Salary Guide: Newsworthy Controversy or Talk Show Tantrum?

Our school newspaper, the UB Post, punblished in the February 2010 issue the "Salary Guide" which lists the salary of all "Faculty, Staff and Contingent II workforce as of January 2, 2010." I am not positive, but I believe this encompasses most of the employees at our school. Additonally,the guide from October 2008 was provided as reference.

I generally pick up the Post every month, enjoying keeping up on school news as well as reading the announcement bulletins. I was a little surprised when I saw the article, and glanced through it, noting the positions represented. They do cover pretty much everything from Dean to Professor to Administrative Assistant to Housekeeping. The guide lists the job title, first and last name, and what I presume to be "base salary" of each employee.

In the February 2010 issue, the editor writes that publishing the salary guide is accomplished through the freedom of information act, and that he fully understands that the decision to publish the guide will not be popular, but quoting President Obama, "I wouldn't just do what was popular." Mr. Flanagan also encouraged letters from readers expressing their own thoughts.

I took our editor up on his offer, and wrote a letter by email. He acknolwedged receipt (he apparently works on snow days!) and I was glad to see it printed in the March 2010 issue, which is currently available around the campus. It also contains a letter from Ms. Kristen Day, and Mr. Flanagan's response to both of our letters. Ms. Day expressed a very similar sentiment as myself. Since you can read both in the current issue, I am not going to go in depth here.

The first point I made, and the main thrust of Ms. Day's argument, is that few people actually care about these salaries, outside of the voyeuristic pleasure of knowing how much your math professor makes.
The editorial response is that this is a service provided to the campus by making such information easily accesible. I am of the opinion that this information, publically available to anyone, would best be left to be investiagted by those with a specific interest. The heavy handed approach exercised by the UB Post simply throws all UB staff together, and hands their salaries out for all to see. I think it is best summed up the maxim "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater" or to be more severe, the human rights complaint against landmines which indiscriminately kill wandering children as often as enemy combatants.

My second main concern was what I considered hypocrisy, while the Post prints the salaries of staff in the name of open communication, how much money was spent printing those pages that few really were concerned with reading. The response was not what I had hoped for, but I apparently all the other UB Posts are shorter issues to maintain an even budget. I know that I, for one, would much rather each issue was filled with more relevant and interesting content than the salaries of the staff in 2008. If there is a limited number of pages per semester, let's fill them with articles about the great things our students and staff DO, not how much they make.

However, as I mentioned at the top, you can check out the Post itself for the full details. More importantly, I think there are some social issues here as well. I immediately knew how I felt about it, but I wanted to see what some others thought. So naturally, I began harassing my professors for their take. I sent out a few emails, mostly to professors in the law school that I knew. Overwhelmingly, there was a reluctance to talk. Some politely declined, some never answered my email. I figured as much, as after all, they are all lawyers. Of the few who did, I received some interesting feedback.

First of all, none wanted to be named for this post. I can understand, although I am disappointed I cannot publicly thank them for their time and effort. Secondly, the take on the salary guide was overwhelmingly negative. Responses ranged from "outrageous" to "disgraceful." One referred to it as a "disservice to the University." I also believe I heard "disturbingly voyeuristic."

A second major point was simply that this guide doesn't tell the whole story. The professors have a lot of different ways of being compensated. The most common is by publishing. I know my first semester Contracts teacher has written FOUR CASEBOOKS, which is an incredible achievement itself. Plus I don't doubt that money comes in from other various avenues.

The third issue that kept coming up was of a manners or etiquette nature. Personally, I strongly believe that I was raised with manners that would forbid me asking or publishing this. However, my mother's manners notwithstanding, after having my own career, being completely financially independent, and being 100% responsible for my own budget, I now understand why you generally want to keep your salary to yourself. I have to be honest, if it came down to me being offered a job at two schools, and at one I knew my salary would be published each year, I would take the other, every time.

I am reluctant to say much more, or even make this post. After all, when a child throws a tantrum, you stop the behavior by ignoring them. I would hate to make this controversy any larger and attract more attention to something that I find a blemish on UB. However, I think there is a larger issue. This is our school paper. We are in the heart of the city. When visitors stop by our campus, it is not unreasonable that they would pick up a paper. I can only hope that when I walk by in my UB hoodie, they don't associate me with a tawdry list of salaries or an explicit sex column (oh yeah, the paper has one of those too).

The cover story this month is a great piece about three UB students who have received the Laurence Short Academic Award for International Students. Without the Post, I would have never known that these three students travelled the world to come to UB, and are maintaining stellar GPAs. This is the stuff our school should know about. Additionally, every month there is an awesome column in the Sports section by Dustin Fischer, in which he hilariously details his attempts at vegan living. This month there is a mature, PG-13 article giving advice about the effectiveness of birth control. There is a stop smoking column. Three great columns aimed at improving healthy lifestyles. This is what UB needs.

As I post this I can only wonder what the response will be, and since anonymous commenting is allowed, I can only imagine. But feel free to weigh in with your thoughts. Do you like the salary guide? Is it a necessary evil? Do you even care? I will take some time to respond next Tuesday.