University Times

Distribute pay increase funds more equitably

To the editor:

I would like to comment both on the recent performance bonuses for top administrators reported in the University Times (Nov. 24, 1999) and on the University's percentage-based approach to raising the salaries of its faculty and staff.

I will begin by saying that I'm sure it is true, as we've heard time and again, that Chancellor Nordenberg is "underpaid" (at $265,000 next year) compared to others in his position at large public research institutions. Furthermore, I have no desire to cast judgment on his job performance nor on that of the other administrators awarded bonuses. But what I do want to indicate is the fact that "performance incentive payments" are yet another sign of the corporate identity that the University, through the practices endorsed by its Board of Trustees, seems determined to establish. As many have observed in recent years, research universities across the country are becoming more and more like large corporations (intent on serving "clients" rather than students), and my guess is that the majority of faculty and staff at these universities now perceive the chancellor's or president's role as something analogous to a CEO rather than a community leader (despite the endless administrative rhetoric, not only at Pitt but elsewhere, about the "University community").

While there are many reasons for this perception, part of what contributes to the revised image of university administrators is the way in which (not just the amount that) they are paid, through individually assigned percentage increases and performance-related bonuses that make a mockery of the salaries of many faculty and staff who work equally hard in more anonymous spaces. Surely it has got to hurt to see someone who is already affluent handed a bonus equal to or more than the sum one has earned during an entire year of service to the institution. I also wonder whether such a large amount of what an administrator gets paid during a given year (well over 10 percent in the chancellor's case) should be tied to keeping the Board of Trustees pleased. If the chancellor is deemed "underpaid," wouldn't it be better simply to offer him a more handsome salary and leave it at that? But of course this approach would work against the corporate version of the university, in which top administrators are meant (through "incentives") to be loyal more to their board than to their employees. I don't begrudge Chancellor Nordenberg his hard-earned $35,000 reward so much as I question the effect of individual rewards of this kind (and size) on our collective sense of what it means to be a member of this University.

Which brings me to my second concern: the fact that salary increases for faculty and staff are granted on a percentage basis. It doesn't take a genius at math to recognize that percentage increases mean that the more you have, the more you stand to make. A 3 percent increase for the secretary making $20,000 is quite a bit different from a 3 percent increase for the full professor making $70,000 ($600 for the one versus $2,100 for the other). I happen to think that full professors (and elementary school teachers, too) should be well paid, but I also think it's important to remember that the person making $20,000 probably needs the increase more than the person making $70,000 — and yet the latter takes home a raise over three times that granted the former. Over extended periods of time (10 or 20 years of service), this kind of approach to salary increases makes not only an enormous difference in pay; it also erodes much of the "community" that might be built through more equitable practices.

Why not pool University funds for salary increases during a given year and distribute them more equitably across various ranks? I'm calling for a situation (and I'm not the first to call for it) in which all of us would receive not the same percentage increase but roughly the same amount of increase from one year to the next. I realize that an initial part of the raise might be based on percentage of salary, so that all could keep up with cost-of-living increases; but beyond this minimal precaution, the monies allocated for employee increases would be equally shared rather than distributed in greater portion to those who already have the most.

If there's concern that this approach would fail to reward those whose "performance" is especially strong, a small amount could be set aside, as it is now, for merit increases — though I question, as I've indicated above, the corporate premise that "incentives" are best thought of in monetary terms.

I want to conclude by responding to a question that might occur to those distrustful of my proposal: Would I endorse such a scheme if it meant that my own annual increases as an associate professor would be reduced due to their being pooled with those who currently make less than I do? While such things are always easier said than done, the answer is yes — and you can hold me to this if it ever happens! My reason is simple: If we really wish this University to create communal bonds and to work toward communal ends, then we must be willing to compromise some (though not all) of our individual interests in order to participate in the shared endeavors of a larger group. When the chairperson of the Board of Trustees publicly testifies that "the trustees and the senior administration of the University are going to set the policies and the agenda for the University" (University Times, Sept. 2, 1999) — as if faculty, staff, and students have no role to play in establishing policies and agenda — any sense of shared endeavor or mission is deeply undermined. The same is true of our current system of compensation, which systematically benefits those at the top. I believe that we can do better than this, and I hope that, in the near future, we will.

