A person only gets so many chances in life to demonstrate character, and Michael Crow is about to get one more. ASU will finally receive $60 million per year in parity funding, approved by the Arizona Board of Regents and Gov. Jan Brewer.
The roots of the funding differences of UA, NAU and ASU are found in their mission statements. UA, at its inception, was once Arizona’s only full-functioning university, while ASU only taught prospective teachers. Both have grown and are now universities organized to teach students. Teaching Arizona’s citizens is what the state funds ASU to do.
There is a problem, though. Internally, ASU values what it calls “knowledge creation” far more than teaching, and “knowledge creators” are paid more, unfairly, than the rest of the staff.
One such knowledge creator in the English department taught six students last semester and was paid $191,000 in 2010-11. The Associate VP of Knowledge Enterprise Development, an ASU program that oversees five research centers on campus, taught zero students last semester, yet was paid $227,000. A lecturer in the English department, meanwhile, taught more than 100 students last semester and was paid just $43,000, according to ASU’s 2010-11 public records and ASU internet archives of 2008-9.
ASU has a very real class system, and those who do the actual work of the university are at the bottom. Our attentive and compassionate and hard working Disabled Student Resources department has an average salary of just $41,170.
Our diligent police department averages $36,465. Instructors in the English Department — the backbone of the department — average $32,930.
Much of ASU’s faculty and staff are part of America’s working poor. A $30,000 salary is $2,500 per month.
Subtract $500 per month for student loans and that salary is now $2,000. Subtract $800 for rent, $300 for a car loan, and just $900 is left per month, or $225 per week. Subtract gas, clothes and groceries and it’s no wonder some instructors take second jobs.
The people who do the work at ASU deserve raises, yet any free money tends to go to administrators and those in the “knowledge creation” circle.
From 2008 to 2010, the deans of the Barrett, the Honors College, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and the University College kept the same titles and took raises of $15,010, $36,000, and $30,000 respectively. Indeed, 36 of our administrators take home over $9 million per year, according to ASU public records.
ASU is getting this additional $60 million because it teaches more students than UA. As such, the money should be spent giving raises to those who do the actual teaching, and to those who make up the support structure. Lecturers, financial aid reps, and grounds crews make a university a university.
This $60 million can go a long way to fixing disparity at ASU. Every full time employee who makes under $60,000 can get a $10,000 raise, and enough will be left to give our libraries $25.4 million.
Crow is being given a chance to undo some of the damage he’s done. Let’s hope he takes it.
Reach William at whamilt@asu.edu
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