Meeting Her Pt. 07: The Convention

I went to the venerable Dean, showed him the work and asked him to start some paperwork he promised for Nancy's benefit. He replied that he had faith in me, so the life-changing papers I wanted him to draft were already working their way around Hightower Hall collecting signatures in the big fancy offices. Curtis had signed on so it would happen. It was great news.

We had to make a few tweaks to the paper to make it publication quality, but I sent Nancy a note to say she did a great job. Then I let it distill in my mind for a week, reread it again, polished down a point that was sticking out, then I sent that version to Dryden for a final check. The next day, after his "thumb's up" I sent it in, with CC: to those directly involved.

The thing Nancy had missed in the earlier proposal was that she listed on the paper as a college faculty member instead of staff. Her promotion was central to my conversation with the venerable Dean. I had been promised one "power exercise" each year and I let them know this was it. The final version of the paper I sent in listed Nancy as college faculty and, just to confirm her importance, it listed her as the presenter at the convention. This time Nancy did not miss that change.

She was in my office about 30 second after I hit "send."

She had missed the big lead and went right to the trivial. "How could you do that? I have never presented. Now you want me to address a room full of real faculty? Some might have been my teachers. How can I do that? How could you?"

She really did not appreciate herself, it was a good thing I appreciated her enough for both of us.

"You get top marks teaching our sophomores cost accounting, which is a much tougher crowd. The attendees will listen closer to you because unlike anyone else on the stage, you are female and therefore interesting in so many ways: your voice, your grace, the smooth curve of your breast when showing an exhibit... Sexist? Yes. But they are nerds who dress like grown men so it is true. That is half the battle. The other half you have already won, since you know this stuff cold and they don't. You can explain Box-Jenkins in small words, which is something quite beyond our Ober-chair and most of the faculty. They WANT you to explain it to them so they can look good explaining it to their eager grad students who are sure to ask. You know, they have an award, a couple of thousand, for the best presentation, plus it counts extra for merit."

"Staff don't do merit, I thought you knew that," she said with some bitterness. It was true, no matter how much they deserved consideration for merit, staff could be fired by a chair just for giving somebody a funny look.

"Yeah, about that... you seem to have missed one detail. Perhaps if you read the cover page out loud it would help."

She looked at it, saw what I meant, and was struck speechless with her mouth hanging open. I was tempted to comment on that, but she was too on edge.

I continued. "You are going to have to sign the paperwork voiding your present staff contract and be re-signed as faculty, retroactive to August. We can't have staff publishing research, it makes the old faculty dinosaurs feel worse than bad. I cleared it to the top, our venerable Dean is calling it a clerical mistake and will reclassify you as 'Visiting Assistant Professor' for the year; next year rolls at your option. Your department's Mad Dog Chairman From Hades will be informed... but not just yet. I am sure he will bark about it but no matter, that is the nature of dogs. You will be course supervisor for Cost Accounting in the Spring, with an overload, so the mutt will find his chain a little shorter than he likes. Would you like to go to the convention hotel a day early and share a room? That way I can fill in the expense forms after."

"I am going to be faculty?" Her voice had a sense of wonder to it, she thought a faculty appointment was something unthinkable, so she never thought of it. In fact, if I had not been hired, it never would have happened.

It was a good thing that she got naked with me 8 months before, since that got me to talk to the higher-ups at Hillside so I could be hired.

"No!" I corrected her, she did not quite have it yet. "You are not GOING to be faculty, you ARE faculty. Today... well, as of last August when you stole the paper. I says so in the email. The paperwork will catch up, time is funny that way. It is because of your smarts and your work. You have been called up to the majors Kiddo. Congrats! We will have to talk about your career choices. Also, you have to pick a department by MLK."

(MLK is the Martin Luther King holiday that is a late Monday in January. That date is the Polaris for atheist educators the same way Muslims follow their star. Spring semester starts the next day and all other dates are figured from that point. The Good Friday-Easter weekend gets no priority in liberal-minded academia because it moves, making it too hard for the atheists with PhDs to keep track of.)