James Seitz

Associate Professor

Department of English

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Connolly's criticism criticized

To the editor:

This letter is prompted by a letter by Professor Emeritus Myron Taube and a response to his letter by Mr. J. W. Connolly, chairperson of the University's Board of Trustees, both of which appeared in the University Times (p. 3), Dec. 9, l999. I shall not comment at all on the substantive issues raised by these two antagonists, but will confine my remarks to Mr. Connolly's virtually undisguised effort to gag the University Times as is quite evident from the last sentence in the first paragraph of his letter: "Perhaps more surprisingly [than Taube who 'writes in an uncivil tone and from a factually inaccurate foundation'] the University Times, apparently exercising no professional judgment, once again has chosen to provide him [Taube] with a soap box."

Should our respected University newspaper forsake its credibility by exercising judgment not to publish allegedly uncivil and factually inaccurate letters? Would such editorial ingratiation with the administration be acceptable professional judgment?

A letter to the editor is an opinion piece; it need not necessarily be verified by several independent sources as is journalism's policy for news articles. If rigorous standards for accuracy and insipid civility be required for letters and opinion pieces in newspapers, then our Times, The Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette would be blandly bereft of the vitality and the constructive dialogue inherent in editorial letters and op-ed pieces. Now this does not mean that such pieces should be granted unfettered leeway for incivility; but nor, for that matter, did I detect incivility or "dirty words" in Taube's admittedly strong attack on what he construes to be University policy and the University culture. Sentiments vigorously espoused and forthrightly expressed do not raise (or lower, for that matter) the bar of incivility.

FDR's "I hate war" speech at Chautauqua in l936, and his "Day that will live in infamy" speech as he addressed the Congress the day after Pearl Harbor, Dec. 8, l94l, were powerful verbal potions, but not uncivil. In the l980s, Ronald Reagan's "Tear down this wall" and his "Evil Empire" blasts were strong, but not uncivil. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech which mesmerized thousands at the Washington mall was vigorous and hard-hitting even in its poetic and graceful style, but not uncivil. Now I'm not saying that Taube is FDR, Reagan or Martin Luther King, only that he is in celebrated company in using strong (but not uncivil) prose, and should be commended for his candor, not belittled for it.

When the chief trustee of the University of Pittsburgh, deservedly respected for many acts of leadership in this role as well as in his former leadership role with H. J. Heinz, asserts that the University Times offered Taube a "soap box," Mr. Connolly is using a code word, "soap box," for labeling something that is far out, off the wall, extreme, reactionary, extremist ideology, political harangues of the type commonly found in London's Hyde Park, a code word that unfairly discredits Taube's entitlement — and obligation — to address issues and policies that are currently being debated within our University community. Taube is not some irresponsibly hotheaded revolutionary on a "soap box" preaching an overthrow of the University governance. He is a professor and is doing what professors do and should do, profess their points of view, their convictions, their expertise in their disciplines and professions. We should applaud Taube, who as an emeritus professor is not earning one nickel from the University, for speaking his mind, and not demean him. In the past, publicly (in a letter published in the Nov. 9, l995 University Times ) as well as in two or three personal letters to Mr. Connolly, I have lionized him for what I thought were praiseworthy efforts and positions, but now I must respectfully, and civilly, I trust, disagree with his effort to throttle dissent. The very last place on God's green earth where dissent should be choked off is in the groves of academe. A university without dissent has lost its soul and its duty to encourage young people, our students, to speak their minds freely and openly, not to mention the place for dissent as guaranteed by the 1st Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

Robert Perloff

Professor Emeritus

Katz Graduate School of Business

rperloff@katz.business.pitt.edu

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Apply nondiscrimination policy across the board, prof urges

To the editor:

The University has launched yet another effort to avoid going to trial over its refusal to provide health-care benefits to partners of gay and lesbian employees. The University position is that not providing such benefits is legal and therefore is not discriminatory.

