Editorial: Faculty need better pay

In decrepit and crowded classrooms, our professors and instructors work daily as underpaid devotees to teaching.

Students should be outraged that our teachers and mentors are being paid meager salaries compared to their peers in the field. Students must respond. Demand that the Portland State administration give our faculty salary increases that exceed the cost of living to make up for years they’ve unjustly spent as the paupers of this university. Team up together. Hold peaceful protests in the Park Blocks, in Smith and in places where administrators can see you. Stand outside of bargaining meetings and tell the bargaining team what you think.

Do whatever you can to let the administration know that your teachers and mentors are important.

Faculty members at Portland State are paid thousands of dollars less than their counterparts at University of Oregon and Oregon State University. With a larger student body and a higher cost of living in Portland, this simply does not make sense.

These individuals’ wages are often lower than those of managers at coffee shops and grocery stores. True–it’s not how much you’re paid that matters, but instead how much you care about your work. But how can we demand that these people teach us the intricacies of biology or the nuances of language if their pay is so low?

Taking other schools across the country into account, the situation becomes more disheartening. Salaries at comparable schools are anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 more.

The university administration must take into account the amount of work these people put in to give PSU students a quality education. Most faculty members work on multiple committees and teach classes. Those working toward tenure must spend personal and private time on university-required research and grants (and PSU takes a cut of every professor’s grant). Meanwhile, many faculty members are trying to support families and pay off lingering student loans.

The last thing these selfless individuals–many of whom hold doctorates in their fields from the nation’s most prestigious universities–should have to worry about is if they’ll be able to afford rent.

Faculty can no longer be underpaid. The university must implement a quality-based step system that will set up faculty for raises. Currently, faculty have only two options for raises: either be promoted to a higher position, such as to an associate professor or to full-professorship, or go through the arduous bargaining process that is happening right now.

How can students expect a quality education if those teaching us are not paid standard and livable wages? Students should be outraged.

Of course it is true that everyone at this university, including upper administration, is underpaid. Everyone at PSU will tell you that this university is made up of underdogs who care so much about PSU’s success that they often sacrifice better paying jobs to help students succeed.

However, there is a blatant disparity between an underpaid administrator making $120,000 and an associate professor who has been working at the university for nearly a decade making $50,000. There is no comparison. Our teachers are the heart of PSU.

And now, after at least 30 people who work in the PSU administration received raises between 5 and 25 percent, PSU’s faculty deserves a raise of equal value.

The administration says that it plans to hire new faculty to help alleviate the burdensome workload of our current faculty. Administrators are trying to raise faculty salaries at the same time, but are only using PSU’s portion of a minute $10 million fund to do so.

That is not enough. If an equal raise does not happen, it will demoralize these tired, worn teachers who are asking for little more than a reasonable wage.