FAMU is seeking $10-million in state funds, including $2.3-million to strengthen its financial management systems and $1.1-million to improve SBI to the satisfaction of accreditors in its 2008-09 legislative budget request.The university is also seeking $1-million to improve the College of Pharmacy to deal with faculty and curriculum shortfalls and address concerns of the school's accrediting agency.
The general faculty of the university need to be considered, salary-wise, in these pleas for state money. Administrators never think about us when they start handing out big salaries. Faculty members are really the university's stepchildren. Don't let the myth of faculty salaries fool you. FAMU is lucky that many faculty members haven't walked off the job themselves. And if the university is in such dire financial crisis, how does the president justify paying all of these people these exhorbitant salaries. Faculty members are important, too, despitd the fact that their jobs are pretty much low key and nearly invisible.
ReplyDeletecorrection: "...needs to be...",
ReplyDelete"...salaries?", "...despite..."
The funny thing is, all the people making the MOST money on campus were responsible for MOST of the damage. FAMU has no commitment to good employees in action, but only supposed good employees on paper. General FAMU employees are hired at the lowest possible salaries outside executive and administrative positions. Why is it they are not hired at the lowest salaries as well? The fall-off from Vice Presidents of the University to their staff is ridiculous. They make good six figure salaries and implement no polices or procedures while their staff do all the work and scramble to make $30 to 40 thousand.....if they're lucky. I hope the new administration takes a long hard look at this and give raises to those that have stuck it out and received high marks year after year on their evaluations. At least bring back an employee incentive program or two.
ReplyDeleteI work for FAMU to so I understand what you saying. But look at the bigger picture. He trying to stabilized FAMU and keep those schools accredited and I agree that should be his primary focus. All Universities are looking at a 4% to 10% cut from the state soon. So you need to talk to the Governor and the legislator about your pay raise cause that sure not their focus right now and that kind of cut does not bold well for us getting any more money. If anything we hope people won't have to be laid off cause of this.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteI work for FAMU to so I understand what you saying. But look at the bigger picture. He trying to stabilized FAMU and keep those schools accredited and I agree that should be his primary focus. All Universities are looking at a 4% to 10% cut from the state soon. So you need to talk to the Governor and the legislator about your pay raise cause that sure not their focus right now and that kind of cut does not bold well for us getting any more money. If anything we hope people won't have to be laid off cause of this.
7/14/2007 3:19 PM
I appreciate many of you that work diliegently to keep my alma mater operating. I hope in the future, they will be able to compensate those of you that truly deserve and need it.
Much love to you for hanging in there !
Proud FAMU Alumna '02
I also appreciate FAMU's professors and staff members. I've always told people that we have the best professors in America. Please give Dr. Ammons a chance to make some much needed changes. I'm sure that faculty compensation will be one of his priorities once we get our finances in order. If we want first class administrators, then we have to pay first class bucks.
ReplyDeleteNo, dear, we don't need to "talk to the governor about this." This is in the president's court. If he can pay daggone secretaries nearly $75.00 and and university "spokespersons" $145,000, something is clearly wrong with this picture, when faculty salaries are among the absolute lowest in the state. Everyone and everything has a priority over faculty members.
ReplyDeleteif you want "first-class" professors, then the uiversity needs to pay "first-class bucks." Really good professors would love to come teach at FAMU, but once they find out the salaries, then they keeping rolling. And who can blame them?
ReplyDeleteDr. Ammons hasn't been in Lee Hall 30 days. Dang, give the man a chance.
ReplyDelete12:55, we're giving the man a chance, or did you not understand the initial comment? The comment was that faculty are always left out of the dialogue regarding salaries. No one said that things wouldn't change. What was said, again, is that---are you listening?---we aren't even included in the talks when there are discussions about $$.
ReplyDeleteTo Ammons credit, when a math prof. asked him (after Ammons first speech to faculty) when class sizes would be reduced, Ammons said he could do nothing about that until enrollment gets built back up.
ReplyDeleteWhen we have higher enrollment again, we get more money to use on things like class size.
Perhaps some day some of that money will go to faculty salaries?
It might be a good idea not to hold your breath till then.
Is there a study which shows the connection between faculty salaries and their productivity --- publications plus good teaching?
ReplyDeleteThe following was taken from the Democrat's section where readers can ask TK Wetherall questions:
ReplyDeleteCheck this out. They are supposed to be so perfect and drama free.
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FSU aspires to become an AAU member. Now that we have a medical school and engineering college, we have some great opportunities. However, in his report on FSU's strategy Nils Hasselmo, the recent president of the AAU, indicated that changes will be necessary to a) the mission of the medical school (which is not linked to scientific and or other externally funded research) and b) the management and operation of the college of engineering (which limits its performance on research funding and in national rankings). He seemed to be saying that neither college, under the present institutional scenario, is bringing in significant grant dollars. No AAU member lacks a top 100 , heavily-grant-intensive, medical school or engineering college; most have both.
The following was taken from the Democrat's section where readers can ask TK Wetherall questions:
ReplyDeleteCheck this out. They are supposed to be so perfect and drama free.
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Dr. Wetherell,
1) At one time FSU was rated far higher by the US News. However, over the past decade the ranking of the university has slipped dramatically. What is your administration doing to reverse this trend?
I am a professor that is leaving FAMU because another school (in another state) more than doubled my salary. I am somewhat idealistic, but not THAT idealistic. Go Rattlers! See ya later.
ReplyDeleteTop administrators and executives at FAMU make GREAT money, even compared to other state institutions that have larger enrollments. Yet, other staff members and faculty make the lowest money out of other comparable state institutions. It seems to me the administrators and executives got FAMU into this mess, so maybe we should look at giving good employees and faculty the support (financially and otherwise) that they need. FAMU has, and will always, pay who they feel they want/need to. A budget cut from the state is not going to stop administrators from making excessive salaries, so why not raise the salaries of those under them (the ones that need it the most)?
ReplyDeleteI suggest that Dr. Ammons ask all of those deans making six figure salaries, who might I add were hired by the previous administration a year ago, to re-apply and he will find that very few if any of them deserve the salary that they are receiving, however, they are cutting faculty salaries to that equivalient of a fastfood manager position. Now, it's just not right. All of the deans hired within the 12 months should have to re-apply and Dr. Ammons should talk to the faculty/staff about these newly hired deans, he will definitely find out that his mission and their missions do not match. Where there is no vision the people will perish. Is that what we want?
ReplyDeleteYou would be so surprised to see what those deans are making -- especially the one in SBI.
ReplyDeleteWell, I know what Interim Dean James Douglass was making, and he wasn't worth it. He did not solve the problems the law school has, but by poor personnel choices made the problems worse. SBI and Pharmacy aren't the only parts of the university with accreditation problems. The law school is only provisionally accredited, and is on very shaky ground. What's the plan for finding a competent dean at the law school who can resolve the accreditation issues and give some security to the university on this score?
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