How you can Support this Effort

1. The release of this public information to the public is constantly under attack. Your support for free information and vocal displeasure with a variety of censorship efforts that threaten this information is beneficial to the community.

2. Some GMU administrators have claimed that some of the figures in the salary database are incorrect. While all professors we have heard from have confirmed their personal figures as being correct, it is possible that certain figures provided by GMU are incorrect. For example, a salary might be underrepresented if a professor has worked some sort of special deal to receive additional funds from university sources that are not reflected in normal salary reporting. Also, recent use of accounting changes in FTE (Full Time Equivalent) status has changed a few people's reported salaries. Still, it seems that any fault in salary figures is that of the university's incorrect response to the FOIA requests. When GMU is asked for employee salary information, it is implied that the correct salary information is desired. If the university cannot provide the correct figures for salaries when asked then it is not clear how they could be trusted for an honest, non-political response on any topic.

If the university would like to correct any erroneous figures in the salary database, they should place the salary information online and make it available to the public through a similar web interface to the one contained on these pages. Given the supposed "high-tech" emphasis that is claimed to exist at GMU when state funds are desired, this should have happened many years ago.

Unfortunately, administrators and certain individuals at GMU are hostile to the release of this public information and are fighting against GMU salary information being widely available so that they can enjoy the dynamics of control. This approach is extremely damaging to the educational environment where the focus should be on facilitating an open environment that is supportive of academic pursuits instead of one that is strongly administrative, political, and censorial in nature.

It indicates a failure on the part of administrators when they:

• are not confident that they are fairly compensating valuable individuals
  
• cannot establish an environment in which civil discussions about the topic of salary discrepancies between individuals can be held (this is particularly ironic when those involved are "educated" people)
• cannot trust individuals to pursue their academic work while ignoring the political aspects of salary issues.

When administrators treat their employees as children and attempt to prevent them from encountering this information (presumably "for their own good" because administrators think they have a greater grasp of "facts" than do those who merely educate and research), it is an attempt to displace the real reality in favor of the administrator's preferred and illusory reality.

The emphasis on administrative power and political solutions is thoroughly harmful in an otherwise productive environment. The pressures and frivolity initiated by those concerned with salary instead of academics is detrimental to faculty and staff who are subjected to the unnecessary effluvia of someone's administrative, political, and non-academic objectives.