"I am in the Management department," she answered. They were the ones who hired her. That was part of the paperwork being revised.

"Well, it is your choice, you may want to rethink that after your Mad Dog Chairman From Hades starts to bark his shit-fit your way. The Provost's paperwork - coming soon - authorized you for either department; a loan is possible, but a split appointment is not. Spring is set as far as you and Cost - you are the co-ordinator. Accounting and Finance really has a better long-term earning profile. Plus, while our Ober-Chair is no fun, he is recently neutered and had his teeth filed down so he can no longer be a real pain in the ass... and his days may be numbered."

I did not have to say it, but Nancy knew that changing departments would mean she could shut down her Mad Dog Chairman with a kick in the yarbles while he was in mid-bark at her. That had an appeal. She wondered about doing that trick with others watching. At a department meeting perhaps?

(Nancy did, in fact fill out the paperwork with the Provost and elected to be faculty in the accounting, effective January 1. The paperwork got to the departments while we were at the convention, but the Mad Dog Chairman did not look at his mail until the end of the first week of classes. The Management department did, in fact, have a brief meeting the day after MLK, the custom was for the department members to sit based on rank, which put the chairman at one end of the table and Nancy at the other end. While the Mad Dog Chairman was barking at Nancy about her schedule for next Fall, saying he wanted her to request a particular schedule, she casually said "No" in front of everybody. It was the academic equivalent of flipping him off. The Mad Dog Chairman started screaming loudly about how "one presentation did not not give her the right..." and so forth, so she opened a copy of the Provost's paperwork, handed it to the person next to her, and asked that it be passed down the table. Everybody saw it while the Mad Dog kept yapping. When the paperwork was almost to him she stood, turned her back and sauntered out of the room. He started to yell that he would not renew her contract, how she was out, but by then, everybody but him knew his yell meant nothing. Everybody in the meeting has a comical description of what he looked like when he finally saw the papers Nancy passed to him. All were quite entertaining.)

"What about Porter?" Nancy asked. He was a accounting faculty member who always co-ordinated Cost Accounting, and always complained about it. He had been there 28 years. He came in Monday through Saturday (nobody else does that) because his wife made it intolerable for him to be at home. He would complain even more about Nancy taking over his job, because he would be working for her and spending more time in the classroom for the same pay. Such was life. I should mention that he had a PhD but he had never published a thing, never even had a proposal for a meeting. Also, he was featured in the web video that the students set up, giving the wrong answer while the screen flashed "Wrong" in big letters.

Unlike many around here, he was a sad case, but not actually bad. They kept him because he knew he had no power beyond useless whining.

"You are Porter's boss today, don't let him even suggest otherwise. He knows he will be forced to retire in two years unless he publishes two articles by the deadline, it is part of the accreditation plan, so he has zero power... unless you chose to point him in a direction that works for you. You can use that privately if you want. His future is your call."

Nancy teaches Production and Advanced Production for the Management department, they really need her for the Advanced course. But they don't respect her and they don't have enough work for her so Accounting borrows her on a part-time basis to help in Cost Accounting. With us she could request Advanced Cost when Porter retires, or before if it pleases her, and she will co-ordinate Cost. (Coordinators get one section "off" because of the oversight work - or else they get a paid overload.)

I continued. "Think about it from their side, they needed 4 years of looking and a lot of search money to hire any faculty. For your faculty appointment all they need to do is hire one Staff, and they already have a pile of resumes for me to sort through. That sounded so good to the folks in Hightower that I got you a prime deal at good pay. Now about merit... You know, once you are in the club they can't take you out on a whim, but you are subject to the 'up-or-out' rule. No more treading water, you have to show progress."

She assumed a faculty post required a higher degree, it normally was allowed for an ABD (All But Dissertation) but that was all. With her past PhD credits a publication credit put her on tenure track as a degree candidate. That was close enough. The only downside was that now she was on a 5-year clock for finishing a PhD.

