Overachievers

You don't get to be a professor at a top university by settling or compromising. You get there by striving, competing, and working against all odds to cram extra hours into already-long days. You expect the best, of everyone.

So it's hard to be a professor at a public university right now. Almost by definition, public universities aren't the top of the heap in spending on the things that professors are trained to care most about-- research, salaries, resources. This leads to frustration, anger, and indignation when our talents go unrecognized, our fields disrespected, and our friends leave for private universities.

It's hard to be a professor at a public university, for sure.

Of course, it's also hard to be a kid whose entire future depends on achieving economic stability and that seems to depend on college-- but college is increasingly out of reach. You're told that the flagship college in your state is really the only one that's worth going to and despite your desire to ignore those elitist comments, they nag at you. You want to go there, but annual costs of attendance are more than your family makes in a year. Your parents didn't go to college, and none of your friends managed to get to that place. So really, why bother? Why work your tail off in high school to get the best grades, work after school jobs to save money, and why knock yourself out to take that ACT? You're never going to be able to get in, and if you do, it's gonna financially cripple your family to afford it. The government has never come through with real financial help before, why expect it to now?

Somehow, my heart tells me it's harder to be that kid than it is to be me.

It's time for UW-Madison to be with the children of Wisconsin's working poor families. Offering financial aid -- accompanied as it is by a byzantine system of paperwork, rules, and caveats-- is clearly insufficient to overcome the fear instilled by widespread talk that tuition is high and getting higher. (I am a researcher of financial aid-- it "works" but it by no means demonstrates sufficiently large effects to hold students harmless from high tuition.) Financial aid won't help combat word on the street that the place is so elite it won't even hang with the other UW universities or colleges anymore. It's out for itself--its alumni, current students, and professors-- not for you.

I am not naive-- we are going to take a bone-crushing hit this year. Our belts are going to tighten so much that we can hardly breathe-- at least we will think that's true. But the fact is, UW-Madison doesn't know poverty. Not even close. It's been blessed to have what it needs to be nearly everything it's wanted to be. That's getting harder to do, and now in these times choices will have to be made. Programs will have to be cut. Faculty will have to teach. Class sizes might have to be a bit larger. The truth is, we will survive this-- and we will be more respectable for it. UW-Madison is nothing without the respect of Wisconsin. Leaving the state behind is not an acceptable approach to accommodating our desires to be the "best."

Sunshine on Salaries

Ah, the joys of being a state employee -- our salary info is readily available to the public! Despite the UW System's efforts to keep that information quiet (salaries are very low, making it easy for other universities to lure us away), the Wisconsin State Journal put it online to ensure transparency. Here are some interesting tidbits:

• 9 of the 10 best-paid employees in the UW System are men
• 5 of the top 12 best-paid employees in the UW System are in athletic departments. Director Barry Alvarez earns $500,000 a year-- $85,000 more than Kevin Reilly (System president) and $63,000 more than Biddy Martin (UW-Madison chancellor). An assistant football coach earns five times more than yours truly.
  
• The deans of Madison's law and business schools outearn the deans of letters & science and education by approximately 25%.
• The chair of economics at UW-Madison earns nearly 2.5 times what the chair of economics at UW-Milwaukee earns.

I'm sure you can find more-- have at it!

Valuing Children

Cross-posted from Brainstorm


I am in the midst of what I sometimes feel is an incredibly risky endeavor. Or rather, what some would have me feel is risky.

I’m having a baby. A second baby. On the tenure track.

My ears sense some e-groaning. My fears detect some e-judgment. Maybe, somewhat out there, there is a little applause, and elsewhere sighs of relief.

The truth is, I don’t know what to say—except that I’m completely happy and scared, all at the same time.

Why happy? Because having a family is exactly what my husband and I always wanted. And having our first has proven to both of us that professional success is entirely eclipsed by the sheer joy of watching our son learn to eat a popsicle, or experience his first swim lesson.

Why fear? Because it is far from clear what baby #1 means for my tenure prospects, let alone baby #2. Because I have already been the recipient of far too many stories about pregnant professors overburdening their colleagues when they take leave, of comments from both men and women who say “well, one kid pre-tenure is one thing, but two…?” Because the question of how I am to juggle a late December birth with a two-course teaching load come spring has not yet been resolved.

