Introductions

President: We have a new website. Current posts summarize past election, exec committee positions. Judy Vogt is corresponding secretary, Matt Zucker is recording secretary. Anybody can claim a VP-ship for raising an issue and putting it on the agenda. Carr is treasurer by default because no clue how money works. Need to appoint a “cupbearer” to have someone to help Marj out of the car with refreshments. We have 3 things for today’s agenda. The first is salary issue. This is the most prominent issue. Everyone was very confused by the reporting about this. We decided to push COFP to put it on agenda, Tom had the report, and he and Cheryl put together a nice show at a faculty meeting. Good explanation & helpful. AAUP works to push & promote in certain areas, clearly there were areas that hadn’t been addressed. Handed out the graph showing gender gap in pay at Swarthmore. Will hear from Prof. A on this issue. Mark Kuperberg is chair of the ad-hoc committee. I don’t know what an ad-hoc committee is — we should discuss that too.

Discussion on Salaries

Prof. A: I will give some history, Prof. C will summarize discussion from this morning. In May I asked Prof. B to explain things that had gone on in committee, esp. whether they had investigated gender disparities. People are having raises mortgaged. Are women taking 2 hits, rather than one? Prof. B was interested, in August, updated me and said we don’t know what experience individuals had coming into job at start, so can’t make comparison between individuals. There must be something we can study. We know for some individuals what their experience is. Can talk with Tom or committee, with AAUP backing to study this more. Now we will hear more from Prof. C. (Editor’s note: for more information on the Salary Committee Report please see the Faculty minutes for September 30, 2016).

Prof. C: To add to what you said, it seems that it’s a good idea to bring in AAUP rather than having us individually negotiate with provost. Talk about 2 things: 1) what are factors that explain disparities? Between departments? Different years? Different economic situations? Abilities/inclinations to negotiate (correlated with gender). Plain gender-based discrimintation. Good to sort out what factors in play. 2) Concerning future policy: can make sure to check — whenever offer being made — on offers over last 3 years, to see what gender distribution of offers are to make sure that we don’t let gender play a role in the making of offers of salaries. No matter how much we find out in addition to basic stats/averages, we need to have some procedure that someone will check on recent offers to other poelple in other positions to make sure as little gender discrimination as possible. Analysis *and* policy both. Meetings between AAUP and provost. What does the group think? What do members of ad-hoc committee already know, and what can they reveal?

Prof. D: I’m not on this year, but was on for 4 years. From analysis side, missing data is seniority. If faculty are senior who are predominantly men, will drive up salary. In 2011, showed that there were not significant differences controlling for seniority.

 

Prof. E: Is that data available?

Prof. D: No, because it’s disaggregated.

Q: Why is this a concern? Prof. D: If the 3 oldest faculty are men, it will throw off numbers.

Prof. F: There was a study, before my time on committee.

Prof. D: Yes, in 2011 showed that controlling for seniority, no significant difference. Also had lots of discussions last year about how provost sets starting salaries. He reports little leeway in how starting salaries get set. Having a policy on originally setting salaries would be great.

Prof. G: He told me when people come in, they have 3 years at Bryn Mawr, that they never come up to the level of people with similar experience here. Basically, external experience is undervalued relative to Swarthmore. I think they should come in at the same amount. Teaching at Bryn Mawr vs teaching here.

Prof. F: There’s no report from the 2011 study?

Prof. D: There is a document.

Prof. F: 2 sentences in the 2011 report. My understanding is, Provost tries to get someone as cheap as possible. Bryn Mawr pays less than us. If your current salary is low, is going to get you as cheap as you and your department will tolerate. Independent of gender.

Prof. H: Do we know that that happens? My experience is that, what I was told by provost, is that they look up average salary for someone here for length of time, not thinking about where they had been. Not negotiable, how it happens.

Prof. G: I was told that, but I was also told what I said.

Prof. I: Some places it counts, some places it doesn’t. Provost says UT Arlington is not comparable experience — just as if it is high school.

