>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
>>The trustees, and apparently ultimately the legislature, has decided
>>it wants to put UIC on the academic map. Can anyone explain the logic
>>of this? Does it make economic sense, or is it mainly vanity?
>
>Since the money for these hires are no doubt being made with funds from rich
>donors - who are no doubt putting their names on buildings and endowed
>fellowships- how can you separate "economic sense" from vanity in such a
>situation. Intellectual prestige is all about vanity.
I don't think UIC has much in the way of rich donors or an endowment. I was told that UIC doesn't have the riches to supplement state salaries with private funds, which better-off state unis like UVa do.
Back in 1978 or 1979, a friend of mine who preceded me in dropping out of the UVa English dept went to work for the local paper, the awful Daily Progress. He filed a FOIA request for all professorial salaries, and they published it as a supplement one day. There were huge variations - between medicine and English, of course, but also within dept's there were discrepancies at the same rank and experience of $15,000, which was a lot 23 years ago, thanks to supplementary private funds. Do other state unis do this?
Doug