higher education in Kentucky

The BBQ Pit
1

I pit the state of Kentucky and its paper-thin commitment to university education.

Bit of background, about 3 years ago there was a big push by the Kentucky government to turn the University of Kentucky into one of the top 20 public research universities in the country. Great goal that could result in a better future for the citizens of Kentucky. (Higher educational levels correlated strongly with earnings). The only problem is that the state keeps on cutting funds from the universities budget. This means that tuition increases (about 15 percent for next year) and budgets/salaries are stripped to the bone!

Meanwhile the new governor spews forth rhetoric about the need to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse at U.K.!! BULLSHIT. They’ve already taken out every other fluorescent bulb in my building and we don’t know if we’ll have enough money to pay for photo-copies next year!! Where is the fucking waste here! There is nothing left to frickin’ cut! :mad:

It just came down today that our salary increase this year will be around 0.45 percent. That’s right less than one percent. Hell, I could make more money by having a yard sale than I will be getting from a salary increase. In 2003 my salary went up 2.1 percent and in 2002 there were no salary increases. That means that my average salary increase over the past three years is less than one percent per year!!

What makes this especially frustrating is that on average faculty make only 85 percent of what faculty at comparable universities do. In my case it is only 75 percent. A friend of mine at the University of Cincinnati who started at the same time as I makes almost 20 percent more as I. Hell, he makes more as an assistant professor there than associate professors with ten years of experience do at U.K.

In addition student enrollments are increasing. Next year I will be teaching about 50 percent more students than I did when I first started!!

So……I’m being asked to do more and receive little in the way of compensation for the additional workload. FUCK! I am so out of here!!! I publish and my publications get cited, I get good teaching evaluations and I do my share on departmental committees. I’m doing exactly what an assistant professor is supposed to do and am an asset to the department and university. I don’t particularly want to leave but looking at my colleagues paints

The frustrating thing (beyond the student salary thing) is that the single most effective way of raising income (of a person or a state) is to obtain higher education. Kentucky is a poor state and could greatly benefit by this. But you know what? You have to spend money to build quality education…this nickel and dime bullshit is just going to result in people leaving as soon as the have another offer. I joined this place when things looked liked they were changing for the better but those days are past….time to move on………

Needless to say, I feel particularly bad for the students who are ones who are really getting screwed by all this….they get to pay higher tuitions, attend bigger classes, get less attention from professors and watch the most capable faculty leave for greener pastures.
But in good news, U.K. can offer Tubby Smith (men’s basketball coach) 2.42 million a year making him the highest paid coach in college basketball. U.K. can also pay Mitch Barnhart (Athletics Director) 500,000 a year. It is nice to know where the priorities at this university are at……….grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…… :mad: :mad:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/college/news/2003/05/30/bkb_coaching_salaries/
http://www.courier-journal.com/cjsports/news2003/07/13/spt-front-ad0713-17883.html

I guess I’ll just take my $200 yearly raise and see if I can buy a ticket to a U.K. men’s basketball game….I wonder if it will be enough

2

It sounds rough, and I sympathize with you, but I can’t help asking- what does the basketball coach have to do with you? He’s not taking any money out of your pocket. Not at UK, anyway. If anything he could be putting a little bit into it.

3

With 200 whole dollars, you could buy … gas or something! Not a LOT of gas, but some.

How long have you been at UK? I went there about a decade ago.

4

JC,

Mostly it is a snarky comment that the University of Kentucky is better known as a sports franchise than a place of higher learning. Burns my cheese…

I’d be as happy if they would split off NCAA football and basketball teams into independent franchises and forgo the “student-athlete” thing. Let them concentrate on b-ball and either go pro or after four years go back to concentrate on their education

The argument is often made that sports teams are useful from a fund-raising standpoint but I’m not entirely convinced. People tend to find what they are looking for. A couple of counter-arguments…

(1) a lot of the money raised here is for sports-related things so doesn’t help the education side of things and

(2) is the fund-raising for sports related items diverting donations from other types of things.

No real proof either way…at least that I know of…

5

Or a lot of ramen noodles. I’ve only been here a few years…no overlap with you…hope you are enjoying Oakland…great place.

6

What? Sports is more lucrative than academics? Fun more popular than work? Glitz bears more weight than substance? Where you been, man? This is not new! A few Pro ball players EACH earn more than the combined salaries of the teachers in many public schools. That’s just life. Your calling has been to share your mind. It’s disappointing to see you’ve bitten the green wriggling worm and have chosen to seek a comfortable living instead.