Prof. G: Starting salary varies a lot, based upon experience and negotiation. If college was sexist in 1983, it will reflect all the way through. That helps explain the gender difference right there. What is the committee doing now?

Prof. F: Zero meetings so far. One of the 2 board members lives in CO, so it’s tough to schedule. Trying to meet during the Dec 2 board weekend. Board members have been cooperative, admin less so. Determined to have a meeting. Board member only comes for board weekends. I will push to get the first committee’s (2015) recommendations implemented and to see what we can do about the 2016 committee recommendations. 2016 includes something about initial salaries. That’s a complicated long discussion, worth having. Would like to hear from AAUP officially, to what degree — to see how willing board members would be to roll back the mortgage. How mad/sad/angry are faculty members actually are?

Q: What’s the mortgage?

Prof. F: The 41 — the people who are considered to “owe” the college money.

Prof. I: More than anything they’ve done in the last three decades. You should’ve been there in the meeting in the matchbox. People are angry about the letter.

Prof. F: Announcements are made at faculty meeting, nobody said anything.

Prof. J: Y’all need to talk more at faculty meetings.

Prof. K: These discussions are all awkward, people are reluctant. People hadn’t been able to process it.

Prof. G: 3 people approached me to discuss this quietly.

Prof. F: Send me email, if I’m going to raise this on the committee.

Prof. K: Propose an AAUP vote declaring this “the worst in our time here”.

Prof. I: We haven’t mostly been insulted in my time here. The word raised in the last meeting was “insulting”. The concept is insulting. I didn’t have a word for it. Felt vaguely weirded out. Back in the past, we valued you and paid you this amount of money — never mind all that. I borrowed that word from a colleague who was more articulate and more unhappy than I was.

Prof. A: And disrespected.

Prof. Q: As a retiree who has no stake, I was insulted.

Prof. D: Can I push back? It’s important to separate out policy you’re upset about from the corrective policies enabled because of the policy you’re upset about. There are clearly multiple cohorts/eras of faculty — there were clear problems of depresssion of salary in those ranks that were identifiable as a side effect of the way we did raise policy. Correcting those was important. Need to separate how the college got the money from the fact the money was needed.

Prof. F: I 1000% disagree. The biggest problem was solved. However, to start to take the mentality that it’s a zero sum game and the only way to solve that problem is to take money away from other faculty members with $1.5 billion in the bank is nuts.

Prof. G: We applaud them to start paying attention to inequities but we feel strongly that an injury has occurred here. A faculty member asked if they should just redact and publish the letters because they are so insulting? Do you want to write a letter? Sign a petition?

 

Prof. D: I want to push back a bit — no one’s salary is getting reduced. They are getting increased more slowly.

Prof. F: The right way is not to justify what they did — need to get board members on your side. Last year had no members and might as well not have met. Even 2 years ago when board members of committee were on our side, finance committee members were not. Board member from Colorado who was on academic affairs thought you would never get the money back from faculty.

Prof. K: Didn’t your committee recommend not to do this? They separated the two.

Prof. D: The key in pushing this letter forward is to not re-create the salary depression.

Prof. L: If someone got a correction, how do I feel about being underpaid for 10 years?

Prof. G: Try for 33 years. This is a really important point — no attempt on their part to come up with sense of fairness in salaries. We’re still here in the weeds with this and that, but not raising all salaries. That’s a real problem with the whole conversation going on. The conversation divides faculty into bowls.

Prof. D: Important to separate out – someone like Prof. I is having their raise grow more slowly than average is enabling Prof. L’s salary to increase.

Prof. I: That’s what the committee recommended. We have a practical agenda — we should advocate for what the committee recommended. It is simple, doesn’t wreck re-balancing, is procedurally appropriate. People had a recommendation that was ignored. It’s a smaller point, but tangible.

Prof. G: Always stuck in the weeds here.

Prof. J: More participation. More standardization of ad-hoc. Need to make motions, talk in faculty meetings.

Prof. F: I want a letter from AAUP.

