Informed Opinions on Today’s Topics : Will Merit Pay Help or Hurt Universities?

Two weeks ago, 34 faculty members at Cal State Northridge received pay hikes of as much as 9.6% under a performance-based merit plan that is more typical of the business world than a university.

The merit system had been opposed by the union representing the Cal State system’s 18,000-plus faculty members, saying that it could create a divisiveness in an academic setting. But Cal State officials demanded it in a new contract approved last year. Merit pay has become more common in universities in recent years.

Should universities have performance-based merit pay?

Rodolfo Acuna, Chicano studies professor, Cal State Northridge:

“The fact is that they do. Given this fact, faculty should participate to make the guidelines as equitable as possible, remembering that objectivity is an ideal rather than a reality. My feeling is that merit pay increases should be across the board. . . . I admire those professors who put in endless hours in the statewide Faculty Senate, writing position papers. At the same time, those who continue to publish should get recognition and should be rewarded.”

Marc Levine, Cal State Northridge student body president and chairman of the California State Student Assn.:

“It provided a rationalization of the pay increases that the professors received. . . . This was one of the first times when everybody can understand why these professors have been chosen. . . . It’s becoming more difficult for higher education to get more money and to pay salaries. Resources are scarce and that means we’re going to have to revise how everyone gets more.”

William Hosek, dean of the school of business, Cal State Northridge:

“I think faculty should be rewarded for doing extraordinary things. . . . I’m not sure the system we have here is the best for doing that. As a general rule when you have a group of individuals evaluating each other for a fixed amount of merit pay, you might not get the most impartial evaluation. It’s a fixed pie, so what I decide to give you, I cannot give myself. . . . The faculty member who does a great job with the curriculum and strives to improve should be supported with a grant to work in the summer and travel time to go to conferences. [Merit pay] is an incentive. People will very carefully review who got the performance awards this year and see what they did.”

Nancy Owens, faculty president, Cal State Northridge:

“The problem is in comparing different kinds of merit. . . . Trying to compare those kinds of merit is potentially very divisive when you can reward only a few. . . . That may or may not be the best thing for a feeling of community in helping colleagues so they can do some of the things that earn rewards. . . . There might be a possibility of people deciding, ‘Well, I’m not going to do that’ and go out and do the more glamorous types of things . . . . It seems to me in my personal opinion that awarding the merit award to a small number of people will be detrimental to the community. Of course, we will have to see.”

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