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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1964
Faculty Pay: Realism or Inadequacy
Yesterday, the Senate Ways and Means Committee of the Kansas Legislature approved an across-the-board compromise pay increase of 6.5 per cent for university and college faculties. This was an important but inadequate step toward establishing more realistic pay levels for the dedicated men and women whose job it is to provide the best in higher education for the young people of Kansas.
The reasons for the proposal's inadequacy are numerous, though not readily apparent to the average taxpayer or student.
KU and other institutions of higher learning in Kansas are in constant competition for teachers with the approximately 2,000 other universities, colleges and junior colleges in the United States. In the Big-8, Colorado, Nebraska and Missouri have higher pay scales than KU. Salaries in Big-10 schools average about $2,000 a year more than those paid here. And, to use Harvard as an example of a pace-setter in the field, salaries average 77 per cent higher than at KU. We're obviously not at the bottom of the spectrum but we are a long, long way from the top.
The AAUP also assigns a letter grade to the nation's universities and colleges showing their relative positions on the pay list. Schools such as Harvard are rated "AA", those in the Big-10 generally are "A", KU's Assistant Professors and Instructors are in the "B" classification, while our Associate Professors and Professors languish in the "C" range.
The latest annual salary survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors shows that average college faculty salaries in the nation have increased over the last several years at an annual rate of about 6.5 per cent, the same rate proposed in Kansas now. Although Kansas has increased its faculty salary allowances in each of the last ten years, the usual rate has been about five per cent, was as high as 10 per cent in 1957, but has been only four per cent the last two years. The cumulative effect is that Kansas continues to slip further and further behind the other schools.
To boost our more experienced teachers only to the "B" rank would require a one-year salary increase of 17 per cent, followed by regular annual increases consistent with the national average.
The Board of Regents felt it would take only a normal increase to maintain our present competitive edge in the lower ranks of Assistant Professors and Instructors, but thought it unwise to ask for the expensive jump necessary in the upper ranks. What they decided upon, instead, was to try and close the gap on those schools running only slightly ahead of us. The Regents agreed that a 12 per cent increase for Associate Professors and Professors was reasonable, but wound up asking only for a general increase of 7.5 per
cent. Governor John Anderson dropped that still lower by recommending a boost of only five per cent. Now the Senate Ways and Means Committee has restored enough of the cut to reduce by one-half the gap between our present "C" grade position and the more desirable "B" ranking. Part of the difference would be made up by transferring a portion of the Assistant Professor's and Instructor's increase over to the higher faculty level.
There have been rumors that the present Committee recommendation may be slashed when it reaches the floor of the House later this week. Such action might sound quite sensible to the economy-minded constituents back home this election year and possibly someone could be re-elected on the basis of it, but the resultant effect on Kansas higher education could be disastrous.
Of course, high wages are not the only attraction a university can extend to prospective faculty members. KU can proudly offer a fine retirement program, a tradition of academic freedom, a challengingly intelligent student body, opportunities for research, and so on; but the biggest incentive is still money. Better wages mean better teachers. Better faculties make better schools. Better schools attract modern industries. Industries increase tax revenue, boost the state's economy and reduce the load on the average taxpayer. In the long-run, more money becomes available for more purposes throughout the state.
The supply of teachers with doctorate degrees has fallen far behind the demand, thereby increasing competitive bidding among the various schools. Approximately 40 per cent of today's college teachers have a doctorate; at KU the percentage is nearly 60 per cent, but unless we are able to provide reasonable incomes for our teaching staff that fortunate differential may disappear.
In his budget message in mid-January, Governor Anderson noted that higher education is playing a greater role in Kansas because the number of students in the state is increasing, the percentage of high school graduates seeking a college education is increasing, and the number of college graduates continuing in post-graduate work is increasing. It should be added that the demand for top teaching personnel is also increasing rapidly and the salaries required to lure them are also climbing.
The Committee-recommended increase is a step in the right direction, but the Legislature will have to face the fact that higher education in Kansas will slip further behind without realistic financial support for KU's greatest asset—its superb faculty.
— Larry Schmidt
(Editor's Note: Late yesterday, the Kansas Senate reduced the proposed pay increase for college and university faculties to six per cent.)
