Law Professors, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Money

Law Professor Outraged By Plan To Use His Raise To Fund Jobs For Unemployed Graduates

This law professor is ENRAGED at the thought of not getting his raise.

By  
on

OREGON LAW — PROFESSOR ROBERT C. ILLIG — EMAIL TO LAW FACULTY

Folks,

I’m sorry, but I just can’t stop thinking about what I’ve just heard. I am truly in shock. Who is paying attention at this law school to our culture?

No wonder the students and faculty are disillusioned and our ranking is plummeting.

As I learn more of the details of Friday’s proposal, I am even more perplexed by its logic and frightened by its poison.

Is this some kind of faculty version of white-man’s guilt? We see students without jobs and think that if we throw them a few of our dollars we can go back to our scholarship and not worry about whether they are getting real careers and real training? We can study the 17th Century and believe we are preparing them for the 21st?

What we owe them is our time and effort and skill, not our paltry raises (which, by the way, don’t even cover the increase in the cost of living).

Sponsored

And why stop at our raises? Why didn’t the proposal include the summer stipends that a shrinking minority of the faculty received? Why not donate those to the students as well?

We each face different financial pressures. And we each make all sorts of charitable and other contributions, in both money and kind. Should we put them all on the table? Do I get to keep more of my raise because last year I gave more to the United Way than any other dean or faculty member, even though I am by no means the highest paid? Or because I gave up the most salary when I joined the academy? Or because my wife is chair of the city’s budget committee and personally pushed through a multi-million dollar bond measure to rebuild a number of 4J’s aging schools?

And what about faculty with no children or elderly parents to care for? Should they give more? Or faculty who purchased their houses when prices were low instead of high? I have only one daughter whose college I must pay for, but [names deleted] have more. Should I be asked to donate more to the student fellowships since my expenses will presumably be lower? What if my daughter goes to a lower priced state school instead of a private college? Should that make a difference?

And am I to blame for the bad economy? Are my efforts so lacking as to make the difference between students with jobs and without? Is my teaching and mentoring so deficient as to merit what is essentially a pay cut, given that Johnson Hall has already approved the monies?

These are questions we just shouldn’t be asking. That’s why faculty don’t set each other’s salaries. It is nothing but poison to start digging into what is fair in terms of needs.

Sponsored

We are the most underpaid unit on campus, according to Johnson Hall figures. Is it possible that our third-tier status is actually related to the fact that our incomes are falling as compared to the cost of living? As compared to our competitors? Is it possible that when you pay more you get more?

And what are the sponsors of the proposal doing to raise law school income? My Summer Sports Institute – which the faculty voted wasn’t a priority – is already projected to bring profit into the law school, not to mention a reputational boost. I’ve got faculty from top 50 schools, plus students from places like Michigan and McGill. Our reputation has spread as far as South Africa and Turkey, with interested students there trying to raise the funds to come to Eugene. The students are also close to 50% minorities. And, again, it’s going to be profitable in its very first year.

Telling me (or anyone else in this law school, whether they are faculty or staff) that I (or they) don’t deserve a raise approved by Johnson Hall is simply insulting. And going down that path starts to put us in the place of K-12 educators, where well-meaning teachers would like to do more but aren’t being rewarded to do more. It puts the teachers against the students. And without an occasional raise, where do you think I’m going to be incentivized to put my efforts?

The culprit here isn’t us. So let’s stop turning our anger and our efforts on each other.

If you want to lead, lead my example, not by fiat. And certainly not by ambush.

We had a once-great culture that I was proud to join. But it isn’t standing up to the test of the economic uncertainty. We need to work together and be proud of one another’s many varied achievements. And we need to help the students with our real, individual efforts, not with symbolic gestures that undercut our trust in one another.

This is not the Oregon I knew.

Robert C. Illig

Dean’s Distinguished Faculty Fellow
Director, Oregon Law Summer Sports Institute

William W. Knight Law Center
1221 University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon 97403

UO law school prof angry about plan to use his raise for student fellowships [UO Matters]

« Previous 1 2 3

Topics

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,