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The Unspeakable Subject

John Hildebidle

My title is not wholly facetious. I really do think that there is at least one subject that cannot be discussed in any variety of "polite" company, especially within the Institute. Yes, I know that the particulars of the intimate anatomy of political figures are now subjects of prime-time TV and comic strip humor. But still – when was the last time you had the unmitigated gall to ask someone exactly what his or her salary was?

Being the holder of more Harvard degrees than any sane being can find use for, I get, regularly, Harvard Magazine. And there on the cover of the May/June 1998 issue was the neatly-alliterative, modestly-sized headline "Hobbled." Investigation led me to an article jointly-authored by James Engell of the Harvard English Department, and Anthony Dangerfield, trained in English at Cornell. The gist of the article was all-too-painfully-clear: my specialty, the study of "humane letters," is withering in the modern age of the "market model university." If the problem is apparent even at Harvard, how could it not be evident a few stops down the Red Line as well?

This thought is prompted, of course, by crass self-interest – I have attained that problematic moment in the life cycle when the elder of my two children is about to head off to college, and so when (even with the MIT faculty tuition-support benefit, great be its praises) it would seem that anything short of uncovering a hitherto-unknown rich ancestor, I face some years of considerable penury. The other day much was made in the local press of the decision, by a man proclaimed to be one of the world's most renowned younger economists, to turn down a vast contract at Columbia, and stay at Harvard. This news followed right on the heels of the report that Yankee Stadium is crumbling, but that may be pure coincidence.

Anyway, Jeremy Knowles announced that, while Harvard did not intend to discuss the particulars of its contractual relations with this clever fellow, it did not, as a matter of course, engage in salary wars. "At Harvard, every faculty member is a star." That has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? But in the light of the Engell article, one can but wonder.

Which brings us around, at long last, to MIT. Can the Institute say what Knowles says? I mean not that it has a faculty of stars, but that it doesn't engage in salary-bidding wars? Alas, I have it on reliable authority that the matter may be a bit more complex than that. I want to be careful not to embarrass my sources by giving clues as to who they are; suffice it to say they have the personal integrity and the administrative rank to know whereof they speak, and to speak frankly. And the word I hear is that the disparity in salary between Institute faculty members at the same purported rank is considerable, and growing.

Which is made worse by the sad truth that not every MIT faculty member is compelled to live exclusively on his salary. I won't stoop to vulgar language, but it is hard to avoid the term "consulting." And I know, the next time I sit at a faculty meeting, officially among my peers, I will be, inwardly, looking at the other faces in the room, wondering dark things. Even more so when I try to figure out a way to write the first room-and-board check that Trinity College demands of me.

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