Prof. G: That expresses the outrage of the faculty, that urges the administration & board to uphold the reccomendations from the 2015 committee report.

Prof. I: Outrage is the wrong word. Anger and disappointment.

Prof. M: There was the “Chump change” meeting — When did a board member respond, we can do this, it’s nothing, it’s chump change. The sense of being insulted by the board who has the money power. I was helped by this. I made chump change for a long time. When you are junior faculty moving up through the ranks, first time you see salaries is when you are chair. Had a huge moral/morale dilemma. I should try to forget this. Then when I became chair, spent a lot of time trying to negotiate high salaries for colleagues. Tried to keep someone here who would have gotten a higher salary than me. It’s hard to point to your salary when talking to a provost that way. The only way for a faculty to get a boost was for a chair to push for them.

Prof. G: I think morale issues are important.

Prof. M: This is a terrible move for morale.

Prof. G: Subcommittee of me and Prof. F and someone with good adjectives. Prof. I will be on it. What should we recommend?

Prof. F: Full implementation of that report! Top agenda item for this year is to move to salary + retirement instead of total compensation. The finance guys saw the numbers and got sticker shock. There’s no disagreement on principle by anyone.

Prof. K: Last year’s committee also recommended withdrawing this correction.

Prof. F: Yes, it’s implicit in asking that 2015 report implemented in full.

* Prof. D mentioned some concerns about total compensation vs salary & retirement and discussed committee-specific issues with Prof. F *

Prof. F: If they move to salary & retirement w/o total compensation, are they going to reduce benefits? They can’t reduce faculty benefits without reducing staff and administration.

Prof. E: This is the point of AAUP — not just individual people writing to the committee — collective action.

Prof. N: On what basis do they have to be transparent or answer these things? 1) never giving any feedback when they get committee reports. We want at least an answer to why or how, is that just playing nice if they decide to do that? Curious about amount of flexibility. Prof. H was told there’s no flexibility.

Prof. G: That’s not the answer. You *must* go in and fight. Everyone has to go in and fight. This April, when your letters come out, there should be lines out the door of the provost’s office. I’m about to retire. I have to sue the college to get the back pay that I didn’t know I was due.

Prof. N: I took a pay cut to come here. Is it true that there was really no wiggle room?

Prof. G: Provost could give us a straighter answer. I’ve seen the contradictions.

Prof. H: I’ve only just become aware and I’m horrified, but I feel like the issues across the board are lack of transparency and sense of things happening behind the scenes. These things are intertwined.

Prof. G: I don’t mind asking a second letter asking for transparency in salary negotiations.

Prof. F: Disparities go by department. If you teach at public university, salary is public. Lost someone to Univ of Memphis and Univ of Illinois, couldn’t come close to matching those salaries. Is that what we’re looking at?

Prof. J: Faculty could put anonymous salary info in escrow until some threshold percentage commits to go public.

Prof. D: Beneficiaries would be reluctant.

Prof. G: My whole philosophy over the years is that I respect that difference. I didn’t realize when I was looking at that average that I was below a bunch of people who write poetry and go to the theater. I’m between 1-5% below everyone. That’s happening on this campus. I like Prof. J’s idea. Allowing the provost to continue to give us mixed messages on starting salaries is something we need to stop. We have an overall salary problem and the provost is not helping things by not giving a consistent report. Ambiguity is the root of power. I’d like to get a little letter to the provost now about differences/inconsistencies in starting salaries.

Prof. E: One other advantage of Prof. J’s suggestion is that we could justify and explain why a starting salary of Engineer has to be higher is that you can bring in data from outside. We could begin on this next time.

Prof. I: Everyone understands that. The advantage of Prof. J’s system is that chairs get data from their department, but not other departments. I trusted provost to give me whatever comparable departments should get. They would sometimes spontaneously give more money. I trusted them, but that trust seems to have evaporated, and Prof. J’s suggestion would provide a chair with useful data. We all know what departments are comparable, would help make decisions.

Prof. D: In what ways would they suddenly be wealthy? Different raises over time?

