Article HERE.
I can't quite figure out what's going on. One key quote:
Jindal’s chief budget architect, Paul Rainwater, said Wednesday that universities must focus more resources on the classroom and make better use of taxpayer funds.
“We need to make sure the course load is maxed out and people aren’t taking sabbaticals,” said Rainwater, the state’s commissioner of administration, adding that LSU’s flagship campus has 19 faculty on sabbaticals. “That happens nowhere else in the real world.”
. . .Rainwater also criticized tenured professors, the most senior faculty, for often having smaller teaching loads than lesser-paid instructors.
The whole public relations initiative is reinforcing the populist pretense that LSU faculty are somehow sneakily getting away with something with our 2-2 loads and sabbaticals.
I came out of my post-tenure sabbatical with a co-written book in press at Routledge, three new articles, and thousands of dollars of debt my family incurred covering the cost of moving to and from another institution for a year. I wasn't getting away with anything, just doing my job the best I could. . .
I don't know. Maybe Louisiana should have a conversation about whether the citizens are willing to support a research intensive university. But I don't think it's too much to ask that this be done without demonizing faculty or misleading the citizens about what is normal in other states.
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