Universities should learn from the business world
Re: “University salaries questioned” (Gazette, Dec. 12)
I sometimes wonder if those who complain about and envy the salaries of senior administrators of Quebec universities have ever ventured out in the real world. These senior administrators of Quebec universities do not get compensated anywhere near their counterparts in the business world or at comparable universities in Canada and the U.S.
Unfortunately, the mindset in universities is that if the money is tight, then the salaries of those who work there should be reduced. In the business world, when money is tight, they think of improving productivity, reducing waste, streamlining their products and improving them to be more competitive.
We do not have to pay less to our administrators, faculty and staff. What we have to do is make sure they are more productive. At the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University, where I have worked as a full-time faculty member for more than 30 years, I see much waste of public finances. For example, there are academic programs with consistently low student enrolments losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every year that continue to run, and faculty members with poor research performance who get generous course remissions (that is, they are freed from some of their teaching obligations), costing the university hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, maybe even millions, if you consider the opportunity cost instead of the marginal cost.
University administrators should be paid salaries comparable to what managers with comparable responsibilities get in the business world, but, like them, they must be competent.