imposing the Britney Spears model of copyright upon the scientist or the educator,” he said. “…But if you would expect that, you would be very disappointed by what we see out there in the scientific and and education communities.” Scholars, he said, have allowed the copyright conversation to be steered by lawyers and businesses who are not first and foremost to intellectual discovery.

To them, Lessig delivered a simple message: “Stop it.”

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Writing

Class Hide and Seek

\ Leave a Comment \ by

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni has just given my home state, Illinois, a failing grade in every area it assesses, from ‘cost and effectiveness’ to ‘intellectual diversity.’ It’s not surprising, given the recent scandals in admissions and the ongoing dysfunctional stasis of the state government. It’s just not that easy to fund a state without an effective state income tax, even in good times. In bad economic times, it becomes impossible.

It’s great to see the ACTA, a bastion of privilege if there ever was one, bemoaning the academic end run the privileged have been running around admission to Illinois universities, and calling for increased transparency and so on. I don’t think they were quite as upset when one of these rich kids got elected president several years ago, but perhaps that’s because he got into Yale, not the University of Illinois, and it was the 1960s, and there was that nasty war that no one really wanted to fight…

The ACTA report is a half-truth red herring (pardon my mixed metaphor) of course, because what they ignore is as important as what they bemoan. They offer no assessment on the salaries of administrative officials, such as themselves, to cite the obvious. It’s an interesting omission, given the prominence of recent stories about the generous salaries of various officials at private universities. A coach, it turns out, (Peter Carroll) is the best paid academic.

Statistics gathered by the Working Group on Extreme Inequity paint an alarming picture of material privilege run amok throughout the U.S. economy, and universities are no exception. In the private sector, executive pay is now on average more than 364 times that of the lowest paid. I’d love to hear about the ratio of the highest to lowest paid employees at public universities. If the ACTA wants “robust debate” it should include these numbers in its report card.

Posted in: Economics, Writing