Of course, I agree that society’s misplaced values, and Kentucky’s in particular, are giving you a right round rogering. Please bitch away. You have my support–I hate sports…well, I kinda dig hockey.

Sounds like you have a pretty full plate already, but do you maybe know anyone with enough passion and conviction to illuminate these issues to the voting public? Politicians tend not to do stuff unless they get various kinds of messages from their constituency. If you happened to know of anyone who could demonstrate a lack of waste at U.K. in a convincing, maybe even publishable manner, and simultaneously show that certain elected officials are not making good on their sensational commitment, that someone might effect a change. Of course, maybe you should jump off the ship & let it sink.

7

I know. Shocking isn’t it! Thanks for the support. The political activist idea is attractive but I ain’t got the energy…plus the current political climate is so anti-tax (i.e., if you want a better university you have to get the money somewhere) that little would happen.

I have been joking around that if we would just double the price of b-ball tickets we would generate enough cash to solve all the economic woes, lower tuition and give everyone one nice fat raises…

…but unless that happens I’m on the job market next year.

8

Beats the hell out of the nothing that I, and most people I know, got as raises.

9

I’m sure you can get some sort of faculty discount.

10

I go to Northern Kentucky University and I must agree with this being a state-wide pitting. We’re seeing a tuition increase pf 16.5% next year, which is likely to drive away many of the non-traditional students who come to NKU seeking a decent and affordable education. I find the whole situation ridiculous and tragic every time I drive across from Cincinnati and see the sign hanging on the bridge.

“Kentucky: Where Education Pays”

Who knew they meant that in the sense of education paying for every other stupid thing Frankfurt decides on. They’re burning my dollars down there “defending the sanctity of marriage” right now and gabbling over whose pork gets added to the budget and making me pay through the nose for the privilege of higher education. I’m a little miffed myself at the situation. Not so much for myself, exactly, because I’ll be able to bear it on student loans, but many of my current classmates are getting seriously desperate about how they’ll pay for next year.

11

I know! That sign drives me nuts and is getting increasingly more ironic with the passage of every year! I would love to see someone paste a “NOT” at the end!

For a brief time U.K. and Kentucky actually seemed like they had their stuff together…

C.A. - Think I can apply the discount to my property taxes?

adam yax - Sorry to hear about things for you but it is always relative…compared to other universities (particularly in the context of several years, these increase are paltry. Doesn’t help you tho’

12

Anyone remember the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA)?

The idea was that if you make the little darlings write in middle school and high school, they’ll suddenly become smarter. No longer did you simply have to do a math problem: oh, no. You had to write an essay about how you solved the friggin’ math problem. And for extra fun, they’d do these end-of-the-year tests and put you with a group of your classmates and you got to solve some stupid math or science problem TOGETHER and write about it. Oh joy!

Senior year you had to have a portfolio showcasing your best work, and a bunch of teachers would gather 'round and rate it. Did this have any bearing on whether or not you graduated? No. Did having a “Superior” rating on your portfolio get you, say, some scholarship money? No.

I knew KERA was bad news when my 9th grade pre-algebra teacher said something bad about it one day. It wasn’t a really bad comment, just along the lines of how KERA was a pain in the ass (all those rules and stuff). The next day she made this big speech and apologized and yada yada KERA just needs to be given a chance, etc. Turns out she damn near lost her job because of what she’d said. WTF?

13

Heh.

UK student here.

It’s insane that they’ve raised tuition almost 50% since my first semester, and yet they can’t afford to pay for copies for grad assistants or let us keep the golf pencils they pass out for evaluations.

Then again, the problems at UK extend far beyond the budget. There’s the corrupt and morally bankrupt Student Government, the highway robbery perpetrated on a daily basis by Campus Cuisine, the substandard facilities (North Campus dorms, most of the computer labs not in King or Young Libraries, Funkhouser basement classrooms, Student Center needing renovation) and inadequate profs (no offense, but I’ve had two or three that couldn’t teach an infant to shit in a diaper.)

And let’s not forget how we need a new practice facility behind Memorial Coliseum in one of the most heavily used lots not halfway across town (like Commonwealth.) I realize that UKAA is self-supporting, but for Christ’s sake, what’s wrong with Memorial and Rupp? They don’t even use their Rupp practice dates.

And someone should tell SG that no one really gives two shits if SAB is elected or appointed. It’s all about SG wanting to control the money anyway. If they’d just admit it, we could move on. SG needs to be shut down, I think, unless they can get their shit together.

