Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

   Now, you may notice that Judy is in third place as far as number of students per dollar of salary. So she's not the Bill Gates of the University World at this point. But, NMU is the third smallest in terms of enrollment, yet the third largest in terms of University President salary. I'm glad I took that math class last semester so I can recognize inverse proportion when I see it.

   The only higher salary ration per student than Lake State is at Michigan Tech. Do we need to say much about the worth of a degree from Tech compared to one from here? They really are a techonological school... we just play at it.

   Let's look at the actual salary. Arbuckle is making the most per student, but their enrollment is about the size of a high school. Here's a fun point though, we're closer to them in terms of enrollment than the schools where Judge Judy's new salary is "competitive." Since the concept of increasing enrollment has been tossed around as justification for the salary increase, this seems to be something worth considering.

   The thing we hear the most often about why she got her ante upped, is the poop about being competitive with other university president salaries. What about other staff members at NMU? Are they being payed competively? Let's start with the faculty.

   A professor at NMU makes a minimum of something around $54,691. But, according to national averages (see www.salary.com) the average minimum salary for a college professor is $73,343. If the board of control isn't careful, we might lose our faculty to other schools. Oh wait, we're trying to get rid of them anyway... I forgot about that retirement incentive thing. Less salaries to pay, more cash to play.

   That's just the Profs. Other staff national average minimums are:

   Does anyone want to do the math? It's too depressing. I had to stop. We here at The...TRUTH aren't the only ones wondering about this. One of our reliable sources (the identity of whom we cannot reveal because then we'd have to kill him) had the following to say.

"...take a look on page 2 of the North Wind, Thursday, Oct 26, 2000, under "Petition Continued from page 1" at the first paragraph, second sentence of Roy Boy's remarks; if that is true, then one would suppose that the average pay for assisant, associate and full professors at NMU is comparable to other colleges and universities in Michigan. In a previous North Wind Bailey's salary was compared to the salary of presidents of other Michigan schools and you'll recall that she is now being paid more than the president of Michigan State Univ. It might be interesting to see if the faculty are being paid comparably to MSU or U Michigan or Central or Eastern, etc."

   We here at The...TRUTH would like to see the Board of Control put out a report on the comparative compensations of the rest of the NMU faculty and staff. But, that's probably a job that will have to fall on some antisocial outcast, since normal society is too busy covering their ass.

   Our confidential source also informed us of some further hypocrisy on the part of the admin-higher-ups. Apparently the department heads recently were handed an increase in their work time (from a 10 month contract to a 12 month one) with no increase in pay, or previous notice or discussion. Good word has it that besides the faculty leaving through the early retirement incentive, we'll also be losing a bunch because of continued abuse from the Queen of Englan... I mean Judge Judy's minions.

   For those on the administration side of this issue... keep in mind that the reason students are annoyed is because we feel that with the ever increasing costs of attending this school, those increases should be going to things like helping the library get up to date or fixing other broken things on campus. God forbid if we had to get a new figurehead to take field trips down state. (When she's not too busy redecorating every room she spends time in, at our expense.)

   Only time will hold the truth up above the thrashing muck on this one. A couple of years from now after Judge Judy has moved on to her next step up the policic...uhm, I mean educational ladder, we'll be able to look back at these times and use hindsight to fufill our need for regrets.

   Until then, we'll be catchin' you on the whipped side. May your camel never forget how to hump.