Students are customers, and as such, they have every right to receive royal treatmement that goes all the way to assigning a value to each of their lecturers.
The logic is simple: If a professor is worth plus something, then keep them. If a professor is worth minus something, then fire them. And the savings can be used for increasing the other professors' salary.
So what's gonna happen? There will be a university with no languages, no history, no biology, no mathematcs, none of these subjects which generate negative profit. The university will comprise of Business, Marketing, Media--whatever it generates immediate profit.
Performance metrics they say, and they mean it in Texas. Texas wants it BIG. No small potatoes, but big bucks.
The article above mentions, in particular, Chester Dunning, a history professor, has won several teaching awards. According to a report by the chancellor, he also loses money for the university, though his department is in the black overall.
What is the solution? I propose one, Texas-style: Get in his office and shoot him!
So ridiculous -- it's the same logic that would have a law firm fire all the janitors, IT people and receptionists since on an individual level none of these people bring in any direct profit in terms of billable hours.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is that by going down this path they're missing out on real opportunities to make universities more efficient and accountable (the stats in the article about literacy rates of those with diplomas shows something needs to be done).