Dailüj Hāhsan
University of Kansas student newspaper 111 Flint Hall
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Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Mike Miller Managing Editor
Russ Corbitt, Jackie Helstrom, Willis Henson, Kay Jarvis and Roy Miller, Assistant Managing Editors; Fred Frailey, City Editor; Leta Cathecart, Society Editor; Marshall Caskey, Sports Editor; Charles Corporation, Picture Editor.
Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
**Tom Coffman** Editorial Editor
**Vinay Kothari and Margaret Hughes** Assistant Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bob Brooks Business Manager
Joanne Zabornik, Advertising Mgr.; Mike Barnes, National Advertising Mgr.; Walt Webb, Circulation Mgr.; Bob Phinney, Classified Advertising Mgr.; Ken Costich, Promotion Mgr.; Dana Stewart, Merchandising Mgr.
(Editor note: Beginning with this issue the "from the morgue" column will be a regular feature of the Kansan editorial panel in the semester. It is written by penal Kothari,
from the morgue
The English proficiency examination, first given on Saturday, May 14, 1938, was made a requirement for all students graduating after 1940.
This composition test was suggested for graduating students, since some were incapable of composing a well-organized, intelligent piece of writing. It was hoped that the test would serve as an incentive to students to continue writing after they had passed their freshman and sophomore rhetoric courses.
Under that new ruling of 1938, all the graduating students had to pass the test before enrolling for any part of their last 30 hours of course work.
©1964 HERBLOCK
THE WASHINGTON POST
"I Surrender, Dear"
Movie Spectaculars Lack Aesthetic Value
It has become increasingly evident that the contemporary "Hollywood" film is suffering from a state of elephantiasis, accompanied by an equally severe aesthetic and artistic atrophy. Faced with decreasing box-office returns as television increased in popularity, the Hollywood film-moguls tried to come up with film fare that would draw people away from their sets.
Since television was small, movies would have to be big. More and more money began to be spent on Size and Quantity: if it were bigger maybe people would think it was better. Wide-screen processes were developed and increased in size until the proportions of cinerama were reached. Stories of an epic nature drew the increased attention of the big studios and producers. Money was eagerly spent on films like "Ben-Hur," "Barabbas," "King of Kings," "Spartacus," ad nauseam.
One would have hoped that we had reached the culmination of this trend with the release of "Cleopatra," which was supposed to be more expensive, more impressive, and more lavish than any picture ever made. But, alas, producer Samuel Bronston promises that "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (from the Gibbon work, no less) will be even more lavish than "Cleopatra."
There seems, unfortunately, every likelihood that this trend toward more sensational and more (superficially) impressive films will continue at least as long as people are willing to pay to see them. And the millions that are spent on publicity each year virtually assure that they will.
More recently there has been an increasing diversity on the subject matter of spectaculars. Though historical material remains the favorite, the story need not take place in ancient times. Thus two of the latest film epics, "The Cardinal" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, World" have a modern setting.
But they fail for the same reasons that their inflated predecessors did. The film-makers have substituted purely commercial values for aesthetic values, magnitude of production for artistic ability and taste.
"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World" (now playing in Kansas City), though filmed in cinemara and technicolor at a cost of nine or ten million dollars, has little to show for the prodigious effort that went into its making. It is a prime example of too much money poorly spent. What was needed was not an all-star cast, the widest possible screen and three hours of film, but a better script, more sensitive direction and a shorter film capably edited.
Otto Preminger's "The Cardinal" is a better film, but is still not worth the epic treatment it received. Preminger has also spent a considerable amount of money on his film: much advance publicity, an outstanding photographer to film a star cast in color on location in Vienna, Rome, and the United States.
But his script, though certainly conducive to grandiose presentation, has rather banal dialogue and is full of pat little messages. His central character is played by Tom Tryon, who is simply not able to sustain one's concern for three hours.
While one would not expect a film receiving the typical spectacular treatment to be on the same level as, for instance, a Bergman film, it is regrettable that Hollywood continues to pour seemingly unlimited funds into films which lack good scripts and often good direction and which end up hardly distinguishable from their gaudy predecessors.
— Byron Leonard
Don Sp
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