I know I’m in good company—plenty of American working women have more than one child, and do it while working far less cushy jobs than I. Many have to forgo the pleasures of nursing, a job that requires upwards of 30 hours per week initially by itself. And a scary proportion do it all without healthcare.

I am lucky, to be sure. I am also—however—completely freaked out. Maybe that will change? I’ll keep you posted.

I (Finally) Figured Out Why I Want Tenure

Today was a big day. This morning’s paper ran a story containing quotes from me and from this blog that many of my colleagues will likely view as uncouth. Others will misinterpret it as desire for publicity and name recognition. These folks just don't know me like my family, and particularly my Poppa, does.

To my mind, I had little choice but to do what I did. My University is moving in an untenable direction, one that makes middle-class folks feel good, while at the same time trampling the long-term opportunities of the voiceless. I'm not alone- my family members have a long history of doing exactly this. I went on the record as opposed to a policy that is strongly supported not only by my administrators and supervisors, but also by most of the faculty around me. I wish I could say I felt brave and confident as hung up the phone with the reporter. I didn’t-- in fact, I ran to the bathroom and lost my lunch.

Over the course of the past many months, I’ve received a lot of advice about the Madison Initiative. Advisers have patiently explained to me that the policy is going forward with or without me, and that my time and energy spent fighting will be wasted. I’d be better off simply recommending a few minor alterations and falling in line; at the bare minimum this would help to ensure I could devote my energies to peer-reviewed publications and the kinds of thing academia typically rewards. A fight like this one, I was told, was something I had to earn the right to participate in—something I needed tenure for.

This is all undoubtedly true. The numbers of hours I’ve spent agonizing over the Initiative, pouring over its details, listening to the administration, reading what students have to say, reviewing relevant research on the topic again and again—it’s taken plenty of time and left room for very little sleep. If I were more prudent, that time could have been spent on my many R&Rs, helping put the icing on my tenure case.

Except until now, I really wasn’t sure what tenure was good for. I never set out to be a professor—I just wanted to question conventional wisdom and address it with the best available social science evidence. I'd do it in whatever setting allowed it. I never worried about unemployment; heck at times I find myself with 3 or even 4 jobs at a time. I am insanely fortunate, I know it, and so I thought how could I expect more? Tenure, I began to think, could be phased out in favor of more competitive salaries.

But today, I get it. At the end of my 5th year as an assistant professor, I just spoke out in a manner that could hurt my job prospects, possibly my research agenda, and who knows what else. I’m not saying anyone will directly throw the hammer at me- not at all. But people will be pissed, and they’ll find ways to make my life difficult. I recognize that.

So why bother? Why not wait until I had tenure- and true academic freedom? Because I’m not a professor just anywhere—this is Madison. Madison, for pete’s sake—the place where every academic in the country believes anyone can and does speak their mind, and is praised for it. I am deeply proud of this University’s tradition, and I want it upheld.

And in this case, the truth simply couldn’t wait. In my reading, the research here is unequivocal. I’ve got mountains of evidence that truly open discussions were not occurring, and could not under institutional constraints. I spend my days with students who have struggled to gain access to UW-Madison, and also with many of those who’d hope to attend but for major financial barriers. Yes, this policy increases financial aid—and that is a wonderful thing. But there were other routes to achieve the same end, and much better policy designs that were never considered or outright rejected. And so it was time to stand up for my students—and even more importantly for the Wisconsin high school graduates from poor families who will never find their way here. My own personal interests (e.g. salary, community of faculty, even tenure) be damned.

I have a two-year-old. When I leave the house every day I think about why I’m bothering. Today, the world knows why. And honestly, I’m both proud—and scared.

On Tenure

A hot topic in my life lately, though unfortunately something I know next to nothing about. (All's I know is that guaranteed academic freedom is and will continue to be important in my life). So I want to highlight another person's wisdom, from a cool article from Inside Higher Ed entitled "What I Wish I'd Known About Tenure".

These days I'm especially intrigued by the following pearls:
1. "Tenure is based on the university’s needs, not the achievements of those seeking tenure, and the university sets the rules and controls the odds."
2. "...the tenure process is like a form of academic hazing...Your chances of success may also improve if you do not get mired in departmental politics or have major conflicts with powerful departmental members."

