There has been a lot of fundraising going on lately. And I’m not just talking about the most expensive presidential primary in history.
Republican-Libertarian Ron Paul set two one-day online fundraising records while we were on break. Republican preacher and evolution-denier Mike Huckabee greatly increased his political fortune after winning in Iowa, and John McCain received an infusion of cash after his win in New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are on track to spend over $100 million each.
There is a myth that Americans rally behind the underdog. In fact, most Americans equate underdog with loser. Phil Bennett was a loser. (Just imagine if George Bush were held as accountable for his seven failed years as Bennett was for his five losing seasons.)
Enter June Jones, the program-turner-arounder, for whom a handful of SMU alumni chipped in $10 million to restore SMU football to its glory days.
Upon reading about the Jones deal, I wrote a letter to the editor of The Dallas Morning News criticizing the SMU administration for its misguided priorities.
As you might imagine, my e-mail box was inundated with responses. How dare I criticize – one said embarrass, another said berate – SMU in public! And besides, they reminded me, SMU isn’t paying Jones’ salary; donors are. As if that changes anything.
Besides the predictably puerile response, “If you don’t like it, go teach somewhere else,” not a few writers accused me of hating football. A writer to the DMN commented that I didn’t appreciate the beauty of the athletic form, adding that I probably wouldn’t complain if someone donated a $2 million painting to the Meadows. He’s right. I wouldn’t. And if he doesn’t understand the difference, SMU is not doing its job. Few people remember the names of the ancient Olympians, while most educated people appreciate the contributions of Aristotle, Archimedes, Homer, Pythagoras, Plato and Euripides.
One anonymous student reveled in the fact that my $30,000 annual salary is less than what he pays for a year’s tuition. Yeah, I think that’s funny too. And I’m sure President Turner, Provost Ludden and Dean Brettell are all rolling on the floor. Maybe that’s what the e-mailer meant about “embarrassing” SMU.
Another e-mailer suggested that I do my own fundraising. I’m not sure the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations will be willing to hand over its fundraising lists. The idea of benefactors supplementing salaries, however, is not new. In fact, Stella Porter Russell left a significant sum to SMU to enhance what she considered to be insufficient salaries of faculty members with “significant teaching responsibilities.”
While Jones was commenting to the press last week how ratty the training facilities were at Hawaii and how luxurious they are at SMU, one of my students commented on how ratty our classroom in Clements Hall is: peeling paint, mismatched desks, soiled carpet, broken blinds, faded blackboard. Clements Hall hasn’t been renovated since 1965. Short of a pledge by SMU to change the name (again), the chances of anyone donating money to renovate it (again) are slim. The problem of space and mediocre classrooms in Clements Hall is nothing new. Marli Maurin wrote about it in 1997 while she was a student here. In the last 10 years, the problem hasn’t been addressed, much less solved. Every student who has had a problem getting into a Spanish course should know why: money (to pay lecturers) and classrooms (to house classes).
The reality is, the majority of benefactors donate money with the expectation that their philanthropy and name be forever immortalized in stone. Many SMU donors prefer to leave their name on a building. Others may endow professorships or chairs. Certainly such endowments are important. However, the vast majority of students never have a class with one of those professors. In fact, the majority of students who pass through foreign languages and literatures will never take a course from a tenured faculty member.
While my critics may not see the value of paying competitive wages to its lecturers, administrators claim that raising salaries is a priority. Their rhetoric doesn’t match their action. In the five years I have taught at SMU, not only has there not be a substantive increase in salaries, the modest increases that have been given have failed to keep pace with inflation.
Still, philanthropy at SMU has been on an upward surge. Harold and Annette Simmons donated $20 million to SMU’s School of Education and Human Development. Caren Protho just gave $3.6 million to the Department of Biological Sciences. The W.W. Caruth Jr. Foundation threw down a cool $10.1 million for the engineering department. To say that SMU’s fundraisers have been busy would be an understatement. My question is this: What effort have they invested in wooing another benefactor or benefactrix like Stella Porter Russell?
Perhaps Dr. Turner will set up a meeting with a few of SMU’s A-list donors – like Gerald J. Ford – so that I can make a pitch. If not Mr. Ford, perhaps one of the many Dallasites who are donating large sums of money (a million here and a million there) to fund the Bush Presidential Library. There has to be at least one Maecenas out there who sees the merit in raising lecturer salaries.
If not one of Bush’s Dallas donors, perhaps one from the Middle East. Although I’m sure SMU lecturer salaries weren’t on the president’s mind during his recent fundraising tour of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a trip that Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco, characterized as “one photo-op after another […] with petro-sheikhs and Arab kings” that had less to do with Middle East peace than “the construction costs of the planned Bush Presidential Library.”
Does anyone have the King Abdullah’s phone number? Maybe the Young Conservatives of Texas could hold a bake sale.
About the writer:
George Henson is a Spanish professor. He can be reached at [email protected].