President: I insist that we move on.

Prof. F: Let’s put this on the agenda for next time.

Childcare Report: The Committee is “ad hoc,” and has not existed a year.

Prof. G: Childcare. Bob couldn’t come. Prof. O came, thanks for being here. What AAUP does is advocate, this is something we’ve been advocate. There’s so much support at other places — money, centers. We have zippo.

Prof. O: I’m on ad-hoc childcare committee. Wasn’t on committee last year, so I don’t know exactly what happened except from minutes. This semester I’ve learned longer history of the issue, don’t have a lot to report, but I’m here to share news from Prof. R. When I joined the committee this semester, the issue was idea of starting an after school program in connection with Friends Meeting House. Already didn’t seem like a huge solution to the problem. It’s the one area where there’s enough supply in this region. There’s very little in the way of care for younger children, esp. infants. While the director of Swarthmore Friends was interested, they’re not zoned for this, and their board shot it down. We had another meeting when Val & Greg came. Talked about suggestions that faculty voted on live, during a meeting. They were clear that they listened to us, but there’s no money of any kind available for anything to do with childcare because board is pre-occupied with endowment and bring it up to where it needs to be, and it’s not an issue that donors would be interested in all.

Prof. G: They said this about second semester leaves.

Prof. O: Everything needs to be revenue-neutral. The response of the committee is to come up with zero-cost ideas, while pushing to try to understand further whether this is something can be attractive to the baord. We did come up with smart no-cost idea: pay down payments to childcare centers every year to hold spots to get reimbursed if someone claims that spot. Greg pushed back on that, seeing if they would just reserve spots without money.

Prof. F: There’s a clause — if a Swarthmore person doesn’t claim the slot and it remains unclaimed, the college needs to pay the full year tuition. There are long waiting lists.

Prof. G: It seems we have a problem. They said to committee they wouldn’t spend any money. But they haven’t said that to the faculty.

Prof. O: They said the board wouldn’t go for it. Need to figure out how schools who do have centers or benefits — how they got them and advocated for them and how the money was raised for it.

Prof. J: Faculty *was* informed at meeting.

Prof. L: Way to convince people is to tie into education, psychology, etc. What Donna Jo said at faculty meeting.

Prof. O: Yes, we’ve talked about that.

Prof. P: We could have a bake sale with changing station next to it.

Prof. G: Have everyone’s child, no matter how old — even 45 y.o., on labor day next year. Sit them right down on Parrish beach and walk slowly from class to class and hustle nothing. Collect everyone’s yearly childcare bill and present that. They weren’t even going to put that on the agenda, but I happened to be on COFP and annoyed the hell out of provost and he said ok but faculty must volunteer. So I rounded up volunteers. Not getting anywhere on the committee, some kind of direct action needs to be done.

Prof. P: dirty diapers by the admissions office.

Prof. F: Shaming — NYT published pell grant rankings. If you find out how other schools do it & pay for it.

Prof. O: There’s no student labor association, but that was their #1 issue for two years, they pushed for the benefit that we have now. Try to mobilize the students for this.

Prof. G: There’s a website for this?

Prof. F: Yes, information.

Prof. G: Babysitting service?

Prof. O: We are working on this, legally, the college can’t mediate a list of student babysitters. Someone not representing the college needs to organize a listserv for faculty & staff. That would be limited to faculty near campus.

Prof. G: The AAUP can be helpful. What do you want to do first? Sounds like you’re still thinking about this. Consider the labor day action. Enough time to organize that. People’s kids are home on labor day anyways. It might be a fun thing to do. Would start the next year with visible reaction, combined with new info, might get something done.