So much for the "meritocracy."

Ones to Watch

I tried out a new conference last week-- the American Education Finance Association annual meeting, which was held in Nashville. And while it took awhile to get used to being around so many economists (I'm kidding, just kidding...), I was struck by all of the incredibly bright folks around me, and how many of the junior ones I'd never heard of. It really is so exciting to see where education scholarship is going, with all of these cool 30/40 year-olds running around now!

So I thought I'd highlight a few, in the hopes that others of you will keep an eye on their work too. Here we go, in no particular order:

1. Peter Hinrichs-- Assistant Professor, Georgetown Public Policy Institute. Peter gave the best presentation I heard all week, on a very cool paper about the effects of affirmative action bans. He's clearly got his eye on what matters and how to make snazzy little econometric tricks useful.

2. Tammy Kolbe-- Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, FSU. Tammy is a former Abt gal and AERA/IES postdoc, and she's bringing lots of real world experience to her teaching and research. This woman is a treasure trove of useful information, let me tell you!

3. Judy Scott-Clayton-- Soon-to-be Assistant Professor, Teachers College. I can't tell you how psyched I am that the Community College Research Center is getting a scholar with the chops and pizzaz of Judy. She's done a nifty dissertation on West Virginia that highlights and lowlights all that is merit aid. Plus, you gotta give a girl props for being this insanely bright and productive while raising a toddler.

Next year AEFA will be in Richmond VA-- I know I'll be there, and hope you will too!

Ideas Worth Exploring

You'll have to forgive me for not writing a nice post in complete sentences this morning, as I'm running/flying between Santa Monica and Nashville with hardly any time to spare. But since the policy conversations in Washington these days feel friendly to good ideas, I want to throw some out there -- and see what kind of support we can generate. I'm not claiming any of these are uniquely mine, just that I think they're worth researching further and potentially backing as policies. Here we go:

1. Tie loan forgiveness to college completion. Create incentives for students to choose a loan over long hours of work while in college, and give them a reason to be sure and finish a credential.

2. Forgive student loans as a way to stimulate the economy. Instead of sending people checks, let them keep the money they already have.

3. Do NOT tie need-based grant aid to college completion.

4. Start teacher induction/mentoring programs for junior professors. If we know new k-12 teachers need help getting started teaching kids, why would we think new assistant professors are prepared and able to teach 18-year-olds?

5. Make one during or post-college service option (e.g. for loan forgiveness) serving as a 'college coach' in a high-poverty high school.

In Search of Adult Suspenders

It's hard being junior. After years of starving to get through a dissertation, swimming through the murky seas of the job market, and climbing into a jungle full of publication nightmares and man-eating beasts disguised as service, we assistant professors sometimes find it hard just to wake up in the morning.

It's not that the work is too hard. Nah, we're up for that. Working 80+ hours a week is what we're used to.

And it's not that the pay is too low. Again, we know how to get by.

But what's especially hard to take is the heaping pile of steamy stuff piled on us day in and day out by a system that rewards seniority over innovation and grizzliness over sheer effort. No matter how many times a bright new idea threatens to change the status quo (or perhaps because it does), we get shoved back down. Bring a landmark opportunity to the table? Forget about it, grow up, and go get yourself a pair of adult suspenders before you dare to wear pants. (Meaning, of course, put a real professor on your grant apps or don't bother applying.)

Everyone means well, I know. But look at the evidence: Nobel Prizes are won for the work people do when they're young (e.g. under the age of 50). We're hungry, we're tireless, we kick butt. Why deny it, and question our capacity? What are you afraid of?

What Keeps Me Going

I'm in my 5th year as an assistant professor, and I'm just starting to figure it out. Tonight I received an email that helped clarify things quite a bit...

It comes from a student who took the very first sociology of education class I ever taught. I don't want to identify him so suffice it to say that he's a first-gen college student, an underrepresented minority, who had never traveled outside of Wisconsin when we met. Upon graduation he planned on a career in law, but was accepted by Teach for America and sent to New York City. (Again, he had NEVER been outside of WI....)

I've long wondered what happened to him. Here goes:

"Professor Rab:

Hey I am so sorry and this email is long overdue. I just wanted to give you a quick update on how things are going with me. This past year I completed my 2 years with Teach For America and received my masters in elementary education from Pace University. This past summer I worked for Teach For America as a corps member adviser training the new teachers and it was an awesome experience.

