the root of all evil

[fflo]

I just came across a link to a page that lets you search U. Mich. salaries by employee. The only names I could think of to look up were professors in English (and the variations): dang, they're not doing too bad! Well, the profs and associates, anyway---the adjunct are probably screwed.

Even though there's a lot about that world I am glad not to be involved with and subject to, those big dollar signs are making me think again about the stuff I would have liked about the academic life. The top three:

   I.  To a certain extent, your very business is ideas.
  II.  The schedule is extremely flexible.
 III.  Each year/semester, even if you just stay in one place, the new comes to you.
       Renewal is built in, in the form of new classes and fresh studentin.

I don't usually think "and the money could be good"---but I guess, if you prevail in the crap shoot, it can.

As far as the site being a bummer for U. folk who'd just as soon their salaries weren't snooped at, I can see that, but mostly it reminds me of when my father didn't want to sign my financial aid paperwork because it was nobody's business what he made---when anybody who wanted to know coulda looked it up, as it was a matter of public record. (My mother solved the problem by quietly forging his signature.)

Comments

[maffick.livejournal.com]

that's interesting, fflo. no doubt, maybe I'm not thinking this whole doctorate thing through. The money didn't really occur to me either...that's such a cool mom-thing to do, when she forged his signature. I love that story. Moms are just so much more rational then dads, when it doesn't have to do with sports facts or business tips, at least, in my experience. It's funny that our society generally sees it the other way around.

[groovesinorbit]

Thanks for the link! (adds to her stalking bookmarks) I guess that's a down side of working for a state school--the salaries being public. Makes sense from a taxpaying point of view, though. We just got our town report for this year. It lists all the salaries of the town gov't folk.

[crankyasanoldma.livejournal.com]

If I'd gone the faculty route instead of the admin route, I would have preferred to be at a place where the expectations were different. The money, of course, would be far less than what a place like the U pays. However, I knew few U-M professors who led lives I envied or admired. they didn't seem to have the sort of balance I wanted.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Good point---and an important part of the equation to remember.

I suppose the faculty here probably suffers its own version of the weird combo that fucks up so many of the grad students: (a) the pressure to be so very very excellent, for this is the Harvard of the blahdeblahdeblah, and (b) the inferiority complex that kicks it up a notch---cuz it ain't Harvard.

There's a great story about Mich. English recently screwing itself with the ivy league stars in its eyes. Maybe I'll tell it here some time.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Teaching at Schoolcraft College is a hoot. If I could get a full-time position so I could make enough to live on, I'd be one happy camper. But I can see the stress of UM and it's competititive pressure not being worth it. Certainly the renewal of having a new batch of students every term is a plus. It also can be depressing--I'm often sad to see a student go who I wish I could have gotten to know a bit better.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Ever have students who stay in touch with you?

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I've had a couple who have at least given me a hello once or twice after the term was over. I have one who actually keeps up after a fashion after many years--we had a lot of email discussions in the months after the class, and she includes me on some emails updating her life--for instance, she is off to africa to learn about doing fieldwork there, in hopes of doing primate research--the next Jane Goodall. She looked the part when she was my student. She's actually sent some pretty interesting emails.

But sadly, for the most part, I just lose touch. I do the math, and I've had somewhere between 500 and a thousand students. I think the average college student goes through 50 or 100 teachers through their life, so I assume that probably ten students found me to be the best instructor they ever had, and an equal number found me the worst they ever had. But I figure the latter ten are among the students who never show up after the first exam.