"Wait... back up... why would you sort through resumes for staff?"

She was sharp.

"Do you want the job?" She took a step back and shook her head "yes."

so I explained. "Ober-chair says I have his full support. He and others will learn how full that support is soon enough, the President is dead serious about accreditation because the Hightower name is riding on it. So the Dean intercepted all resumes and sent them to me. The Ober-chair will hire the ones I give him. The lazy fool has not noticed this yet. I will pick whoever you want, if you have an opinion."

I explained how I had cleared this whole business with the venerable Dean early in the process - in September. He got the Provost to agree. (Well, it really worked the other direction.) Both agreed 100% with my logic, staff did not do research, that was faculty work so it counted for accreditation. Making Nancy faculty also bought him a faculty hire cheap. Staff were easy hires. Bonus: she was an alum so nobody would object. Then there was the double presentation credit, that was gold.

Her Mad Dog Chair would be told next year, at a meeting with Curtis after Nancy made him look like a fool. There was no hurry. He would want to block it on the grounds that he is a asshole who could not help acting like an asshole. As part of our deal the President would bait him into quitting as chair or rolling over in his own shit and smiling about it. The Spring schedule was already revised for her.

"Every good Dean keeps one or two assholes around," the venerable Dean once told me. "That way everybody is reminded how things could be much, much worst. It keeps the Dean popular." But he allowed as how the Mad Dog was one too many.

Next I explained about her November 1 paycheck. As staff she got paid about $4,000 a month on the 15th (September was half that, total was 7.5 months). As faculty she got about $6,000 on the first of each month (10 months), plus 20% more for overload giving her $7,200. So her annual pay more than doubled ($30,000 to $72,000). Total salary earned by November 1 was $21,600. Total paid before November 1 was $6,000. So the November 1 paycheck would be $15,600 - roughly 4 times normal. She could adjust the $7,200 December 1 check for tax shelters and withholding.

(The deposit slip for that paycheck is what Getty saw. It gave him the idea he could over-extend and steal from Nancy when the bets went the other way.)

About halfway through the computations she had to sit down, she was too stunned to stand. I told her there was no need to be grateful, she had earned everything.

She really willing to be grateful right there in my office with the door open if I wanted, but she was too stunned to offer. After that she left my office in a daze.

-

FYI, there are three broad classes of folks who stand in front of a university classroom talking for a living.

1. TAs are graduate students used as slave labor because they are actually cheaper than keeping real slaves (they come to you, no chains needed) and have fewer choices. They are on campus anyways, until they graduate to freedom.

2. Staff are often called "lecturer" or "instructor." In a few disciplines, like history, they have a terminal degree and are toiling in hope of an open faculty slot they can apply for with dozens of other worthies. Business staff usually have a Master's degree. Usually staff are on one-year contracts, the favorites get "rolling" contracts that "roll over" for the next year. Keep your Chair and Dean happy and, if they have the budget they are likely to renew your contract. Displease them slightly, or if a new one is hired, and you are gone without ceremony after the current year. Non-renewal for Staff is committed in secret, when students are not around. It is not a stable lifestyle, but at many schools this is where the majority of student contact hours come from. Faculty are too rare and expensive.

3. Usually, anybody called "professor" by other teachers is faculty. There are other terms involved, but the big distinction is that faculty come in as tenure-track and then strive to become tenured. Most faculty either have a terminal degree, or have made substantial and ongoing progress toward it (ABD). Tenure-track faculty are on contracts of one, two or three years, with an important provision (like rolling contracts) that they will have one full year of notice before they are let go, so if they are not renewed they can still work for a year while they look for a new job. Tenure-track faculty are evaluated each year by the department and the college committees, who always say nice things in their review; it is what they don't say that kills you. Tenure-track faculty have to show "improvement" to earn their tenure recommendation, which then must then be approved by the Provost and the Chancellor and then the Board Of Regents. What somebody actually does is a good start, but the Department Chair or Dean is the one who writes the critical letter saying a person has "shown improvement" until they "meet the standard."

