Oregon daily emerald., May 31, 2005, Page 6, Image 6

GIVE
ME 5!
Run your “for sale" ad (items under $1,000)
for 5 days in the ODE Classified Section.
If the item(s) doesn't sell, call us at 3464343
and we'll run it again for another
5 days free!
k asuo /
►^womens
center
director Candidate
Presentation
Today
12:15-1:15pm
Women's Center Lounge
Suite 3, EMU
Lunch Provided
Please join the Women’s
Center in welcoming our
second Director candidate
Sara Stoltenburg
Sara will present to students
on her vision for the Women’s
Center. The presentation will
be followed by a Q/A session.
For more information, call
346-4095
Recruitment: University faces difficulty retaining faculty
Continued from page 1
“Faculty salary plays an important
role in that.”
Moseley said part of the problem
stems from the salary freeze that was
implemented for state employees be
tween 2003 and 2005.
“We made progress up until the
salary freeze,” he said. “We did
everything we could within the
boundaries of the freeze ... and we
argued vociferously (against it).”
Moseley said in spite of the Uni
versity’s budget woes, faculty can ex
pect a raise next year.
“We expect to get money from the
state for salary increases of 2 per
cent,” he said. “But we’re giving
salary increases between 4 and 5
percent. It’s going to put a lot of
strain on our budget.”
"The faculty draft"
Unlike professional basketball,
“there is no faculty draft,” Hsu point
ed out. So when it comes to recruit
ing new talent to the University, it
has only its merits on which to rely.
It’s not surprising that low average
salaries pose recruitment challenges.
Professor Gerald Berk, the head
of the Political Science Department,
said in an interview on May 19
that his department has been com
pletely unsuccessful in recruiting
faculty of color, due in part to low
faculty salary.
“We’ve had no success but we’ve
been recruiting like crazy, “ he said.
Berk said just this year the depart
ment attempted to recruit a black po
litical scientist from University of
California, Los Angeles.
“He had counter offers from Uni
versity of Washington and UCLA and
the salary was over a third more than
we could offer him,” he said.
Berk added that other institutions
offered the candidate a better re
search package and one institution
even offered the candidate money to
recruit graduate students of color.
Richard Kraus, a political science
professor and the director of the
Robert D. Clark Honors College,
was also on the search committee.
He said what the University offered
the candidate was far above what it
typically offers faculty of the candi
date’s rank, but the University still
couldn’t compete.
“That was just in a whole other
league,” Kraus said.
In another search committee
Kraus sat on, the candidate was of
fered substantially more money by
another institution.
“This candidate was given
$15,000 to $20,000 more to go to
(Pennsylvania State University),” he
said. “I think he would have liked it
here, but he couldn’t convince him
self to come here.” Kraus said recent
searches in the Honors College have
been fairly successful.
“The salaries were competitive
and we were able to get the candi
dates we wanted,” he said of three
recent hires.
Biology Professor Nathan TUblitz
said faculty salaries have prevented
his department from getting its first
choice candidates.
“That’s always been a challenge,”
he said.
TUblitz added that candidates of
ten receive offers from other institu
tions that are “typically tens of thou
sands of dollars higher.”
Hsu said that the University typi
cally can’t offer the sort of startup
packages or money to start laborato
ries and conduct research that other
institutions can.
Hsu said the inability of the Uni
versity to recruit top faculty has had
a subtle psychological effect on
search committees.
“If you get to a point that you
know you’re going to get outbid ...
it will influence the search commit
tee to try and get the person they
can rather than the best candidate,”
he said.
This can have dire effects for the
University, Hsu said, and will lead to
a gradual erosion of academic quali
ty at the University if something is
not done.
Raiding faculty
Low faculty salaries have not
only created challenges with recruit
ment, but the University has had
difficulty retaining its faculty mem
bers when they receive better offers
from other institutions.
Faculty have been leaving the
University at worrisome rates,
Moseley said.
“It’s been one of the hardest
years in regards to retention,” he
said. “We’ve had more losses in top
faculty this year than we’ve had in
my 11 years here.”
