From the Chronicle of Higher Education | October 07, 2009, 11:00 AM ET

By P.D. Lesko

In
California, the California Faculty Association's remaining 22,000
members (11,000 of whom are lecturers) are being pressed to take two
furlough days per month to save the state some $275-million, and save
the jobs of some 3,700 full-time-equivalent instructors (9,000
lecturers). In June, the Nevada higher-education system's Board of
Regents decided to impose faculty furloughs along with a 4.6-percent
pay cut on non-tenured faculty members at the the University of Nevada
at Reno. In New Jersey, 8,000 faculty members at state colleges are
negotiating with the governor to take seven unpaid furlough days in
2009 in exchange for a pledge of no layoffs until 2011. At the
University of Hawaii, state officials there are prepared to ask faculty
members at state institutions to take furloughs and pay cuts that will
amount to, perhaps, as much as a 14-percent pay cut.

Visit any
higher-education Web site where the topic of furloughs comes up, and
you can hear full-time faculty members cyber-sobbing. Union officials
from the CFA told the public that furloughed faculty members "can't
possibly perform their duties." Officials did not elaborate on what,
exactly, faculty members would be unable to do as a result of a monthly
two-day furlough. Their shopping lists, maybe? Naturally, there's lots
of finger-pointing about proposed furloughs.

The bottom line
(d'oh!) is that furloughs and pay cuts stink. Oh, and full-time faculty
members aren't enthusiastic about layoffs either. In fact, if recent
news pieces are to be believed, full-time faculty members get downright
cantankerous at the thought of anything short of annual salary
increases and appropriate tributes. The irony is that the
furlough/pay-cut/layoff strategy has been mindlessly enforced by
department chairs while managing non-tenured faculty members since,
well, Hector was an adjunct. The current situation reminds me of the
classic joke--modified slightly--about the difference between an
economic depression and a recession. An economic recession, you see, is
when an adjunct gets laid off. A depression is when a full-time faculty
member does.

During 2008, 1,000 lecturers--almost 10 percent of
the total number of lecturers represented by the CFA union--lost their
teaching jobs. However, you'll find nary a press release about that sad
fact from CFA president Teri Yamada. Why not? Well, because it was a
recession, and those non-tenured lecturers had to go. This year, with a
state-budget deficit in California, CFA's full-time faculty members are
being pressed for $585-million in concessions, and suddenly it's a
depression; union officials are spewing press releases, and tuning up
for their big number-it's the Jets versus the Sharks. However, frankly,
if the best argument CFA officials can come up with against furloughs
is that faculty members won't be able to "perform their duties,"
California State University officials should demand three furlough days
per month.

A California faculty member posited in a recent opinion piece
that if the CSU system sacked 9,000 lecturers, it would grind to a
halt. Would it? The CSU system would have 14,000 remaining faculty
members (including, presumably, its current 6,000 full professors) to
teach 410,000 students, or one faculty member for every 29 students. In
1970, CSU enrolled 250,000 students, taught by 11,000 faculty members
(including 3,300 full professors). There was one faculty member for
every 22 students. In 2007, CSU enrolled 417,000 students and employed
24,000 faculty members (12,000 lecturers). The average salary for a CSU
full professor in 1970 was $17,987; by 2008, it had risen to $93,643, a
five-and-a-half-fold increase. The cost of a gallon of milk, in
contrast, rose just 70 percent over the same period.

Just as
sure as the housing price index in California must undergo a
correction, the state's higher-education system will go through a
similar adjustment. Perhaps the "correction" will lead taxpayers and
legislators to conclude that there are too many faculty members
employed in the CSU system to be fed so generously at the public
trough. Of course, in response to funding cuts made by state officials,
CSU leaders have threatened to cut enrollment by 10,000 students next
year. It's an attempt to put political pressure on state politicians
who've voted to cut funding to the CSU system.

However, what if
there were 10,000 fewer students and 9,000 fewer faculty members? Well,
for starters, the CSU system faculty-student ratio would be even closer
to what it was in 1970, when 56 percent of CSU students graduated with
a degree, as opposed to 46 percent of students today. Could fewer
faculty members and fewer students take the CSU system back to higher
graduation rates? If so, California's budget woes might just be an
opportunity disguised as a furlough.