University pay systems need a big examination

A Nov. 26 Gazette editorial asks “Why keep paying for no work?”

For the ordinary and sensible working-class person this question is a “no-brainer,” especially considering that the beneficiaries of the $430,000 in payments (which are continuing to mount) are a University of Iowa professor already convicted of assault and another UI professor who appears already to have confessed to falsely reporting a stabbing to Chicago police. How can anyone even begin to make sense of this?

In the ethereal realm of academe, you find a culture that has scant appreciation or respect for the fact that money placed at its disposal is supplied by other people through taxes and tuition.

And, most wondrous, you find a world in which many (not all) of its inhabitants are paid for doing little.

Doing little for a lot holds especially true among professors who have been granted tenure - a lifetime guarantee of a nice salary and handsome benefits. But tenure, as more people are coming to realize, allows too many academics to opt for a life of leisure before easing the short distance into full retirement.

In light of all this, where is our Board of Regents? Isn't it the job of the regents to oversee and exercise control over our university system?

Larry Blades

Dean, Iowa Law School, 1971-76

Iowa City