I have decided to remain in the classroom teaching 4th grade at PS XXX in the Bronx. I would like to pursue administration in the future. I have been placed in a lot of leadership positions at school as only a 3rd year teacher: data specialist, data inquiry team chair, school leadership team co-chair, grade team leader, etc. My plate is really full this year but well worth it. I am in the process of applying for grad school's again for a masters in supervision and administration. Following those 2 years I would like to get my PHD in Supervision and administration as well.

I have to say that meeting you and being in your sociology of education class really did inspire me from you being so young and talented at the time and me even being interested in education. Thank you! I hope all is well with your family and work."

And that's it-- I'm staying where I am. Right here. Where clearly, despite my best efforts, I matter.

I'm All Hot About: Jill Biden

I'm tired of hearing Jill Biden called a 'teacher.' Really--no knocks to teachers, but Jill Biden isn't teaching children. Ms. Biden is a professor of English at Delaware Technical and Community College. That's right-- she's one of the "honored but invisible" faculty serving on the front lines of higher education.

Yes, there are "front lines" of higher ed-- as anyone watching the battles between colleges and their states knows, the community college is the dear stepchild of the system. As I describe in a paper I'm working on for the Brookings Institution, every year nearly one million new students enroll in the 1,200 public two-year colleges nationwide. In many states those schools are bursting at the seams, dramatically underfunded and insufficiently respected. This is especially true at the urban community colleges, like DTCC.

When community colleges were founded, they were nearly uniformly small and required relatively little funding. The majority of their campuses were built more than thirty years ago and have not been updated since. Further, while growth in the number of community colleges began to slow in the mid-1970s, enrollment continued to surge. The ratio of enrollment to the number of community colleges grew much more rapidly at urban colleges than at non-urban schools during the period of 1992 to 2002. Given this trend, it is not surprising that many urban community colleges are crowded both day and night, with day classes for younger students and evenings classes for working adults. Many colleges in urban areas were never built to accommodate the sizeable populations they now educate, and the effects of the overcrowding are substantial. Their classrooms lack technology, their science laboratories do not meet current educational standards, most classes are quite large, and with faculty who are often overwhelmed and demoralized.

In the midst of all of this, stands Jill Biden, wife of the future vice-president. There's no doubt that, as she hopes, she is making a difference by working at a community college. One of my most fervent hopes is that she continues her commitment to those important institutions when she moves to Washington and crafts her new agenda. It's about time for a significant revitalization of the American community college, and she's the perfect person to lead the way.

Great (Read: Well-Funded) Places to Work

Today the Chronicle of Higher Education released its Great Colleges to Work For report and also the findings from a Michigan survey about family friendly policies in higher education. There is a single clear cross-cutting finding that brings "duh" to mind: The best colleges and universities to work for are those flush institutions which have the funds to do nice things for their professors.

Appearing at the top of nearly every list for the big schools (whether it's best compensation & benefits, best facilities, work-life balance, job satisfaction, or confidence in senior leadership) are wealthy public & privates: Stanford, Emory, U.Michigan-Ann Arbor, Ohio State... Sure, there are several lesser-known schools on the list (among the best small schools for example), and there are plenty of wealthy places not on this list. But on the whole, it's clear that providing faculty with what they need to do their work & enjoy it requires money. Legislature: listen up!!


Now... where are we on this "balance" thing? Ha! Read the report for more....

Here is where we need to go, now:

1. PAID time off for new biological mothers during AND after the pregnancy.
2. PAID time off for new biological fathers.
3. Stop the tenure clock for new mothers and new fathers, and grant ADDITIONAL extensions for the biological mother (who therefore experiences a pregnancy) and the nursing mother (which in itself is a medical event).
4. Grant UNPAID leave to care for children beyond the 12 weeks (!) allowed by FMLA.
5. Allow for negotiated reduced appointments for parents with child care responsibilities (need not be extraordinary!)
6. Provide for a period of modified duties (e.g. reduced teaching), for example for 1 year, for new parents.


