Where is Proenza getting all this money? From the students -- bet tuition gets raised again!

Bonus? You know, most of us out here in the real world have never had a bonus in our life because our employers don't give them. An employer paying their employees a decent wage is one thing, but giving out bonuses like this, especially in these bad times, is just preying on those who are struggling to find ways to pay the high tuition costs. Shameful.

when will the lower class working get any kind of a bonus!!!!!

Good for the U of A. They should reward those faculty members that have worked to increase enrollment. After all, more students means more revenue, and people that increase revenue end up getting compensated for it in most professions.

NONE of these bonuses --not a penny -- go to the 60% contingent faculty who do most of the teaching at this university.

JustMeinB, usually employers give bonuses in professional places. I've always gotten one as have other members of my family.

U of A has some pretty low tuition compared to other 4yr schools in Ohio, so I'm not exactly sure how much lower people want it to go. And their grad school prices are excellent.

They've done well with the money they've made so why not pass it on to the faculty. $750 isn't a large bonus. In fact, I think RETIREES for the UAW made a $350 bonus last year...

Let's do the math....

700 employees are getting bonuses of $750.

There are 20,058 Full Time students enrolled at Akron.

If you take the money from the bonuses ($525,000) and divide it out to "lower tuition" for the students....all 20,058 of them (not including part time)....that a tuition lowering of......TA DA! $26.17 each. Wow.

I do work in a professional office and have been here for 30 years. Bonuses are not given here.

$750 isn't a huge bonus? To who? You obviously make a lot of money that you would consider $750 to be nothing. I would love to get that extra money in my pocket for Christmas. It may not be big to you, but $750 is a lot of money to many of us.

So just because your business doesn't give bonuses, the rest of the "real world" doesn't? I've worked for 3 employers and all gave bonuses for hardwork and if the company did well. It motivated us to set higher goals for the next year. I've seen companies give anywhere from $500 - $15,000 bonuses depending on your workload, and that' in the Akron area. I worked hard, I got good grades, I got in the right profession and I went to school for a ridiculously long time. Most people don't do that and therefore they don't reap the benefits.

U of A is a state school so the whole "bonuses" thing is pretty unheard of, but if the school is doing well, keeping students in the area, and increasing enrollment, why not reward the teachers? Else they run off to Miami, OU, OSU, Cincinnati or better yet, richer private schools like John Carrol, Dayton, Case, etc. The teachers help to make the school what it is.

$525,000??!! How about reimbursing 35,000 college students $17.50 to buy a small gift for Christmas? The full-time faculty does NOTHING to increase enrollment. The marketing/advertising/recruiting staff is responsible for the increase in enrollment...AND the FACT that Akron is open enrollment.

Alex,

Attracting and retaining quality full-time faculty has a great deal to do with increasing enrollment. After all, it doesn't matter how nice the campus looks or how new the buildings are if you can't attract quality educators.

Hmmm, considerin' our economic times, and the fact that Akron U is publicly funded, I find it in bad taste for them to give out bonuses.

Shelly, dear lady, y'all are confusin' private industry with a public entity. The teachers are already rewarded with lucrative contracts. Givin' them a bonus is like tossin' salt into the open wounds of the taxpayers.

Being a taxpayer doesn't make you God. Shut up Beta

Some poor kid could use some extra help meeting his expenses. Like at the Cubs game at Wrigley, if the opposing team hits a home run, the fans throw the ball back on the field. The U of A employees show forgo the bonus and give it to needy students. Wow would that be cool!

You're right Shelly. The rest of us don't work hard like you do.

Let's give all the "student-athletes" a bonus! Ooops, we already do - free education, free housing, free food, free books, parking priveledges, cash, and other goodies in the form of a 'scholarship' on the backs of taxpayers and tuition-paying students. What a sham!

Since when did public employess, especially college instructors become second class citizens? The jealous posters on this site need to stop begrudging the success of others just because they chose dead end jobs at Burger King and hair salons. Once again, the west virginia akronites tear down everything and anything positive

shut up Robert! Now wouldn't that be cool!

@Alex, you do not understand the academic environment at all. To suggest faculty research and publications does not help or harm enrollment is ridiculous.

@Lois, pay attention. Tuition has been frozen for years. It is also simple economics. If enrollment is up, some of the classes are larger in size. It costs very little extra to add a couple more students in class. It means UA is making more money the larger the classes, so there is no need to raise tuition.

LOIS, tuition has been frozen at UA for the past 3 or 4 years. What the hell are you talking about?

Jake, I would guess that none of the posters here thus far work at Burger King or hair salons. But, how nice for you that your circumstances didn't get you stuck in one of those jobs. How arrogant of you.

