No counteroffer policy hurts students and faculty

Kathryn Justice
DM senior staff columnist

A pretty forboding university policy came to light earlier this week, and I don't think many people noticed.

I probably wouldn't have noticed right away either had it not been the first subject both of my professors mentioned in my two English classes on Tuesday.

The university has gone on record as stating that it is their across-the-board policy that no counter-offers be made when a faculty member gets a job offer at another school, regardless of that faculty member's abilities as teacher, scholar or campus leader.

None. No matter what.

The preceding policy statement was made by Provost Carolyn Staton to a reporter and published in Tuesday's paper in reference to English and Southern Studies professor and interim chair of the English department Bob Brinkmeyer's decision to take a job at the University of Arkansas.

To paraphrase one of his comments to a reporter, what would have been a difficult decision was made pretty easy by the university's refusal to present a counter-offer to him.

A remarkable teacher and scholar is leaving Ole Miss without a word from the administration.

I guess the point the administration is trying to make is that at "great public universities-in-progress," outstanding faculty members aren't really that necessary.

One of the purported reasons for this inflexible policy is, according to Staton, that making counter-offers to faculty members with job offers elsewhere might damage the "overall employee morale."

I guess the dangers do need to be examined. We don't want our best professors thinking that just because they enrich the academic atmosphere at the University of Mississippi and improve the almighty "image" of the university that they're going to be valued by the administration to the point that it would actually go out of its way to try to keep them.

Another excuse for the policy is that the money that would go towards funding counter-offers might deplete the coffers to the point that senior faculty members wouldn't be able to get the raises they deserve.

I don't think many people can swallow that one--are we really that bum-ass broke? It seems to me like we get a billion dollar check in the mail just about every week.

Obviously, not every faculty member who gets another job offer should be made a counter-offer by the university -- not all faculty members are worth it.

But to have an across-the-board policy? Talk about hurting morale.

The English department is in an uproar. Not only because it will acutely feel the loss of Bob Brinkmeyer as a colleague and scholar, but also because the manner of his departure says volumes to them about the attitude of the administration towards other faculty members in the department.

But this problem is a lot bigger than the English department, and they know it. There isn't a person connected to the university that shouldn't be concerned about the stance of the administration on this matter--at least to the point of investigation.

I feel the university needs to explain itself. If "the powers that be" feel I've oversimplified the issue or misrepresented the facts, I would love to be corrected. Write a letter to the editor! Make some sort of public statement! I'm all ears.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the administration is, though.

I don't write this column to bitch for the sake of bitching. I write it because I want to keep this issue alive in the minds of both the faculty and students. I don't want it to go away -- I want to understand the rationale behind the university's policy against any sort of bargaining. And if the explanation still comes up short, I want as many people as possible to make a stink about it.

If we are to be "one of America's great public universities," the administration must have the willingness and power to hold onto the faculty members that are helping us get there. And if the money's really not there right now, the university needs to go out of its way to find some.

Otherwise, we're just a sort of training camp for academics where they can make a name for themselves here, and get the credit they deserve somewhere else. And leave us the worse off for it.

Kathryn Justice is a junior English major from Memphis.