UT Faculty Productivity Gets High Marks in New Report
Despite the arguments of critics in recent months, Marc Musick, the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Liberal Arts associate dean of student affairs, makes the case in a new faculty productivity report that his institution provides “an incredible return on investment for the state.”
Using data from the 2009-10 academic year made public by the University of Texas System this summer, Musick found that UT professors generated revenue of more than twice their compensation of $257 million in state funds for salary and benefits. By combining the amount of money paid by the state via a student ...
Comments (7)
Mark D. Hayward via Texas Tribune on Facebook
A thoughtful approach to assessing productivity. Thanks.
David Spratt
More twisted accounting practices that escape most people , since they just do not think about it. If I owned a business that produced widgets and sales were slow. Needing a government loan to increase my widget production but sales are not high enough. Simple solution , I buy all my ecess widgets myself. Sales have now gone through the roof and the business is profitable again?
This is exactly what they are claiming. State funds pay them , state funds pay for per head enrollment. Quite a bit is coming from the same source which in the conventional sense is not ' revenue generation.' If we were to double the amount of money sent from the state next year , they would come out and claim they had also doubled revenue to the university system. Sounds real good till you realize where the money is really coming from.
The same thing just happened in Ohio. The unions spent 30 million $ of members dues to convince them to roll back the law restricting collective bargaining for PUBLIC EMPLOYEES. The people turned out and voted it down. The battle cry was probably ' power to the people' and ' we will take back our rights.' Yea they really showed those mean greedy lawmakers. If they were corporate employees I could even understand them thinking they were sticking it to ' the man.' Who exactly did they stick it to , except themselves? Each and every citizen of the state of Ohio will end up paying higher taxes and user fees as a result. they have 66 billion in unfunded pension funds already !!! Where will this money come from ? Just a prime example of sheeple being snookered again.
I find the situation in Ohio amusing , since I do not live there. These types of situtions I find less amusing because I live in Texas. They continue to come and ask for more , and then turn around and tell us all ' See what a good job we are doing, revenues are up and the Universities are taking in more money than ever.' This is supposed to make me feel good?
Patrick Timmons via Texas Tribune on Facebook
How about including data from graduate students on exit? We have or had a relationship dependent on productive faculty mentors. Most of us filled our surveys out. I think mine went into cold storage.
Joy Mitchell via Texas Tribune on Facebook
One assumes our governor and his minions actually care about education. I don't think they do.
Erin Anderson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Joy, how do we assess how much we "care about education"? By how much money is spent? If so, spent on what - teacher salaries, research, new facilities, student scholarships? And given that resources are limited, how do we assess if we're getting the best return on those resources?
The report states that professors generate twice their compensation in revenue. (So where’s all that “extra” money spent?) Schools need to be self-supporting, but their “goal” is not to make money – it’s to educate students. 2-1 is a meaningless statistic if tuition rates continue to skyrocket, students are failing to graduate or acquire valuable job skills, or research being conducted is of no practical value. A big problem is that prices are disconnected from the marketplace due to third-party payment via govt loans/grants, and there seems to be an academic disconnect as well between what students are learning and what they can sell in the job market. Finally, as in K-12, “quality” of education is difficult to quantify, esp in terms of dollars – a “productive” professor by this measure is not necessarily a “good” professor in terms of teaching students.
T D
@Erin Anderson
Yes, Erin: what you spend money on is usually a good sign of what you value.
Dave Crooke via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I'd like to see a justification of Mac Bron's salary