Faculty make more money than staff and should not (although I have yet to meet a staff member who has the level of student loans that many faculty carry).
Faculty don't deserve the money they earn because they don't work as hard as staff do.
Faculty treat staff like crap. Staff resent the power plays that faculty pull because faculty act like they have all the power on campus.
Staff believe faculty are entitled pricks who treat staff like their personal servants.
Faculty think they're too smart to interact with staff and talk to staff like they're stupid.
Faculty get more benefits than staff because they have summers off.
But I have yet to experience this resentful relationship because I have very positive interaction with the staff on my campus (maybe they just talk behind my back when I leave). This recent post also indicates that this 'enmity' between faculty and staff is not confined to my campus.
I am curious: do the rest of you also have a campus divide between faculty and staff?
We don't have a union for either faculty or staff (we're a very small SLAC), but we (faculty) have (voluntarily) taken a pay cut in the past so that certain staff members wouldn't have their jobs cut (when economic times were particularly difficult and enrollment went down). That, to me, doesn't indicate the rift that I hear about on campus, but that doesn't mean I simply don't feel the resentment because I am not a staff member. What are your experiences?
The administrative staff at my last gig was openly hostile to faculty, both full-time and adjunct, but many of the people teaching there were condescending to staff. A lovely Catch-22.
ReplyDeleteAt LD3C, my current gig, there doesn't seem to be a rift. There are some full-time faculty members who are not as nice to staff as they should be, and there are some among the staff who think that faculty members are overpaid and underworked--but there are very few on either side, as this is a CC and pretty much everyone works hard (seriously).
The idea that faculty doesn't deserve its pay because it allegedly doesn't work as hard as staff is ridiculous. I have known staff at every institution where I've worked who think this way, but they are usually among those who grouse about a good many other things as well.
I fear, though, that the current attitude that pervades the country--that all teachers are lazy, overpaid slugs--will become more and more common among the non-teaching staff in higher ed, too.
A staff member here said in a meeting, "I could get a Ph.D. if I had summers off too!"
ReplyDeleteOur department staff are wonderful -- and, like the rest of us, badly underpaid, especially given the hours they work. We had a pretty bad receptionist for a few years when I first arrived, but she's long gone, and each of her replacements (incumbents tend toward short tenures, I suspect due to the pay) has gone well above and beyond the basics of the job. I suppose I can't be sure that they aren't complaining about us behind our backs (and if they're complaining about, for instance, late book orders, they have a point, at least in my case), but, given the fact that many of our staff have, are working on, or are contemplating post-B.A. degrees (or comparable non-degreed creative or vocational projects) themselves, I don't think there's a noticeable divide.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the faculty vs. staff comparison an "apples and oranges" issue? Yes, we all work hard, but we do very different things. Staff work set hours and when they are done for the day, I presume they do not take home grading and lesson prep work. They do not have research and publishing responsibilities and pressure. The degree requirements for their positions are different from those of the faculty. I've been lucky to work in departments with amazing support staff, and they should absolutely be paid and respected more than they are. But comparing their employment status to faculty or vice-versa seems irrelevant. And at its worst, that kind of argument can really poison the work environment for everyone.
ReplyDeleteWhere I work, every once in a while the chair has to tell the faculty to lay off the staff and stop riding their asses to do menial, ridiculous tasks. There's a small set of them there who think that "secretary" means their own personal secretary and they're rude and demanding. It's embarrassing how poorly some of them treat the staff.
ReplyDeleteat my slac, we are too "egalitarian" to ask staff to do much for us. there are far too many of them on our campus and it's hard to actually pin down what some of them do. so yes, we are not generally on good terms. oh and a number of them get paid much more than faculty do.
ReplyDeleteBoth faculty and staff have unions and senates at my CC, and seem to get along great. I thought. We do baby and wedding showers together (not always in that order), and sometimes spend more than the minimum time talking as our paths cross.
ReplyDeleteThen, recently, I let something slip that I intended as a joke, and heard a long rant of bitterness that woke me up. I said (ironically, I thought), "That's why you make the BIG bucks," meaning to take this staff member's side against the administrator who clearly didn't know his ass from his elbow.
Well. The staffer let loose about recent layoffs and rumored layoffs to come; about remaining staff being expected to absorb all that extra work without a raise; and about the petty, dehumanizing micromanagement that denies him autonomy and meaningful responsibility. I guess it implied some level of trust in me, or maybe I said exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. It wasn't explicitly about faculty, but he definitely had a tone that implied, "You have NO IDEA what my job is like."
So while we seem to be getting along on the surface, there is a deep vein of resentment at least in some of our staff.
And given what he told me, I don't blame him.
Happy Labor Day.
In the departments I've attended as a grad student and worked at as a faculty member, relations between the faculty and staff appear to be cordial and functional. Exceptions exist, of course...there's always at least one prof who doesn't seem to realize that that "admin" doesn't equal "minion," and if you piss the admins off, your requests go to the bottom of the pile. Oh...and there's the one deadweight whom everybody (including her coworkers in the office) loathed because she didn't do jack. But overall? Faculty-staff relations seem to be pretty good.
ReplyDeleteIn my department, the administrative assistant (staff) holds all power regarding scheduling. They also must perform all whims of the chair and dean. They are respected, feared, and underpaid. Massively underpaid.
ReplyDeleteAt our CC, there is frequently crossover between staff and faculty. Adjuncts often get work as part-time staff to help make ends meet. It's kind of disturbing in a way to buy your Intro to Film book at the bookstore from the Professor that you are taking the class from.
I've seen some hostility in the past. As a grad student/staff member (hey, had to find some way to afford tuition!) I found the other secretarial staff didn't know what to do about me....and some of the profs were the same way. The CC where I adjunct now, the staff and faculty seem to get along incredibly well. If only that could be the case everywhere.
ReplyDeleteCampus "staff" like faculty come in all shapes and sizes. It is important for both sides not to stereotype one another and make broad generalizations about what the other does or doesn't do. In any organizaiton, there will always be some that work harder than others and that goes for both staff and faculty as well. Many campus staff get lumped into a single category even though the complexities of their jobs, experiences and education have vast differences. Many staff, including administrative assistants are taking work home on the evenings and weekends on a regular basis, because as in many industries, there is demand on all employees to do more with less staff for less pay. I'm technically an hourly employee and do work at home "off hours" but without overtime pay, on a regular basis. Many staff are pursuing or hold graduate or professional degrees; quite a few have more than one graduate degree and have positions that carry a great deal of responsibility and complexity. My personal experience has been that pay rates for staff do not keep pace with advances in education levels, increases in responsibility, etc... The key is to open dialogue between faculty and staff and to make an effort to learn what each other does, what challenges they face and how each can better help one another. Opening up campus committees and projects so they invite both faculty and staff (from all levels) to participate in campus forums and governance, goes a long way towards building better relationships, changing misperceptions on both sides and closing the gap. A little empathy for what the other person may be going through doesn't hurt either.
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