My last days working a minimum wage job was 30 years ago. I make a pretty good living in a downtown business office even though my company does not give bonuses. I do have a right to object to bonuses for Akron U employees when my niece is trying to get a decent education there, but is having to struggle to find ways to pay for it as tuition keeps going up and up. She's only fortunate that she has parents and grandparents who are able to kick in some to help a little. What about those who don't have that advantage? They will be forced to work at the Burger Kings and the hair salons. Then you can insult them too.

Give that extra money back to the students as others have suggested here.

Leave these teachers alone! Many of them spent several hours indoctrina...err...TEACHING students how Obama's philosophy of redistributing the wealth was right. Let's give them the opportunity to practice what they preach! I bet they won't!

Remember the $115.00 p/semester transportation fee they are charging all students enrolled at Akron U, multiply the $230 year by the number of full and part-time students, and they equals a lot of money. . .no wonder they have money for the faculty bonuses; they have been ripping off the student and their families all year.

Beta,

What are these "lucrative contracts" U of A teachers have? Professors make quite a bit of money, but nothing outrageous considering the time, schooling, and skill they possess in the subjects they teach. They have to attract and keep skilled professionals in the school in order to keep it competitive else they have mediocre teachers and your degree becomes nothing more than an glorified extended high school diploma. You want to keep the "smart kids" in Akron? Give them a competitive school because they're not staying here.

JMein,
I never said you didn't work hard, I said I picked the right profession. I went through years of extended schooling that most people don't finish let along try. If there's only a small population of people who do so, they can charge a higher wage for their skills. It's the reward you get for going above and beyond a 4yr degree. I'm glad your neice is sticking it out at Akron, but is that $25 reinbursement she would have gotten going to help over the long haul? Probably not. I would have probably spent it at a bar when I was in school. Tuition is tough, but you stick it out. You take out loans. You work. You get scholarships. You get grants. I went to a private school and the loans were rough, but I didn't complain about it. You do what you have to do to get ahead.

Just my opinion, that's the standard cost of parking at ANY college. Why don't you tell them to build parking garages to increase the spaces and lower the cost? Better yet, just stop going. That will really stick it to them.

Eric,
As a U of A grad I would have to highly disagree. The look of the campus does attract student. The athletic programs attract student. College that win National Championships in a major sport see 10-15% enrollment jumps the very next year. Incoming freshman have no interaction with professors before they enroll. They see the campus. They watch the sports teams on tv or in person. They meet the college recruiters when they visit the campus.

Wow Shelly. How much smarter you are than everyone else. We should all be falling at your feet praising how wonderful you are. Oh wait. You're already doing that.

BTW tuition at ua IS NOT GOING UP AND UP LIAR. IT'S BEEN FROZEN FOR FOUR YEARS NOW

JustMein,

Grow up. Quit complaining. If you really want to change your status in the "real world", do something about it. Are physicians smart? Of course. Did you get extra schooling for your job? No. Did you work 16 hour days for next to nothing? No. I get paid to have someone's life in your hands. Let me know the next time you want that kind of pressure.

For as much as I have griped about UA tuition & Fee prices and Proenza spending money on unneeded building projects, its nice to see the faculty getting these bonuses. UA faculty has been on the "short end of the stick" for years.

When an institution treats its employess well, it is a clear sign that the institution (The University of Akron)is a reputable place in which to do business. Good for UA. The school clearly has its priorities in line and values academics over everything else. These bonuses prove it.

Shelly, I was not talking about a parking pass ($110.00 p/semester), that is which is a totally different fee, I was referring to the $115.00 p/semester transportation fee that they started charging this year on top of the parking pass. So instead of having a comment to everyone who post, get your facts straight before making your responses.

Just my opinion,

for this year, the parking pass is out and the transportation fee is charged in it's place. Perhaps it is YOU who should get their facts straight.

http://www.uakron.edu/aux/parking/transportation-fee.php

@Shelly, new garages would not lower the costs to park as you must pay for the garages, maintain the garages, hire the staff to maintain or patrol the garage, etc. Can you give one example of a university that added more parking and dropped the parking costs passed to students and employees? I would be shocked if you could find one.

@Just my opinion, follow your own advice. The fee was not added on top of an existing fee. It replaced the original parking fee.

Soory, but the tuition at U of A was only forzen last year, and only for undergrads, and only because Strickland made it a law for the first years of his term as governor......no tuition hikes at Ohio public universities went into effect in 2007. Not four years ago-trust me, I've been attending, and the tuition went up each year, at a rate in Ohio that is almost the highest in the nation. College costs overall in the last decade have gone up nearly 400%!