Hsu said low salary has caused
many faculty to leave the University.
“If we’re lagging behind ... We’re
the ones whose going to have our
faculty raided away,” he said.
Moseley said the Biology Depart
ment has taken particularly big hits.
He said he knew of at least
two MacArthur Fellows that left
the University because of better of
fers elsewhere.
Professor Jeffrey Mason, the head
of the Theatre Arts Department, said
low faculty salary has created a prob
lem with morale.
“I know of people whose salaries
are 20 percent less than the average
of people in their discipline at their
rank in the short list of comparator
institutions ... They are strong fac
ulty doing their jobs conscientiously
and well, but their salaries still lag,”
he wrote in an e-mail. “Of course,
the problem with relatively low
salaries ... is we have difficulty
retaining faculty, and we foster
a morale problem among those
who stay.”
Associate Professor of Violin Fritz
Gearhart said he knows of at least
four faculty members from the
School of Music who are leaving
the University.
“In a majority of those cases,
salary played a significant issue,”
he said.
Assistant Professor of Saxophone
James Bunte is one of those four. He
will leave for the University of
Cincinnati after this term but said his
decision to leave “has nothing to do
with the (University).”
“The cost of living here is crazy,”
he said. “I literally can’t support my
wife and myself here. We’ve gone
into debt every month.”
The salary he will be receiving at
University of Cincinnati, he said, “is
essentially equivalent.”
“The housing market ... is much
higher here than in Cincinnati,”
he said.
The Oregon factor
Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
Russ Tomlin said while salary is a
critical factor that faculty weigh
when deciding to come to or leave
the University, it is only one of many.
Housing, research opportunities,
health and retirement benefits
and community are among the
factors outside of salary that people
consider.
Many of these factors used to
work in Oregon’s favor, Kraus said.
“Ten, 15, 20 years ago you could
sell Oregon by saying the cost of liv
ing was relatively low, schools were
good and the state pension was first
rate, “ he said. “None of these things
are true anymore. ”
Moseley cited loyalty as a factor
that keeps faculty here, but he said
this too will only last for so long.
“Of course most of them could
make more money somewhere
else,” he said. “We probably de
pend too much on their loyalty to
the University.”
moriahbalingit@dailyememld.com
2005 Summer
Courses
at the
University
of Oregon
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
GRVVR 199 Special Studies:
Character and Point of View
CRYVR 199 Special Studies:
Plot. Narrative Drive. Structure
CRWR 199 Special Studies:
'lime, Scenes, and Flashbacks
CRYVR 199 Special Studies:
Style, Detail, and Dialogue
CRYVR 199 Special Studies:
Fiction Workshop
CRYVR 199 Special Studios:
Poetry Workshop
CRYVR 199 Special Studies:
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Register online at
www.uoregon.edu
Registration opens May 2. 2005.
For morn information about the
University of Oregon's summer
writing courses, course schedules
tuition, and fees, please contact
the Creative Writing Program or
visit www.uoregon.iHiu.
Creative Writing Program
144 Columbia Hall
524.1 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97405-5242
Phone: (541) 340-3944
(laikwing.iioregon.edu/-crwrweb
SPA6HETTI
A garlic bread
$350
Every Tuesday
PIZZA
PETE’S
2506 Willakenzie 344-0998
Hade Pla7a
2673 Willamette 484-0996
27th and Willamette
Advertise in the ODE classifieds.
Call 346-4343
or place your ad online at
www.dailyemerald.com
-.
What are your plans
after graduation?
There's still time to apply for the Master of Arts
in Teaching program at Willamette this fall.
Enroll in either our full-time or part-time degree
programs, or find out more about earning your
reading and ESOL endorsements while you’re a student.
Contact us today to get your application process started.
Phone: 503-375-5453
Toll Free: 877-542-2787
Email: mat-admiss@willamette.edu
WILLAMETTE
THE FIRST UNIVERSITY IN THE WEST
900 STATE STREET, SALEM, OREGON 97301
WWW.WILLAMETTE.EDU/MAT
V