the root of all evil
Feb. 21st, 2005 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffloI 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.)
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.)
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no subject
Date: Feb. 21st, 2005 08:33 pm (UTC)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.