For grad students, the cost is the same. U of A voluntarily froze the tuition on the minor groups not affected by Strickland's decision, but those limitations are gone now.
Not trying to attack anyone, just clarifying the tuition issue! Look it up.

I do not get a bonus most years. Regardless, i would NOT begrudge someone else getting one. those of you that do are small minded, jealous, and spiteful. Grow up already.

i am tired of this. granted the teachers need paid bu come on when is enough enough. tuition and books go up on a regular basis. I cantg afford to give "donations" out. why cant they cut tuition by 750.00 or 1000.00 a semsesster? i left akron u for this reason. im only one person maybe others will follow. paid only 1600.00 for a semseter at Stark State and can also transfer to another 4 year later on down the road. Everything is cheaper and easier to get to.

forgot to tell you parking is only 20.00 a YEAR and there is a lot of it

COllege teachers don't get paid well. The average entry level tenure track salary nation wide in the Humanities is in the mid 40K.
Average full-time non-tenure track is in the mid 30Ks.
Those of us teaching freshmen we have the hardest, most labor intensive jobs - we work more than 50hrs a week and if we are lucky to have a fulltime job we may bring home roughly 35K (those of us in non-tenure track). Yeap.

So there's no real waste anywhere. And yes, we too are part of the REAL WORK and we do work hard and our students know it. Ask anyone of my students and he/she will tell you.

A very upset, and very real English teacher in a university in our area.

Angela - then move on and get another job. What do you expect to be making with an English degree?

The U of A will do anything for retention and they do not treat all of their employees so well. Part-time faculty does not see any of the money nor are they paid well. With the notion of retention comes the idea of inflation of grades and the fact that is this an educational institution or are they a business.

Stephanie, you are mistaken or a liar. Tuition has been frozen at UA and all other ohio public universities for the past 4 years. get your facts straight or just stop being a liar.

@edith, all costs go up. It is life!

@Brian. So then why hasn't the costs of DVD players went up? Why hasn't the cost of mp3 players went up? WHy hasn't the cost of flat screen TV's went up? After all, they are all part of "life".

Quit being dishonest Alex. You are referring to products of technology which become less expensive to produce as time goes on. If you knew anything about economics, you wouldn't ask such a stupid if not dishonest question.

The cost of essentials such as food clothing and education continue to rise. That is a part of life and not your stupid i pods and cell phones.

I am a part time teacher at several local universities and community colleges. I do not have medical benefits, etc. and am paying for huge student loans. Why don't I quit, like Ron suggested to Angela in a previous post? Because we teachers feel as if we are actually making a difference. And PS to Ron: I have made a LOT of money with my English degree~~ but not in the education field and certainly not in Ohio.

Maybe they could stop ticketing my daughterfor illegal parking down there. She has gotten a ticket atleast 3 times when her sticker was clearly posted in her window while she was working. They offered her amnesty by forcing her to give canned food for some food drive.

Holly - good for you. Still, you have made a decision and that decision - like all in life - comes with consequences.

Sorry Jake, I'm not wrong or a liar, but hey, thanks for the insults anyway!
Look it up-tuition at U of A was raised consistently over the last decade, until the tuition freeze deal brought about by the election of Strickland. U of A freezes tuition for one year, and receives an extra 5% from the state instead, and year two they raise tuition 3% and the state covers the other two %. Tuition is controlled, so to speak, by the state covering the percentage increase in tuition from the schools, who need more "operating" money, instead of passing the cost onto the students.
U of A technically froze tuition at the governor's request in 2007, but only for one year. Who knows what will happen when that deal is over-chances are good the tradition of raising the tuition ridiculously will start all over again.

@Alex, maybe you should take an economics class. Prices are drive by supply and demand. DVD sales are down, so their prices are stable or dropped. Education numbers are up. Any product that is "serviced" based, including education, has increased because their costs have increased.

@Stephanie, this is the 2nd year of frozen tuition so they obviously agreed to more than "one year".

@Brian.

No response to the fact that the vast majority of students have NO interaction with full-time faculty before they choose to enroll in a college? They see how nice the facilities are and they interact with college recruiters. That's it.
So from your genious in economics, shouldn't tuition lower if enrollment decreases? That will NEVER happen.

@Alex, have you ever seen enrollment drop enough to stop using an entire building or close an entire department? No! Than your operation expenses do not drop.

Brian. You must be one of those people who believe the full-time research faculty at a university actually care about the students. If you are, that makes you a little stupid to the way the university runs. The faculty doing research (who earned this bonus) only teach because it's a side job of the research.