Until 1920 it was legal in this country to deny women the right to vote. This was legal, but that does not mean it was not discriminatory. I grew up in a place where, when I was a girl in the 1940s and 1950s, it was legal to demand that Negroes be outside city limits after sundown or be arrested. It was legal, but that does not mean it was not discriminatory. About that same time it was legal in most parts of this country to deny a marriage license to a black person and a white person who wished to marry. It was legal, but that does not mean it was not discriminatory.

I find it quite ironic that my daughter could move here with her female partner of 13 years and go to work at the University, but would be denied partner health-care benefits; while my son could get married tomorrow, start to work at the University the next day, and receive partner health-care benefits. Fortunately, my daughter is a doctor at a university-related hospital in New York where she has partner benefits. But I find it distressing that I work for a place that would treat her with such disrespect and discrimination if she ever were to be interested in working here.

To top it off, Pitt has a policy of nondiscrimination — except in the area of same-sex benefits. Isn't it time to use some logic and apply the nondiscrimination policy across the board?

Arlene G. Taylor

Professor

School of Information Sciences

Ken Service, director of the Office of News & Information, replies:

The University provides health insurance benefits to all employees, without regard to sexual orientation, as well as to spouses and dependent children of employees. Pitt does not extend health insurance benefits to unmarried domestic partners, whether they are of the same sex or of the opposite sex. The use of marriage as one of the defining features of our benefits program is both lawful and nondiscriminatory. As evidenced by the recent action of the Vermont Supreme Court, the question of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples is a societal issue that clearly transcends any one local institution. The University continues to believe that advocates seeking such a change should take their case to the state level, as was done in Vermont, rather than singling out the University of Pittsburgh for use as a local battleground to address the much broader social issue.

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Trouble with ADSL service provided by Bell Atlantic

To the editor:

I write you to complain about the Internet connection service being provided by Bell Atlantic. We have an ADSL line which was unusable for many days in December. Our Internet service provider is stargate.net. Their service has been excellent; however, this problem with Bell Atlantic is beyond their control. In fact, when we originally obtained the ADSL service, we were also using BellAtlantic.net as our Internet service provider. However, when their e-mail service was down for three days out of the first week, we switched to stargate.net.

On Friday, Dec. 9, in the morning, our ADSL connection failed. We immediately contacted stargate and were told that we were the fourth ADSL user in the 521 telephone exchange whose service had failed and that they were on the phone with Bell. They told me further that they would call me back within the hour to let me know when the line would be repaired. They did this and told me it was now in Bell's hands and that this type of repair is typically made within three or four hours. By the following day at 9 a.m., 24 hours after the failure, the line was still not working and we were told by stargate that they now had eight customers whose ADSL lines had failed.

I went out and when I returned at noon, our ADSL modem was broken. Although I cannot prove it, I suspect that when Bell went to repair their hardware, they produced some kind of surge in our phone line which damaged the modem.

I use this high-speed Internet connection to assist in providing real-time monitoring services during surgery. This is important to the surgeons who order my service, to the patients whose health and lives I help protect, and to me. I have no doubt that the others who order this service have applications dependent on the speed and dependability of ADSL service which are equally important to them. It is my opinion that Bell Atlantic is not making a good faith effort to provide satisfactory service for their ADSL customers. In fact, they do not even provide a reasonable way of reporting the problem we currently have. Although the waiting time to get through their phone menu to report a technical problem is usually 10 minutes, the waiting time to get through on the customer service line is well over 40 minutes. Furthermore, their customer service has limited hours.

It is noteworthy that stargate, a much smaller company than Bell Atlantic, provides far more responsive and, in my opinion, competent support services. I implore any others who read this complaint who have had similar experiences to take the time to register your complaints as well and/or send me your e-mail address sothat we may draft a more general complaint letter and circulate it for all your signatures.

Don Krieger

Associate Professor

Neurosurgery

e-mail: don@neuronet.pitt.edu

(Editor's note: Neither Pitt nor UPMC has any involvement in providing the Bell Atlantic service in question.)