Dear Professors holding Zoom classes this week,
I applaud your bravery. You are setting great examples for your students because it’s true, some things aren’t black and white. Sometimes, you have to put your very big brain to the task and come up with a solution.
And walking by your colleagues actively striking on campus, yeesh that is so awkward! I would want to avoid that too, it’s such a looking-at-the-lobster-tank-at-a-restaurant-that-serves-lobster kind of thing.
Obviously standing in solidarity with professors who are being paid thousands less than the football coach (which is so understandable given our team’s truly amazing reputation) is not an option. Why? Well, at first I was confused because as moral guides and kindlers of education, wouldn’t you want your colleagues to have a wage that matches the inflation of the last four years? Wouldn’t you want to see the bigger picture instead of the short-sighted result 10 weeks from now?
But now I see, you are just being smart. Instead of crossing the physical picket line (because duh, that would have consequences) you all are crossing the metaphorical picket line, the moral one. You’ve solved the issue of strikes. Now, professors can strike without any negative repercussions!
It’s the classic train problem. Briefly interrupt your classes, derail the education of your current students or stand by as the future of education gets dimmer and dimmer. You fine teachers still support the strike, you just don’t want to have to make the sacrifice.
I get it, I had this toy when I was younger — a beautiful pink pony. Sadly, this was a shared toy at my school. My mom taught me that sometimes I would have to sacrifice things, to help other people be happy. But that never really stuck, so I just cried and cried and found ways to get around doing anything for other people. Thanks for showing me that I’ve been right the whole time. You, esteemed professors, are my 4-year-old self’s hero!
To be fair, I didn’t have the worst bully ever as a mom. You aren’t the problem, you are just a slice of it. Say, the cherry on top of an incredibly tumultuous road to giving all professors respectable wages.
But, really, why should you care? It’s not your problem. I mean you get paid enough (obviously). And you just care about your students; that’s why you’re doing this, right? Because we can’t bear to miss a week of information, but we can, however, continue to lower our standards for academia as a whole, including who this university hires next. Who will want this job if their compensation stays the same while the cost of living continues to rise? Side note, if this is how my coworkers supported me, I’m not sure I would jump at the chance to work with them.
But now that I think about it, valuing a week of classes over education as a whole makes sense. Bottom line, we students love strung-out, overworked, underpaid professors and, well, of course, you!
Best of luck to your consciences,
Extremely Concerned Student
