The following email was received 26 November 2000. I write now to present a slightly different take on the question of faculty compensation. One reason that the issue of faculty compensation and the university's true priorities have become hot buttons is the accelerating erosion of the quality of the faculty's working lives over the past 10 years.
Fewer faculty do the work that used to be shared among a larger team.
I came to the UO in 1989, canceling campus interviews at Emory, Utah and Loyola, for the quality of life dividend. Frankly I don't see my current quality of life as sufficiently high to offset my salary, but I remain more concerned about quality of life than about salary. The deep morale problem I see on this campus is unlikely to be solved by even the most improbably munificent raises.