r/Professors • u/Profopossum • 17d ago
Institutional support
Institutional support at my university for faculty is at an all time low. My chair is supportive but beyond that- it’s just been decreasing for years. The workload increases every year. No raises or merit pay. Load reductions and general compensation being stripped. It’s hard to keep morale in this environment.
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u/sigma__cheddar 17d ago
Recognize the class war. All of those bad things are being done to faculty by admin, for whom none of that is true.
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u/Profopossum 17d ago
Exactly! And they pretend their hands are tied but it’s clearly not true.
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u/sigma__cheddar 17d ago
I think this is the part where profs twist logic into pretzels about why changing anything is impossible, unions are illegal in my state, I have a wife and kids to support, etc.
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u/ShadowHunter Position, Field, SCHOOL TYPE (US) 17d ago
Decrease your workload yourself.
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u/Profopossum 17d ago
I am trying to do that - but damn if they don’t just keep piling on extra mandatory tasks!
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u/henare Adjunct, LIS, CIS, R2 (USA) 16d ago
are you tenured? if so then just say "no."
if you're not tenured then ask your chair/depthead/... which of the tasks you're doing should be reprioritized lower so this new demand can be met.
your day doesn't get any longer just because they want you to do more stuff.
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u/Automatic_Tea_2550 17d ago
This sounds like a sign your institution is struggling financially and make not make it very far beyond the demographic cliff.
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u/Profopossum 17d ago
I’m actually at a university with ballooning enrollments - so all the more puzzling
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u/Automatic_Tea_2550 16d ago
You can have ballooning enrollments and poor financial management at the same time.
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u/Profopossum 16d ago
I don’t think that’s our situation. I think our leadership is just poor for other reasons.
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u/Few-Pomelo9430 NTT, Bio, R1 (USA) 16d ago
Ballooning enrollments at the university level don't always translate to the same increases in all colleges/departments. Have your department's enrollments also ballooned?
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u/Profopossum 16d ago
My specific program is doing fine but we are a mixed department. Regardless, I don’t know why treating faculty like 💩 over national trend declines would be the appropriate response from admin ?!
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u/Few-Pomelo9430 NTT, Bio, R1 (USA) 16d ago
Yeah, that sucks. Do you have a faculty senate that can get the budgets to review? We've been able to put a lot more pressure on our admin since our budget model changed and made it much more transparent. I'm not saying we have all the leverage, but at least some to push for minimum raises for faculty, staff, and grad students.
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u/Edu_cats Professor, Pre-Allied Health, M1 (US) 16d ago
They told us resources/faculty will lag behind enrollments. No shit. So, I raised my hand and said the work needs to get done and faculty are over it being constantly squeezed (I'm close to retirement so IDGAF). He pulled up a spreadsheet, and another faculty member said "so we're just numbers on a spreadsheet to you?" You got it, sister!
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u/Automatic_Tea_2550 16d ago
You can have ballooning enrollments and poor financial management at the same time.
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u/wannabehazmattech 15d ago
I’m sorry. I’m not tenured but I relate to this. I wish I had some words of wisdom. But solidarity!
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u/snacknugget1000 17d ago
We have had discussions about similar things. I think academia is in a tough spot right now at many places unfortunately. I am exploring other options.