Where should the $$ come from? The report has many good ideas, but most importantly moves beyond simply drawing down the professor's sick leave , vacation leave, and disability benefits. There should be special university AND departmental funds for this purpose. It is absolutely appalling that many schools continue to treat pregnancy and childbirth as any other disability AND simultaneously exert special requirements on moms taking time off (e.g. forcing them to "pay back" their time off, making up teaching later for example) but not imposing those requirements on others taking disability leave (e.g. because of a heart attack).

I could go on and on, and perhaps since I am going through this personally on a daily basis, I'm not in the best position to make policy recommendations. Plus, I have this incredibly supportive husband who's decided to prioritize my career and our family... we should all be so lucky!

Have a good day, folks.

Unsure and Underpaid: No Surprises Here

TIAA-CREF just released a study about early career professors, focusing on those in tenure-track positions. The goal was to learn more about how they assessed their graduate school training and their confidence in their ability to do their current work. The study also covered several other important topics, including the extent to which assistant professors must rely on outside sources of income to make ends meet.

The study finds that the majority of new faculty feel unprepared to do their job, with women reporting lower levels of confidence in their abilities than men. Furthermore most faculty are working for pay outside of their institution, earning between $6-15K per year to supplement their approx $50K 9-month base salaries.

Let me just say : No surprises here! When I landed this very sweet job at Wisconsin, having just graduated from the highly-regarded sociology program at U. Pennsylvania, I arrived and immediately felt as incompetent as I've ever felt in my life. On a daily (hourly) basis I found myself thinking (saying), "I have NO idea how to do this. I can't do this. I'm terrible at this. I'm going to get fired..." I felt bad for my first class of graduate students, most of whom could tell (as their later evaluations revealed) that I hadn't a clue how to teach. In fact, it was my first class ever, since I spent my time at Penn wisely building the research portfolio that enabled me to get a job at a great school like Wisconsin. I never TA'd, and most certainly never taught a summer course-- I've still never taught in the summer actually-- since I was socialized to understand the importance of grant-writing and publishing, relative to those other potential activities.

As for doing non-University work, I've been doing that since grad school too. How was I to survive on $13K per year in Philadelphia, if I insisted on being able to enjoy a good meal once in awhile, and to live alone, rather than with a roommate, so I could get some work done? Certainly some might rightly consider my priorities there a tad off, but the point isn't whether they were right or wrong, but that they led me to seek consulting. When I started consulting I was a third-year grad students (with an MA), and earned about $600-800/day. By the time I graduated I was working for 3 different organizations, and had a couple of dissertation fellowships, bringing my annual income up to approximately $30K. This made for a very hectic, but decent life.

It's very, very hard to consult while doing the work required of an assistant professor, but as my 9 month salary is only $57K, I absolutely have to. Before having a child, maybe it was more or less optional, but now with my annual childcare bill running around $15K, it's a necessity. Since I began here I've done somewhere between $5-15K of consulting a year, and most of the time those gigs are directly related to my academic work, get me good outside connections in the policy world, and will (eventually) result in some peer-reviewed pubs.

I say all this to put more specifics and a face on the survey statistics TIAA-CREF collected. I could envision some positive ways universities could work to minimize outside consulting without having to officially increase our salaries-- for example, by awarding us a cut of the indirect costs associated with our grants, or allowing internal grants to be used to cover childcare, or by providing a childcare stipend or quality on-campus childcare with enough spaces available for faculty kids... In the absence of that-- and perhaps even in the presence of it, since many consult because they enjoy it, and not because they need the money for childcare-- outside work will go on.

Now, lest I leave you with the impression that I dislike my gig here, a few parting thoughts. If I had it to do over again, I say with 99% certainty that I'd still choose a faculty career. And I haven't even enjoyed tenure yet. I'm not alone -- 92% of those in the TIAA-CREF survey said the same, even though more than one third report that the workload is heavier than they expected. According to the survey, we love our jobs because we enjoy teaching, working on campus, and serving society and we like the challenge the job presents. We stay in spite of a workload we find too heavy, pay that is too low, and the knowledge that work often takes priority over the rest of our lives, leading our family and friends to criticize us, we don't see them as often, and we work even when we're sick. Barely one fourth of us feel that we have time to read for pleasure or keep up with the news, and only slightly more find the time to exercise. Yet we stay, and we want to stay. Odd ducks, aren't we?

