For years, I spent every morning with a mug full of ridiculously strong coffee and the Modesto Bee. Like much of my life, this activity was deeply disturbing, relentlessly disappointing, and the cause of ever-growing resentment. One of the main reasons for this was the Bee's always awful opinion page, particularly the dreadful letters to the editor.
This morning, checking the Bee site for today's temperature forecast (95) and yesterday's high (104), out of curiosity I checked the opinion page. I still do this from time to time, mainly when I'm expecting them to print something particular - a letter I've sent them, something related to the CFA or the CSU, etc. Today it was for the sheer hell of it.
Someone had written a snarky letter suggesting that since creationists believe the earth is only 6000 years old, we must similarly be wrong about half-lives of radioactive isotopes, so nuclear power should be regarded as safe, and we shouldn't worry about nuclear waste. Store it, our intrepid author suggested, by the Creationism Museum in Kentucky.
Someone else had written about obnoxious parents leaving a local middle school graduation after their kids' names were called off the long list, sometimes bringing their brats with them. Apparently something similar happened at the school's athletic awards ceremony.
Wait, hold it right there. The middle school has both a graduation and an athletic awards ceremony? I started to have a Paula Poundstone moment: why the hell are there so many ceremonies and awards? Why are we congratulating ourselves so much for so little? (It gets worse, of course. Paula was complaining about grade school graduation.) This seems to be a national trend, too.
For instance, yer local TV nooz probably tells you it's won some kind of award. It might start with their theme song and then a pan in on the silhouetted figure of the nooz anchor, while lights come up to illuminate him. "Good evening. I'm Smarmy Middleagedman and this is the award-winning Channel 9 Action Nooz. Our first story tonight: Drugs in our schools. But first, here's Perky Dingbat..." etc. The "award" is most likely presented by the corporation who owns the station. It's supposed to give an aura of prestige.
Which is why I'm so proud to announce that I have been named the recipient of the 2007 Groovetastic Award for all-round grooviness. This makes me a double award-winner this year, since I have previously received the Samuel Pufendorf Prize for Teaching Like A Mo-Fo for 2007. I'll be adding these to my syllabi for fall, of course, and having them printed on business cards (did you know practically all academics have business cards now?). I recommend this to anyone. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that self-help and get-ahead type books already recommend it. I already feel more prestigious and deserving. It's good to feel entitled.
I graciously accept these awards and your applause. Thank you.
Showing posts with label merit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label merit. Show all posts
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
merit
One of the issues under dispute between the CSU and the CFA is so-called "merit pay." It's a nice example of the whole dispute, and of the whole of the difficulties in the CSU-CFA relationship.
It begins with the language we use to describe it. "Merit pay" sounds innocuous at worst. It probably sounds like a way to encourage and reward good work. If you oppose a "merit pay" program, the very words make it sound as if you're against the idea of rewarding good work.
Among the many problems with what CFA prefers to call "discretionary pay" is that "merit" is not satisfactorily defined. What makes a good faculty member? What specific marks or characteristics would describe faculty "merit"? My view is that faculty work can be meritorious in many different ways, and that defining it in any set of terms narrow enough to work contractually would leave out a great deal of the meritorious work faculty do. (Not that the CSU proposal bothers to define "merit." Indeed, one reason CFA is so deeply opposed to it is that CSU won't set out the criteria contractually. It raises probably valid suspicion that what counts as "merit" is what some administrator decides is merit - hence our term, "discretionary pay.")
One of the main objections CFA has with "merit pay" programs proposed by CSU has been that there is no real recourse if a faculty member doesn't receive the additional pay. If you believe you're more meritorious than someone else, but that person gets the pay increase and you don't, perhaps you can appeal to the President of the campus, but that's the person who awarded the raise in the first place. The chances the President will reverse himself or herself and give you the raise approximate zero.
Another problem is that the previous "merit pay" programs have been disasters, both in terms of the impact on faculty salaries and morale, and as programs to administer. The CSU has agreed with CFA that previous discretionary pay programs have been unworkable. Once a faculty member's base salary is changed by adding discretionary pay, that faculty person is no longer on the regular pay scale, and all the calculations painstakingly made to produce predictability in faculty pay across the 23 campus system goes kablooey. There's 23,000 faculty in the CSU, and discretionary pay makes it impossible to keep track of how much they ought to be paid. (And of course, another one of the reasons cited for the unworkability of "merit pay" is that merit isn't defined. As Chico says of Harpo in Duck Soup, "he gets mad because he can't read.")
There's a myth of meritocracy in corporate models of labor and capital, and it makes no sense to believe it. Executives, whether because of their role or because of some genetic proclivity, value compliance and fealty. If given discretion to pay some people more than others, executives who have the opportunity to reward faculty with more pay will use that discretion to reward characteristics they value.
The oddest thing to me about all this is that what's truly meritorious, in the sense of what a person has earned, would seem to be what a person achieves through work. In other words, work is what is meritorious. I think that's a reason labor unions make sense to me: collective bargaining implicitly recognizes that work is what should be paid, and so people doing similar work should get similar pay.
It begins with the language we use to describe it. "Merit pay" sounds innocuous at worst. It probably sounds like a way to encourage and reward good work. If you oppose a "merit pay" program, the very words make it sound as if you're against the idea of rewarding good work.
Among the many problems with what CFA prefers to call "discretionary pay" is that "merit" is not satisfactorily defined. What makes a good faculty member? What specific marks or characteristics would describe faculty "merit"? My view is that faculty work can be meritorious in many different ways, and that defining it in any set of terms narrow enough to work contractually would leave out a great deal of the meritorious work faculty do. (Not that the CSU proposal bothers to define "merit." Indeed, one reason CFA is so deeply opposed to it is that CSU won't set out the criteria contractually. It raises probably valid suspicion that what counts as "merit" is what some administrator decides is merit - hence our term, "discretionary pay.")
One of the main objections CFA has with "merit pay" programs proposed by CSU has been that there is no real recourse if a faculty member doesn't receive the additional pay. If you believe you're more meritorious than someone else, but that person gets the pay increase and you don't, perhaps you can appeal to the President of the campus, but that's the person who awarded the raise in the first place. The chances the President will reverse himself or herself and give you the raise approximate zero.
Another problem is that the previous "merit pay" programs have been disasters, both in terms of the impact on faculty salaries and morale, and as programs to administer. The CSU has agreed with CFA that previous discretionary pay programs have been unworkable. Once a faculty member's base salary is changed by adding discretionary pay, that faculty person is no longer on the regular pay scale, and all the calculations painstakingly made to produce predictability in faculty pay across the 23 campus system goes kablooey. There's 23,000 faculty in the CSU, and discretionary pay makes it impossible to keep track of how much they ought to be paid. (And of course, another one of the reasons cited for the unworkability of "merit pay" is that merit isn't defined. As Chico says of Harpo in Duck Soup, "he gets mad because he can't read.")
There's a myth of meritocracy in corporate models of labor and capital, and it makes no sense to believe it. Executives, whether because of their role or because of some genetic proclivity, value compliance and fealty. If given discretion to pay some people more than others, executives who have the opportunity to reward faculty with more pay will use that discretion to reward characteristics they value.
The oddest thing to me about all this is that what's truly meritorious, in the sense of what a person has earned, would seem to be what a person achieves through work. In other words, work is what is meritorious. I think that's a reason labor unions make sense to me: collective bargaining implicitly recognizes that work is what should be paid, and so people doing similar work should get similar pay.
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