THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 10, 1995 TAG: 9507070559
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
A recent Old Dominion University study of departing professors in effect compares apples with nothing. The study says 25 of the school's some 600 professors either left ODU last summer or will leave this summer for more lucrative jobs, but it doesn't give the comparable number for previous years.
The number 25, by itself, is no cause for alarm, but the main reason ODU professors are leaving is. In the wake of budget cuts and infinitesimal pay raises, the professors were discouraged. Elsewhere, the future seemed brighter. Here, the past outshone the present.
Also alarming are the sizes of the raises many of the departing professors will receive. Staff writer Philip Walzer reported that at least 10 of the professors got raises exceeding $10,000 a year. And it is disturbing that many of those departing are top-notch - just the kind a university attempts to attract and retain.
These are hardly university hoppers. Mary Ann Tetreault, a professor and former chairwoman of political science, had been at Old Dominion since 1979. When she left for Iowa State University last summer, her salary leaped from $49,000 to $60,000. Gregory Frazer, who quit last summer as chairman of ODU's School of Community Health Professions and Physical Therapy, had been here since 1986. His salary soared from $44,700 to $69,000 when he took a job at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, though he'll work a full year, rather than nine months.
The professors wouldn't be human if they weren't at least somewhat discouraged. Since 1990, Virginia has given average faculty raises ranging from zero to 3.6 percent.
Gregory M. Noronha, an ODU assistant professor of finance, is moving to Arizona State University West, where he'll receive $70,000 - $11,500 more than before. But he said, ``It's not completely the higher salary that motivated my leaving. We have this high degree of uncertainty. All these continuing budget cuts. . . .''
The difference between working for an organization that's improving and one pinching pennies is the difference between professional happiness and an envious eye on the road.
All Virginia public colleges have felt budget squeezes. At Virginia Tech, J. Greg Ferry, a microbiologist leaving for Penn State University, said he sought to escape the sour morale spawned by budget cuts. ``You go to the hall and want to talk about your latest research or your newest graduate student, but you start griping and you complain. There's just constant complaining.''
While Tech is merging departments and offering buyouts to more than 100 professors, Penn State is expanding.
Little things like copy machines out of paper or out of order, or shortages of cabinets or even chairs, play on people's minds, distract them from teaching and research, cause eyes to scan professors-wanted ads.
The governor and the legislature should bear in mind that making a good school bad is 10 times easier than making a bad school good. Better to keep a good school good. Virginia's state colleges won't close if they're starved further, but they'll slip behind schools that once were their inferiors. Eventually, the entire state will suffer for it. by CNB