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Free-Riding Faculty

Christopher Pynes

At my university a decade long enrollment decline has reached a crisis point, and for twenty months (and counting) Illinois has operated without a state budget. The university is now focusing on increasing both enrollment and non-state funding, but this effort has done little to quell faculty unrest from some administrative decisions—namely layoffs.

During this tumultuous time, I have been Faculty Senate Chair. One thing that has been made abundantly clear to me is that the vast majority of faculty do not know what’s happening on campus—I call them free-riders. Free-riding faculty take little responsibility for anything beyond their classes and research. They don’t understand that student recruitment and retention is part of the job—that, in fact, our survival depends upon it.

With little faculty input, the day to day running of the university is left to administrators (often career non-academic administrators). Faculty, however, should be proactive rather than reactive to administrative decisions with which they disagree. Naturally, it is difficult to impress this upon colleagues in boom times when growth is good, and we rarely think of lean times (lay-offs, downsizing, and budget cuts).

Exacerbating the problem is a faculty tendency to forget the ideal of shared governance. Faculty must help govern the university else we become subject to administrators who may not understand the value of philosophy as a major or as part of general education curriculum.

Don’t be a free-rider:

  1. Understand your university’s curriculum and philosophy’s place in it.
  2. Actively participate in faculty governance.
  3. Know the external forces that impact the health of your college or university.
  4. Promote a positive image of faculty in your community.
  5. Do your share of service work.

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9 responses to “Free-Riding Faculty”

  1. Daniel Kaufman

    Preach it brother!

    I've not only been a Faculty Senate rep for several terms, but I have also done a stint as Department Head, as well as Chairing our College Council, which makes all the curricular decisions at the college level.

    These are absolutely crucial functions. And at least at my university, the people who turn up their noses the most are the big-shot academics. They also are the one's who complain the most, when administrators do stuff they don't like.

    Reply
  2. Tim

    Really brief question: do you have specific advice about how to accomplish #4?

    Reply
  3. Chris

    I totally agree that we faculty have a duty not to be free-riders. But I wish there were some way to reward this. As things stand, free-riding is what is strongly rewarded. Where I work (and I think this is true at most R1's), the only way to get a good raise — in fact, the only way to get a raise that simply keeps your salary in line with market rates — is to get outside offers. And virtually the only way to get outside offers is through excellence in research. Furthermore, being a big shot in the profession is also achieved only through research excellence. Thus, every hour spent being a good university citizen is an hour taken away from achieving fortune and glory in one's field. (For this reason, I am sure it is no accident that, as Daniel Kaufman noted, the people who turn up their noses the most are the big-shot academics.)

    Of course, people are also sometimes moved by the motive of duty rather than just fortune and glory. But I fear that until the incentives change (and I no have expectation that they will change and have no idea how they could change), free-riders will get the rewards and good university citizens will feel like suckers.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    “Free-riding faculty … don’t understand that student recruitment and retention is part of the job—that, in fact, our survival depends upon it.”

    I’m a tenured associate prof at a regionally ranked institution, and I want to push on this a bit.

    Suppose your university is in a “race to the bottom,” seeking to address enrollment issues by lowering standards and then placing increasing demands on faculty to “meet the needs” of under-prepared students.

    Suppose the institution’s recruitment efforts are designed to cater to the expectations of an increasingly entitled and consumerist pool of prospective students who, for instance, expect to be able to make campus visits, change their areas of interest up to the very last minute, and then have a faculty member from that area present to meet with them?

    Suppose that folks from Admissions and Enrollment Management are invited to weigh-in on various curriculum proposals aimed at making parts of the Gen Ed curriculum more academically rigorous, and that faculty are expected to take seriously their complaint that such changes will make recruitment more difficult.

    Suppose one has an in-principle objection to all of this, has “fought the good fight” through the appropriate channels of faculty governance, but has so far been losing that fight – in part because faculty discussion of such matters was quashed by administrative fiat.

    Does one still have the same obligation to participate in recruitment and retention efforts under such conditions? Are those who choose the route of non-cooperation "free-riders"?

    Reply
  5. Daniel Kaufman

    Welcome to the real world.

    What you describe here is pretty much every regional institution, including my own. We do our best, with what we have.