New Items on the Agenda

President: Before we go — several announcements. No official mechanism for new business. Prof. J’s idea will be old business next time on the agenda. We don’t spend much time thinking about the agenda for the year. Salary & childcare are ongoing concerns. Haven’t asked for ideas about agenda items for pursuit. There are some we could be — 2 examples: in 2008 during downturn, admin cut benefits including child tuition reimbursement. It seems to me that just handing back what they cut is only fair now that endowment has bounced back so beautifully. Prof. P is the subcommittee of 1 interested in this. Other is coming appointment of provost, proliferation of ad-hoc committees. Lots and lots of them. Ad-hoc committee on provost search process is particularly important. Betsy Bolton started this on the last provost search, but nobody knows how the extra 2 years got tacked on. It’s a mystery committee. It hasn’t yet met. What’s the directive?

Prof. I: It’s partly a reaction to the last process. But what I’ve heard — not officially — there’s some thought we should discuss whether to get a provost from outside. Given there’s already a possibility…

Prof. A: I heard that it’s not a possibility.

Prof. I: I’d heard that this comes from the top down. I nudged the chair to see if we all got the right memo. They haven’t met without me.

Prof. G: You’ll let us know.

Prof. I: This is not about selecting the provost — it’s about the process.

Prof. G: There is no debate on whether provost represents the faculty. Its in the Red Book.

Prof. M: What’s the job description? The Provost is supposedly our representative to administration. Urge job description to be discussed.

Prof. K: Provost didn’t exist until red book.

Prof. G: Total confusion on this. Other thing that COFP is looking at is revising faculty handbook. I didn’t realize that’s how things happen around here. I go to the COFP meeting and Tom says we’re going to discuss handbook a bit, and then introduced beginning of Faculty Handbook which has list of who should be allowed into faculty meetings. Administrators eating lunch while our lives are being discussed. It’s allowed by the faculty handbook. There’s no dates. There’s a big debate about whether the registrar is a member of the faculty. Need to make sure that deliberations over handbook get brought in front of the faculty. At first I thought they were going to dump it on us. I was quite shocked to have it happen in the COFP — we’re just going to do this little bit in COFP. We should go back to president & provost on next introduction.

Prof. D: Prof. C & I talked about this a year ago. One of the issues on the handbook is that the current one is out of date with respect to policies we have voted on. There are policies whose content is not reflected in the handbook. Step 1 is to audit to see where handbook matches policy. It might not about be about sneaking things by you rather than just making the handbook reflect the policy.

Prof. G: Registrar membership in faculty — not written anywhere.

Prof. D: If you take the current book, it doesn’t reflect the policies voted in by the faculty.

Prof. G: If it’s just updating to present, I don’t mind. I was very nervous about being asked to approve in COFP instead of bringing in front of the faculty.

Prof. D: Need a “track changes” — what came from which faculty meeting. Can I also ask about agenda items already mentioned? Tuition benefit — doesn’t actually benefit faculty very well. Can discuss whether it actually works. Regarding retirement — colleague was extremely upset about policy. Lump sum, date of birthday.

Prof. J: Involve junior faculty. Agenda items need to reflect concerns of junior faculty. Retirement, college tuition, childcare — some of these may be of less interest for junior faculty.

 

Prof. C: Also do some through email. Preliminary discussions. Wrap up more quickly in meetings. Also, I would like to pitch two future agenda items: 1) continuation of endowment spending policy, with particular focus on faculty lines. Adjustment for increase in student body but no adjustment for 4-course load. Would be healthy to think about profile of faculty lines we need in order to claim we are one of the best colleges in the country. How many would we need to be competitive? Between 15-20 above the growth already planned. 2) Request for more information: use of consulting firms. How much do we use these? Historical changes?

Prof. I: How much has proved useful? Consulting firms cost a lot of money, and they seem to come to administrative conclusions; they don’t solve problems. They are used to over-ride faculty conclusions about hiring and about plans for the future. The four-course load cannot be solved by outsourcing the decisions.

Prof. C: Classics can’t go to 4-course load. Neither can other departments—political science.

Prof. M: The administration outsourced a discussion of anti-Semitism!

Professor Z: In the light of the results of the election a petition is circulating concerning the idea of Swarthmore College as a sanctuary campus, something student groups are looking for in the wake of the election results. We should look forward to hearing more on this issue on campus, with students and possibly in the faculty meeting.