Faculty members deserve a raise, but not 5 percent

In the midst of serious budget cutbacks and proposed tuition increases, Ohio University faculty members will ask for a 5 percent raise next year.

Students already face 9.2 percent tuition hike beginning Fall Quarter. To make a tight budget work, OU is cutting back on expenditures and plans to save more money through job attrition.

To give employees a pay raise of 5 percent just is too much to ask under these circumstances. Faculty members work hard and deserve a raise, but OU cannot afford the amount at this time.

Instead, administrators should approve the 3 percent raise faculty members previously proposed.

At Monday night’s faculty senate meeting, members voted to adopt the resolution, claiming salaries are losing ground. Inflation and increased insurance payments take a good chunk out of paychecks. Members said they want to keep pace with other universities.

But other Ohio schools are going through the same budget crises. They, much like OU, cannot afford to increase spending while losing state funding. OU faculty members’ salaries will remain comparable to other universities if kept at 3 percent.

The difference between a 3 and 5 percent raise will cost OU approximately $850,000, Gary Moden of the finance and facilities committee estimated. This money could go toward services that otherwise would have to be cut.

OU faculty members deserve a salary increase for their hard work, but now is not the time to ask for it. Like pleading for an allowance from a father who is strapped for cash, faculty members want what they deserve, but the resources aren’t available. Maybe next year.

Junk e-mail needs stricter regulations

It clutters mailboxes, clogs servers and annoys people who look forward to actual letters. “Spam” e-mail is becoming more widespread, and the Federal Trade Commission plans to do something to curb it.

Federal regulators got their first victory in the crackdown when they settled charges against seven people accused of running a pyramid scheme. The chain letters, which are illegal in the United States, drew in more than 2,000 participants.

Such a scam shows the negative effect junk e-mail has. Not only is it annoying, but it can drain bank accounts if people believe its legitimacy.

Although 19 states have passed anti-spam laws, a national law is needed to regulate junk e-mail that ranges from the illegal to the frustrating. Internet users received an average of 571 pieces of unsolicited commercial e-mail in 2001, a number expected to rise to nearly 1,500 by 2006, according to Jupiter Media Metrix.

Some of that mail includes invitations to pornographic Web sites. Many children have their own e-mail accounts, and such messages should not reach their in-boxes.

Current solutions are time-consuming and largely ineffective. The FTC encourages Web users to forward spam to the agency for analysis. One employee (likely more) must then sift through the almost 10,000 messages received per day.

A database is nice, but it does not solve the problem of the ever-increasing amount of junk mail in people’s mailboxes. Direct marketers complain a national law prohibiting spam would limit their activities unfairly. But some limits are necessary to protect Web users and their interests.

Marketers should develop better ways to reach people than inundating them with constant offers for free money and easy diplomas.