14

Well, KERA, as bad as it is (and it’s BAD) is still better than the pre-KERA schools. Before KERA, kids were graduating that couldn’t read. Now they can read, they just hate it. And of course portfolios are a bad idea. I don’t know of anyone that really thinks they’re good, especially when 40% of English classtime is devoted to them, and the remaining 60% is for talking about them.

KIRIS, CATS, whatever they want to call the tests, they’re useless. The successful schools teach to the test since they haven’t really changed in years, and the “unsuccessful” schools teach concepts and practices rather than memorizing to get extra funding for the school through test scores.

15

I know…I always feel like an idiot asking for those things (pencils) back but there is no money…

Yeah I know it goes well beyond my salary but there is a common solution…more money. It ain’t rocket science, when a university is short of money it will cut back in all areas…more money won’t solve the problem of bad professors (an teaching) tho’…a lot of that is tied up with how professors are evaluated. Only 45 percent of my job description is for teaching the rest is tied to research and service and in the end, publications are the things that really matter.

Well…I guess they don’t have to cut back on everything… :rolleyes:

Not really my area of interest but it does seem fairly silly given the larger issues on campus

16

Ah, my beloved alma mater, where I spent eight of the last ten years.

I really felt like UK was entering a golden age as of a few years ago. The new library brought a focus to a campus that desparately lacked one. The Student Activities Board finally got off its ass and started planning events that students wanted to attend. (I was Indoor Activities chair during a very bad year.) Lee Todd had the potential to be everything that Charles Wethington never was as a president. Patton’s commitment to make UK into a top 20 institution (along the lines of Michigan, UNC-CH, etc.) seemed to be driving some genuine enthusiasm for making things better.

I didn’t want to hear that it was all going to hell. The tuition increases are probably inevitable–UK has always been a bargain as far as college goes, given the quality available for the dollar. But railing against the “fraud, waste, and abuse” is just a nice way to justify funding cuts to people who think that a philosophy department is “waste and abuse”. It is also a clear signal that Fletcher (a fellow UK College of Medicine grad–for shame!) is not going to carry on the vision that Patton tried to create for the university.

I don’t know where Lee Todd stands in all of this. He really impressed me in my time there, which was a few years ago. Is he part of the problem, or are his hands tied?

And a practice facility behind the Coliseum? Yeah, that’s fucking exactly what North Campus needs–fewer places to park. (A fun fact–I was the live-in manager at the Gaines Center for the Humanities, just on the other side of that parking lot, for a year.)

Dr. J

17

Todd’s useless. He’s not a leader, he’s just there to take pictures and shake hands.

Patton’s “vision” for UK didn’t include the money to actually pull it off. Then, once Fletcher cuts funding (and tries to take donated money away to fund other state programs,) you get the trainwreck that is UK now. Especially when we’re building 4 new dorms, tearing the hell out of Central Campus to redo the Admin Building AGAIN (since the last restoration attempt ended with everything having to be torn out) and building two new buildings on South Campus.

And don’t get me started on parking. Half of the lot next to Memorial is covered with construction trailers for the dorms they’re building on what used to be the basketball courts in front of the Student Center.

18

Yet another UK student.

I don’t have much furor or information to add - I was a philosophy student, but I’ve gotten out of that and into something that I hope will be more lucrative - but I do want to say two things:

The parking situation is unfortunate, but what would you have them do? Seriously. Enrollment is increasing and there’s just not much space to go around. Bus fare is already free, and that’s how I get around. Lextran sucks but that’s not UK’s fault.

As DoctorJ said, tuition has been a huge bargain for many, many years. When I started it was $2000 a year - way below benchmarks. I don’t like more than anybody having to pay more, but I can’t summon too much anger over what’s essentially nowhere near a ripoff.

(And nobody say nothin’ about the computer labs being supbar. Then it gets personal.)

19

I had the same feeling when I joined faculty…Todd did seem to bring the promise for a new future. My impression is that in a very real sense his hands are tied…when the state cuts funding there really isn’t too much you can do. Sure I can critique some of his steps but the bottom line is that without sustained funding the best ideas will just wither on the vine.

In short, if you want a top class institution you have to spend money. Sure, it is easy to waste money but you simply can’t have good programs without it. One simple case in point…6 to 8 faculty from the English department have moved on to other places this year…literally tearing a whole in the program…Lots of reasons why people left but when you can increase your salary by 20K to 40K simply by moving (and when UK is in no position to counteroffer any where close to that) you get what we are seeing…

kyprof

20

No comment on parking…I bike or walk.

Yes, the tuition is low but it still sucks to be a student at UK. Basically the burden to pay shifts to students and god knows there are enough students hanging on by their fingernails as it is…