I'm Not the Only One

Yesterday Kevin Carey considered the NY Times piece, and what he knows of me, and concluded that "that the liberal professoriate is alive and well."

I think he's completely correct, and want to highlight some fine examples of my junior colleagues who also prove his point (for the record, my senior colleagues confirm his impression too). I am-- by far-- not the only academic focused on issues of inequality and striving to use rigorous methods to examine them.

For starters, one only needs to look across the hall from my office, next door to my esteemed colleague Mike Olneck, where you can find Doug Harris, Nancy Kendall, Adam Nelson, and Tricia Burch. All in the throes of early careers, all making outstanding contributions to the study of educational policy by choosing their topics and approaches with an eye towards clear identification of both problems and solutions.

Adam is an historian whose painstaking attention to detail and beautiful writing increases our awareness of the broader and longstanding social issues which shape current policy debates. For an example, see his well-reviewed book, The Elusive Ideal: Equal Educational Opportunity and the Federal Role in Boston's Public Schools, 1950–1985. Adam brings just as much of his energy to his teaching, conveying an affinity and talent for undergraduate education that most parents just dream their kids will get exposure to,

Doug Harris, far more well-known than I, burst on the academic scene fresh from the Economic Policy Institute, and quickly established himself as a thoughtful leader of the movement to measure teacher quality in an objective, comprehensive, yet accessible way. He is a jack of all trades, as many of the best economists are, even daring to collaborate with me (poor boy!) on a ridiculously large study of financial aid. His approach could never be considered partisan, and as a result he has fans on both the right and the left. I certainly count myself among them.

Tricia Burch somehow (how? How???) manages to be an outstanding teacher and mentor (according to every student I've met) while also generating careful conceptual and empirical work on educational policy and practice. And, to top it all off, she is a departmental leader of the movement to value one's family, as well as one's academic life. She has a forthcoming book, as well as two gorgeous children and a very happy marriage. Most impressive.

Finally, there is Nancy Kendall, our most recent hire. Better than almost anyone, Nancy simultaneously represents the old guard and the new, with her deep commitment to questioning normative conceptions of equity and her extremely sensitive and thorough ethnographic approach to understanding the lives of children in the most vulnerable situations. Nancy and her beautiful baby and husband will spend the next year in Mozambique, as part of a Fulbright fellowship.

Colleagues like these promise that the academy going forward will never leave behind the past, but will at the same time find new ways to work and teach that should hopefully demonstrate to more Americans that higher education need not be considered the domain of the elite.

I Never Knew I Was (A) Moderate

I've been accused of many things-- being outspoken, outrageous, even out of my mind. But never, never, had I been called (a) moderate. Until yesterday, when Patti Cohen labeled me as such on the front page of the New York Times .

I'm still getting used to this publicity thing. I've been told it's all good. Even a bad picture is worth printing. So, I really can't complain. And in the spirit of the whole-truth and nothing-but, I kinda knew this was coming. Patti and I spoke numerous times over the last 3 or 4 months, and I had a sense that the complexity of what I was describing to her was going to (have to?) get boiled down.

So the readers missed a big part of the story: The intense pressures to publish or perish constantly, to get grants to support not only ourselves but our students, the ramping up of statistical standards, and the enormous benefits (and costs) of "specializing" very early in school. I declared my college major in the first semester of freshman year, and took nearly nothing but sociology courses for the next 6 years. Where did it get me? A BA in 3.5 years, and a PhD within 5 years after that. And I did learn a lot along the way-- but it was far from a classical experience. And the current reward structure provides little space for political activism -- indeed it leaves no time whatsoever for any real activism, if one wants to also have a family.

Equally important, the story missed my wonderful relationship with Mike Olneck, my friend and mentor at Wisconsin. Mike is one of the reasons I came here, and a prime reason why I stay. His departure this winter will be nothing less than depressing.

Now, enough complaining, since the front page of the Times is the freakin' front page of the TIMES! Tres cool. I've gotten some incredible emails from folks sharing their stories of injustice and inequality, and I plan to share some of them, gradually, over the next couple of days (in between selling my house and planning my move into a new one, plus finishing 2 long-delayed papers, and trying to celebrate this holiday with my kid & husband). So, stay tuned...