    And yes, we — those in my department — would hold it against you, if you dumped your workload on us, because you are too principled. Be moral at your own expense, not ours. Because the work still needs to get done.

    Of course, you can always resign. But if you're going to keep accepting the paychecks, then you need to do the work like everyone else.

    (If you are frustrated with what you are able/unable to do via Faculty Senate and other such bodies, you are, of course, welcome to stand out with a sign in front of the Administration building. Certainly, when our administration was trying to close down the University Child Development Center, where many faculty had their children enrolled — including me — we found public shaming in the local media quite effective. Still, you may lose. That also is part of real life in the real world.)

    Reply
  6. Daniel Kaufman

    It is also worth noting that sometimes, the things administration is doing that you think are so terrible are actually the better versions of even worse things that the knuckle-draggers and mouth breathers in their respective state legislatures are trying to make them do. That is often the case in our case. The choice isn't between good and bad, but between bad and worse.

    Reply
  7. Christopher Pynes

    Tim —

    Faculty are in many smaller communities, sort of celebrities. I know it sounds dumb, but everyone knows when you are a professor in a small town. So that means that you will have extra scrutiny when you do things. For example, don't stiff the pizza delivery guy. This was an issue with a high ranking administrator who had to be told not to do that. It's wrong and just looks bad.

    I hate to say it this way, but you don't get to stop being a professor when you are in the grocery or getting gas or walking your dog. You will be judged if you cut someone off or don't pick up your dog's shit. Essentially, you have to be an upstanding member of the community — at all times. Of course, the larger the community the more likely no one will know anything about you and when you don't pick up your dog's shit; they don't blame it on a professor, but that jerk with the Maltipoo.

    I will leave it to other to talk about how they might promote a positive image of a professor, but in my case, this is what I am talking about. Make no mistake, if you want people to not like professor, then be the person who is a jerk who makes more than most everyone else in town. Then see if they don't like it when your budget gets cut. People believe faculty are privileged with our tenure and summers off (ha). Don't make it easier for them to dislike you for things you can't control, but rather make them appreciate you because you are good person in the community who happens to be a professor.

    Reply
  8. Christopher Pynes

    One day a colleague told me that "This job is easy." My reply arrived with irritation in my voice: "If you think this job is easy, then you're doing it wrong!" The person has remained, to this day, a free-rider faculty member who behaves as if the job were easy. So, yes, never starting or giving up is not an option. If you don't think you can do the job properly, as Daniel Kaufman suggest, you could quit. But the admin would probably welcome the cost savings.

    Take a break and recharge your batteries for a semester or two, but don't leave you colleagues to do all the drudgery forever.

    If you are having trouble with administrative fiat, then work harder to strengthen shared governance ideals and policies. Policies are important. Know the rules and make the admin follow them because sometimes they don't. Leadership matters and without a doubt, those in charge both admin and faculty leaders will determine priorities. If you aren't there, your priorities are likely to go unheard.

    Reply
  9. Anonymous

    I didn’t mean to suggest that one would exempt oneself alone from that work and dump it on others – clearly that’s a jerky thing to do. I only meant to raise a question about the OP’s remark that “student recruitment and retention is part of the job.” Given some of the nonsense I’ve witnessed recently, this seemed to me to be crying out for a “ceteris paribus” or a “within reason” or some such qualification.

    I’m at an institution where most folks do their share (and more) of institutional service, but the faculty as a whole tends to be quite passive in the face of administrative fiat. That makes it very frustrating for those of us who try to realize the ideal of shared governance the appropriate channels – we take our stands, make our cases, find little to no support among our colleagues, and get tossed-aside by the administrative juggernaut time and again. It gets old. (And with this in mind I appreciate the constructive suggestions from Kaufman and Pynes concerning how to deal with administrative fiat. If only I could get a sufficient number of my colleagues to hold signs with me! I’ve actually suggested holding sit-ins in the admin building from time to time. No takers. )

    Perhaps what I’m identifying here is a different species of “free-riding.” When people show up to committee and senate meetings and such but won’t use those positions to stand effectively against “administrators who do not understand the value of (fill in the blank),” it’s just as good as not showing up at all.

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