I have made a number of sacrifices in my life for which I take full responsibility. As I sit at my aged desk, chipped coffee mug beside me, I stare out from my porch in the Berkeley Hills and ponder my future.
It has been said that "A" students become professors while "B" students end up working for "C" students. This wisdom was shared by a self-admitted "C" student who occupies an 8,000-sqare-foot house further up Shasta Road from me. His remark rang true: I was that "A" student; I am that professor.
We Berkeley faculty have been asked to take furlough days amounting to pay cuts of four to ten per cent. These furloughs have increased the gap between the annual salaries of senior faculty and those at comparable private institutions like Harvard and Princeton (with whom we vie for professors) from $29,000 to $48,000.
If one is a partner at a Greenwich, Connecticut hedge fund and discovers that another partner has taken home $48,000 more in the previous year, there are probably no hard feelings. Neither knows precisely what he or she has "earned"; it's merely known to be seven or eight figures and $48K is acknowledged as a three-day weekend in Mustique.
But I earned only $142,000 last year and when I bring in my old Volvo for servicing, I must scrutinize the bill. I decided long ago that I could either be a nurturer or an exploiter. I chose the former and have never regretted it. But I do regret a pay cut. In fact, I resent it.
I don't teach at an Ivy League university: I labor in the public sector. I have faithfully offered students (many from low-income families) one or two courses per semester (not counting sabbaticals) for the past 27 years. I am now rewarded with a mandatory furlough. I don't want additional time off. Though I teach Turedsday and Thursday mornings and host an office hour Wednesday afternoon, I nevertheless find time to conduct my research and to write.
I wonder if my fellow cultural anthropologists at Stanford have their wastepaper baskets emptied once every two weeks. Such is the situation here at the University of California. The other Ph.D.s and I are often forced to compress the trash with our feet so that the bin does not overflow.
Yes, I'm fortunate to teach in California in the Bay Area at the state's flagship university. Yes, I appreciate residing in an airy, Japanese-inspired home which boasts rock garden, small ornamental koi pond, and many floral varieties. Indeed, the 335 days of sunshine each year are a balm to my weary soul. But an 8% reduction in pay? When all is said and done, those striking Yale clerical workers put it best those many years ago: "You can't eat prestige."
One tires of hearing how "lucky" one is every time one picks up the newspaper. Barack Obama earns $400,000 per year and has perks too numerous to mention, but I can assure you he doesn't tamp down his watepaper basket every other week. For eight years our president was a blithering idiot and Obama's arrival was heralded as manna from Heaven. "How grateful we are to have a brilliant president," swooned the press. Forgive me for saying so, but I am one of the few people in these United States who's actually as smart as Barack Obama. And yet I earn less than half his salary. Where is the nation's gratitude for my presence on campus, for my years of public service?
If I were to defect to Penn or Columbia or even (God help me, Austin), my department would never be able to fill the resultant gap. Not at less than $150K per year and ever-diminishing pension funding (my TIAA-CREF annuity yield is currently down to 3.15%).
Anthropology is a little-understood field (often confused with archeology by the unlettered). Allow me to clarify my achievements. I graduated summa cum laude (this means with highest honors) from Haverford College (an elite school on the outskirts of Philadelphia). I then did graduate work at Cambridge (the one in England) and my thesis was published by Oxford University Press (again, in England). Do you still believe I am worth less than 1/87th the average salary of an adequate major league relief pitcher?
Unfortunately, I'm a sentimentalist and know that I'm not going to find a koi pond in Princeton. Maybe on the Seward Johnson estate, but even there it would freeze over four months per year. I love the bougainvillea that tumbles down my hillside, being greeted personally by Alice at Chez Panisse, my wild rose bushes, my bonsai, teak outbuildings, and, yes, I love (a few of) my (graduate-level) students. Perhaps, I'd best just wrap my kimono tighter, grit my teeth, and stay.
