Recently, the Board of Visitors announced the winners of the first-ever Student Professorships at the College. These Professorships came from the Save a Professor initiative proposed in the fall of 2003 by former Student Assembly President Brian Cannon. In December 2003, a referendum was presented to the College’s student body about raising Student Activities fees by $5 in order to create three $10,000 grants. Half of the money would go towards the professor’s salary, and the other is to be used to further research. The students voted overwhelmingly for this. In the spring semester of 2004, the Student Assembly Senate voted on how the committee would work, and during the fall of that year the Save a Professor committee met to make its choice on who would receive the Professorships.
Recent surveys have shown that College faculty members are not paid a competitive salary. Even with recent proposals by Governor Warner to increase faculty pay by 3%, it still does not put the salaries in the 60th percentile, the percentile deemed competitive by the state. As many as 68% of professors at the College had thought about applying for jobs at other universities, sometimes at schools of lesser caliber than William and Mary. Many professors have already left the College as a result of this low pay.
During the Fall 2005 semester, a committee of students met to decide which professors to award the Save a Professor grants to. Below is a profile of the professors and a few questions about what they want to do with the money.
Professor Margaret Saha, the Class of 2005 Professor for Biology, began teaching at the College in 1993. Her fields of specialty are Developmental Biology and Molecular Neurobiology, specifically with regards to how the nervous system develops.
Class of 2006 Professor LuAnn Homza received her PhD. from the University of Chicago in 1992 and began teaching at the College that year. Her primary area of study is Spanish religious institutions during the Renaissance. She has published numerous books and will use the research portion of the award to help fund another project.
Professor Barbara King, the Class of 2007 Professor for Anthropology, came to the College in 1988. She is a biological anthropologist and studies language and culture in primates. She was recently in New York to discuss her newest book, “The Dynamic Dance.”
1) How does it feel knowing that the students were the ones who chose you for this honor?
Saha: This makes the award particularly special; I came here to teach and conduct research with students and it makes the honor of receiving this professorship one that I regard very highly.
Homza: The fact that WM students were not only deeply involved in the selection process, but voluntarily funded the whole endeavor, makes this award extraordinarily special. Receiving one of the first Student Professorships is about the highest compliment I can imagine.
King: Professor King copied this portion of a thank-you note she sent to Student Assembly President Ned Rice after learning she received the award: “It's a challenge to convey in words how very honored I am to be selected as Class of 2007 Professor... this honor is utterly special because of its source. The students of W&M, in washing to express tangible support for their faculty, have done even more than they could possibly know.”
2) How do you plan to use the research portion of this award?
Saha: The funding will be used to purchase rather expensive supplies that will allow students to perform experiments testing the effects of certain genes on brain development in our model system, the frog Xenopus. It will also be used for student support in general.
Homza: The generous research funds will allow me to spend a considerable amount of time in Spain during the fall of 2005 (when I’m on leave), in pursuit of my next book. The new project depends upon manuscript sources found only in archives in Madrid, Pamplona, and Barcelona: it concerns the Spanish witch panic, which occurred in Zugarramurdi, in the Basque country, between 1610 – 1614.
King: Currently I'm writing a book on the evolution of the human religious imagination. It's taking me in new intellectual directions, and I need to do a lot of research.... These funds will also support my research on ape gestural communication.
3) What's your take on the current problem of professors' salaries in Virginia and keeping the College listed as a competitive university?
Saha: I do think that it is very important for Virginia to remain competitive. Compared to everywhere else I lived, Virginia has excellent institutions of higher education. We need to maintain this, not only with competitive salaries, but with competitive startup packages as well.
Homza: The lack of raises between 2000-2004 was devastating to faculty morale, especially when combined with the deterioration in the College's physical plant which the science departments had to endure. We have understood all along how hard the Administration was working to rectify the situation, and we're delighted that those efforts are beginning to pay off. That being said, students, professors, and administrators need to continue to address the discrepancy between the real costs of education and the state's contributions to our budget.
King: Along with many of my fellow professors, I've been concerned for years about the salary situation in our state.... My particular concern has been salary compression: senior faculty with considerable experience sometimes are paid only a few thousand dollars more than our newest hires. This is discouraging, to say the least. I'd like to see even more
attention to this kind of retention issue--but clearly the
students 'get' this, given that this was a motivating force
for these awards!