Maybe there is a parallel universe ...
> ----------
> From: Edryce Reynolds
> Reply To: Management Education and Development Discussion
> Sent: Friday, 16 November 2001 12:57 PM
> To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
> Subject: Re: ARTICLE EXCERPT: Germany Set to Link Professors' Pay to
> Performance
>
> This seems like a very bad idea to me. "Performance"
> as a professor defined as papers published, patents,
> or administrative duties avoids the issue of what I
> believe "should" be the primary focus of a
> "professor": TEACHING!! Of course that would be
> another can of worms, because how would performance as
> a teacher be measured?
>
> Looks like Germany is trying to solve the brain drain
> problem too superficially.
>
> Edryce
>
> --- Charles Wankel <
wankelc@optonline.net> wrote:
> > Germany Set to Link Professors' Pay to Performance
> > By VIVIEN MARX
> > Chronicle of Higher Education, Thursday, November
> > 15, 2001
> >
> > Germany is about to pass legislation that would link
> > pay to performance
> > for all 30,000 of the nation's professors.
> >
> > "This is the most sweeping reform of the university
> > system since the
> > '60s," said Edelgard Bulmahn, the German minister of
> > education and
> > science.
> >
> > After being passed by the Bundestag, the lower house
> > of the German
> > parliament, last Friday, the law is headed in the
> > next few weeks for the
> > second house of parliament, the Bundesrat, where
> > observers say approval
> > is practically certain.
> >
> > The new law will establish what for Germany will be
> > a novel payment plan
> > in which a quarter to a third of professors' pay
> > will be based on their
> > performance. The reform will also establish new
> > positions, junior
> > professors, aimed at recruiting younger researchers
> > to faculty posts.
> > The government plans to support 3,000 junior
> > professorships over the
> > next five years.
> >
> > "We can no longer afford to lose our brightest
> > minds," Ms. Bulmahn said
> > in a speech to legislators. "In the '90s, 15 percent
> > of all Ph.D.'s went
> > to the United States to seek employment."
> >
> > Currently, faculty members earn pay raises based
> > only on seniority. The
> > new plan establishes two grades of base pay, with
> > the final pay linked
> > to performance criteria -- the number of published
> > papers or patents for
> > a researcher, for example, or the degree of
> > administrative
> > responsibilities a professor takes on, such as
> > department chairmanships.
> > While salaries cannot go below the base pay, they
> > are no longer capped
> > at an upper limit. According to Ms. Bulmahn, this
> > measure would make
> > German universities more competitive with
> > institutions outside Germany.
> >
> > Debate has raged for months on the new payment
> > rules. Earlier this year,
> > 3,759 faculty members from across the country signed
> > a letter of protest
> > that ran as a four-page advertisement in the
> > Frankfurter Allgemeine
> > Zeitung, a respected daily newspaper. The
> > faculty-and-staff association
> > of the Universities of Applied Sciences went even
> > further. In a mock
> > obituary in Die Zeit
http://www.zeit.de/ , a
> > national weekly, the
> > association claimed that its institutions had
> > "passed away," with
> > "funeral proceedings to be held by the members of
> > the German parliament
> > by the end of 2001."
> >
> > According to Günter Siegel, president of that
> > association as well as
> > president of the University of Applied Science, in
> > Berlin, the new law
> > means lower pay for the average professor, thus
> > decreasing the
> > possibility of attracting faculty members.
> >
> > According to the Association of German Universities,
> > professorships in
> > general will be "weakened." When comparing
> > philosophers and computer
> > scientists, the association argues, it is not
> > performance but market
> > value that will be used as the decisive criterion
> > for payment. That, in
> > turn, will lead to a demise in the humanities, the
> > association says.
> >
> > While many faculty associations and the university
> > rectors' conference
> > generally support reforms, they worry that no extra
> > money is going to be
> > given to universities for professors' pay. "The
> > basic math of that is
> > that if we decide to pay some professors more, the
> > money will have to
> > come from another professor's salary," explains Mr.
> > Siegel.
>
>
> __________________________________________________
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