There was an article in the Review Journal that set forth the salary information respecting UNLV professors. The following is a Letter to The Editor that addresses this article in a fine fashion!

LETTERS: Professors have to teach? The horror!

To the editor:

It made me angry as I read your June 12 article “UNLV caught in pay plight.” I am a graduate student at UNLV who, like many others, will pay 11 percent more in tuition because the school’s professor and administrator payroll increased 8 percent last year.

As a teacher in the Clark County School District, I was amazed and surprised to hear that some full-time faculty might actually be forced to teach. Call it sour grapes, or whatever you’d like, but I believe anyone who makes a six-figure salary in education should actually be working — and teaching. As I looked over your list of faculty salaries, I didn’t see the names of any of those wonderful instructors who had taught me during my undergraduate and post-graduate education.

The article states that “of the university’s 828 professors who taught at all, more than 30 percent handled fewer than three courses,” and that “about 130 professors didn’t teach at all during the fall semester.” I am definitely in the wrong profession.

Here’s a shout out to the Board of Regents and Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education: If you have to “pay the going rate to get the best people,” as Mr. Hartle said, then shouldn’t they actually be working? It was a no-brainer when UNLV President David Ashley said “tenure-tracked faculty would have to increase their workload.”

I really hope the Board of Regents will take greater care in awarding pay increases, and that Gov. Jim Gibbons will look closely to where education should really be cut.

Vicki VanBeveren

LAS VEGAS

Lee ADDS: Well said Ms VanBeveren!