@Alex I am a person that does not believe in generalizations and that is all you are throwing around. To say full time faculty do not care about students is absurd. Some do and some don't. You can easily say the same thing about part-time faculty.

Brian, You are right that some full-time faculty care about students and some don't. And that some part-time faculty care about students and some don't (although this is less likely since part-timers get paid so little that the only reason they do it is because they care about students).

So if there isn't much difference between part-timers and full-timers, then why are the full-timers getting the bonuses but not the part-timers or non-tenurable full-timers (adjuncts)? Adjuncts actually do more of the teaching (60% of the faculty is actually adjunct), and therefore must be more responsible for student retention. Doesn't this seem a bit unfair?

I'd say do away with the bonus altogether and use the money (and find more) to pay adjuncts better. They make 1/2 to 1/3 what tenurable faculty make. This is a national problem. An administrator at UA has even said so.

@M I have known many part-time faculty. They do no care more or less about students. And they are not doing part-time work for love of students. They are doing it buying time for full time position to open. To judge their love of students by their position is absurd.

@M Adjuncts are not bringing in research dollars. Adjuncts rarely help students publish. Adjuncts are not serving as advisors. In most cases, adjuncts are not as available either so students have more out of the classroom contact with full-time faculty. Adjuncts rarely assist with student groups or other activities.

Part-time employees always make less than salary employees. This is normal!

Adjuncts actually often do engage in research, but their primary responsibility is teaching, and they are teaching many vastly underprepared students. Recent studies are showing that nationwide, adjuncts' working conditions are having a negative impact on student learning, even though these adjuncts are highly qualified and work very hard. They are being put in an impossible situation and are being paid barely minimum wage when you calculate the number of hours they have to put in for working "part time."

Most part-time work is paid at a pro-rated salary, but that does not happen at this university or any other where the part-timers have not unionized. Don't be surprised if you see a massive exodus of the most qualified of these adjuncts, who will not be able to survive in this economy on this kind of pay and know full well they can get better paying jobs elsewhere. Then the university will see what a gift it's been getting all these years and regret taking them for granted for so long. As a parent, I am concerned about the effect of all of this on students.

If you want to keep people teaching at UA instead of doing R&D for a private corporation, then you need to pay money. Nobody gets a Ph.D. to make plebeian wages (except maybe Art History Majors). So yes, give your engineers, financial whizzes and nursing instructors 6-figure salaries and let them have their measly $750 - $1,000 year end bonus. Bunch of bitter, soft-wit rust-belt cry-babies,… No position needs to pay anymore than the bare minimum required to adequately fill it, if you’re not being compensated to match your idiotic sense of entitlement at your “downtown professional office”, either become an engineer or just accept your irrelevance and shut the hell up.

I hope people will realize that M who posted at 11:07 is definitely not I, who posted at 8:37. I will make sure to clarify that distinction whenever I post in the future.

For the third year in a row, 700 full-time faculty at the University of Akron almost surely will get extra help paying Christmas bills: bonuses for growth in student enrollment.

Chrysler and others worked so hard to create a good car for the Commies or Educated idiots.
Now that Lawyers bilked the $3 a pack on cigarettes Auto workers are suppose to give back wages and pensions for these Socialism Camps (Colleges) so that they can put the auto worker back on the Plantation.
As long as Lawyers,School Teachers and Cops get their Coke more ingenius ideas arew instore for Amerikana Labour.
Hey like Germans ,Amerikana Protestants are at the mercy of Third World Terror now that Operation T.O.R.C.H. is a forgotten issue.

"Their tryin' to make xxxxxxxxx's out of us"
My infamous words at 315 S Maple St. in 1968.
Hell Moses said "We're gonna be like the Greeks"(Phadgs)
Golic stated in his own words "Another Rome!!!"

The cost of tuition in Ohio is too high to begin with. I don't have a problem with the bonuses. But UA must find a way to lower the tuition level. Make it affordable for the middle class. Now they are charging the student if they use a credit or debit card. Parking costs are outrageous. They need to make some changes soon or they will see a drop in students.

Akron's parking costs are comparable to similar size institutions and a bargain compared to many.

LET'S ALSO GIVE THE FOOTBALL PLAYERS AND EVERYBODY ELSE ON A FREE RIDE A BONUS TOO!

This was initially about a bonus. I work at an office that utilizes persons with and without degrees. The management picked which persons received a bonus based on job performance, attendance and willingness to go above and beyond. It was easy to see which people were "happy" or "devestated". Most would agree that the devestated earned that little check as they would call off a lot, be late or gripe if you asked them to help with anything extra. A Bonus is usually earned so don't complain about those that receive one because most of them worked hard for it.