Just to be clear–The public perception, fed by the news media, that University of Hawaii faculty refuse to take a pay cut despite the state’s fiscal problems, is incorrect.

The 5% pay cut is part of the counter-offer put forward by the UH Professional Assembly, the faculty union, in contract negotiations which picked up again this week with the assistance of a federal mediator.

With that said, there was a modest proposal floated last week for dealing with the forced evacuation of Gartley Hall, which had been the home of the Psychology Department.

The proposal was made by criminologist and Women’s Studies professor Meda Chesney-Lind (who, by way of full disclosure, is also married to yours truly).

She wrote:

The Psychology Department, our largest major in the social sciences (and one of the largest majors on campus), has been scattered around the campus, with many faculty camping out in the offices of those on sabbatical. That’s because their historic building. Gartley, was literally allowed to fall apart; you can go pull pieces of the walls off in your hands. There’s actually one lab that is currently in a van (and we are not the University of Oklahoma where we need labs in vans to study tornados). There has even been discussion of moving the department to Wailupe School, which was closed by the Department of Education. Another proposal has been to move them to an area around the old Varsity Theatre.

Psychology Departments by their very nature require close proximity to the student body, since they run clinical programs, and often use students in their research projects. These proposals would doom an outstanding program on our campus.

I have a suggestion. Let’s put the Psychology Department in Bachman and send the UH system office to Wailupe. They have no students, and they have a huge budget. They could also go downtown, since they believe they are such good business people. And because the system pays its many workers very well, so they could afford the parking.

Meda Chesney-Lind, with apologies to Jonathan Swift

This brought a reply from another senior member of the Manoa faculty.

Actually, although Swift’s proposal was an outrageous satire, yours make good sense–particularly the second one. I don’t think Wailupe School is physically ready to handle the UH administration, although I may be wrong on that, but I’ll bet there’s plenty of open office space in Honolulu. Some years back, when the Legislature had to move out of the state capitol they took over a building down the street. I’m sure there’s space for the administration somewhere, perhaps with financial help from downtown power brokers and/or the state. And, frankly, I’m sure they’d be happier there, where they wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally bumping into a faculty member or a student or two.

The main thing is that the Psychology Department is, as you say, one of the largest majors on campus. It also has one of the largest overall SSH, and is fiscally among the healthiest, bringing in the second-highest amount of tuition revenue at UHM. It is outrageous for the administration not to be pulling out all the stops to find them genuinely decent quarters–especially since the collapse of Gartley Hall is as much the fault of long-time administrative neglect as it is of Legislative non-funding.

One key point is unstated here. Teaching faculty all produce revenue, primarily in the form of tuition, and also, in many cases, in the form of outside funding, grants, etc. This means that focusing budget cuts on faculty, academic programs, and classes, the people who produce the university’s revenue are sacrificed to save non-revenue producing layers of administration.

And that brings me to another small proposal. Let’s bring the executive-managerial salary schedule in the university system back in line with the salaries of faculty. Somehow granting the university legal “autonomy” has emboldened administrators to stack their own salaries far beyond what seems appropriate.

And could UH managerial salaries be brought more in line with management of other state departments?

Just a few comparables get the point across.

The salaries from other state departments and the Judiciary are taken from the recommendations of the 2007 Commission on Salaries, but are lower today due to a two-year moratorium on raises passed by the legislature, and further “voluntary” reductions taken by Lingle administration officials. On the other hand, the university salaries are taken from the report to the Board of Regents earlier this year and already reflect “voluntary” reductions. This means the gap is larger than appears in these figures.

Chief Justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court:
$164,976*
State Attorney General
$120,444*
Deputy Attorney General
$99,792 – $105,528*

UH General Counsel
$218,784**
UH Associate General Counsel
$115,344**
UH Associate VP for Legal Affairs
$141,528**

Director, State Dept. of Human Resource Development
$108,960*
University of Hawaii Director of Human Resources
$148,392**
University of Hawaii Director of Academic Personnel Administration
$147,648**

Director, State Department of Accounting & General Services
$114,708*
UH Associate VP for Capital Improvements
$210,384**
UH Manoa Vice-Chancellor for Administration, Finance and Operations
$207,600**

*Before 5% salary reduction imposed by HB 1536 (2009)

**Current salary after temporary “voluntary” reduction