Now, the thing that is critical is the "up-or-out" rule. If a tenure-track faculty is rehired for the "magic" year they are automatically tenured for life, it is the union rule. The magic year is the seventh year at most schools. So the big evaluation is a tenure-track faculty member's 5th year. If they get a 6th year contract with the one-year-following provision that means they will automatically get a 7th year contract, and that means they are in for life. However, if they are not up to snuff, at the end of the 5th year they will instead get a one year terminal contract - with the opposite of the automatic renewal provision, which is the nice way of saying they have the next year to clean out their office and find someplace new to live, because under the union rules they CANNOT ever come back.

Tenure may be tied to a change in rank, usually from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, but unlike the military, academic rank has no real significance except that some people feel more important. (Recall Major Burns on M*A*S*H? In the ER he had rank, but Burns and even the Colonel took directions from lowly Captain Hawkeye. Folks like Burns think rank is important. Others know better.)

To keep faculty working hard schools rarely grant early tenure, except for the type of faculty with no life who do not need tenure because they get lots of unsolicited offers to make more money elsewhere. For example, I heard a story once about such an early tenure Prof at a very prestigious mid-west university. The janitor asked the Prof, who was from New York, if he would be going home for Christmas. The Prof (who was Jewish) replied, "Is that next Tuesday this year? I will be in my office early and stay late as usual." Like I said, no life.

-

Nancy was classified as "visiting" as an HR dodge, because the position was not advertised a year ahead of time using politically correct language in the 17 special journals that HR was sure were needed to reach those disadvantaged PhDs who must exist for affirmative action (and their jobs) to exist. Since Nancy was a woman the HR tribe, both male, female and other, would all wet their panties with joy, and rubber-stamp the exception to normal red-tape with rainbows, unicorns and poetry. They really are a very predictable crowd.

-

In Nancy's case, after her undergrad degree from Hillside she got admitted into a good graduate program and took some of their "research methodology" and "seminar" courses as well as the Master's level subject-area courses. She really made the best use of her time there. When she left grad school after a year and half plus two summers the school granted her an MBA, which is not a terminal degree. This type of thing was a common practice in PhD programs where people get in, make a good effort but do not clear one of the comprehensive exam hurdles for one reason or another. In Nancy's case, she was not at the "comprehensive exam" level but did have enough credits, so they did the MBA thing.

(In a typical PhD program you take all the courses, then pass a bunch of written and oral comprehensive exams that can ask anything in the entire section of the library - I am not kidding - and are graded by the entire department. You have to impress the great majority of the graders. Once you prove you know everything published, then for the PhD you have to do a dissertation of something new that extends the envelope of "what is known" in the field.)

Now, with my help, and Nancy's name on a publication, our venerable Dean "re-envisioned" those PhD credits as progress towards a terminal degree (they were) and corrected the terrible clerical mistake made by her Mad Dog Chairman from Hades. Bad Dog! With the stroke of a pen Nancy was considered ADB and thereby enrobed as faculty so wage and teaching assignments would be adjusted accordingly. (More pay, less work, that is how we do it.)

Her name would appear prominently, as would mine, on the semester's update to the accreditation people. It would put us in a better place, showing improvement.

The faculty appointment had to be done retroactively from the start of the Fall because the publication date for the convention papers was before MLK (when Spring started) and faculty appointments had to be for the full semester.

Nancy would visit the Provost's office once the paperwork was prepared for her to sign. Her boss, the Mad Dog Chairman from Hades, would be furious when the papers got to him for signature (already signed by Nancy, the Dean and the Provost) because it was not his idea. He would bark loudly, to no effect.

Since I did not work for him, and the venerable Dean smiled upon Nancy, she was okay for the short term and if she was feeling frisky she might tell the dog to "take his shit and shove it."

Actually, this was the plan, but that was not something to worry about.