The Headmaster Ritual

My generation of faculty was the first in Missouri State University history actually required to earn tenure and promotion. In some ways it was the worst of both worlds. President Marshall Gordon had been brought on in 1983 with an explicit mandate to raise the University's research profile, and woe to the tenure candidate whose publication record did not satisfy then-VPAA Donald E. Bowen. On the other hand, the departmental personnel committees were stocked with asshats who had never published anything, and who had gotten tenure and promotions just for showing up on a regular basis. The same was true for most of the department heads. My generation taught the same number of courses per semester as the belligerent ghouls who were already tenured - the difference was that we were expected to publish or perish.

As an incentive for faculty performance, President Gordon had also installed a "merit pay system." Part of any annual raise for the faculty would be doled out as an across the board percentage, with an additional raise for faculty who had been "meritorious." For purposes of merit pay, the workload for all faculty at SMSU was set at 40% research, 40% teaching, and 20% service. This was an ideal balance for newcomers like me, because we were expected to be all things to all people at all times anyway. But the oldtimers didn't like the merit pay system at all. They had been hired to teach, not to do research. They sure didn't want to receive a grade on their annual performance. Worst, the idea of their junior colleagues making up ground on them financially was downright perverse.

Naturally, the departmental merit pay committee and personnel committee were controlled by the oldtime asshats; they passed their recommendations up to the department heads, who tended to be even older timers (although heads were starting to be brought in from off campus by the time I arrived). Non-tenured faculty could serve on merit pay committees, but they tended to keep their mouths shut, even if it meant going along with some rather outlandish claims on the part of the senior faculty. A colleague I like and respect deeply, two years senior to me, chaired the committee once while still non-tenured. He had the nerve to call out an old-timer on a bogus conference presentation the old-timer was trying to take credit for. In return for this and other alleged instances of "uncollegiality," the personnel committee (they had to recommend tenure; this colleague had literally outpublished the whole department) unanimously recommended against promotion to associate professor. The department head concurred. If not for swift strong action by the then-College Dean, my colleague's promotion would have been toast.

As the Gordon administration plodded onward, the pool of money for merit pay eventually dried up. But the merit pay evaluations, and the wealth of bad feelings they produced, continued regardless. Acting President Keeling introduced a sliding percentage scale for faculty to set their own workloads; a worthwhile idea which only complicated matters in practice. The Keiser administration's solution was to pay off four years' worth of arrears with a maximum available raise of $1000 for a faculty member who had averaged 100% meritorious performance over that time. For what it's worth, I racked up $960. I wasn't happy to see the merit pay system go, but I respected President Keiser's decision to end the unfunded charade. It was replaced by a greatly increased number of faculty awards for research, service, and teaching. But that is another rant.