We have entered the Funnel.

In music, it?s called a crescendo, in literature the denouement, in medicine the turning point.

But at the University, after long September days when the semester seemed to stretch forever, and even into October, when all things seemed possible, suddenly it?s November and all of the projects, papers to grade, lectures to give, department and school meetings, and deadlines for Lottery funds all begin swirling around so fast it?s impossible to keep up ? and do a good job at all of them.

It?s also time to be sympathetic to our students, too.

True, we can rail about “time management” and how students should have been working on that semester project since the first day of class when we announced it was due in December. We can shake our heads about lack of discipline, that Sac State students work too many hours, or maybe that students party too hard on the weekends and are zombies on Mondays. (At least at Sac State parties tend to be weekend affairs. When I taught at CSU, Chico, the starting gun went off Wednesday mid-afternoon for festivities.)

But if we?re honest ? and look at the piles of ungraded papers and memos on the desks in our offices ? we know that students aren?t the only ones who have put some things off, or found themselves overwhelmed with obligations and promises made that are way beyond delivery.

And while we are speaking of promises, how about those Faculty Merit Increases? When FMIs were forced on faculty by the last CSU Chancellor, the promise was that the good would be highly rewarded for excellence, the University would be a better place, and that the ever-demanding god of the Board of Trustees ?? efficiency ?? would increase.

It?s hard to say where efficiency stands today, but morale (also difficult to measure) was battered last week when many faculty discovered their merit ? according to their college deans ? was valued so low they deserved a 1 percent salary increase.

One percent.

One percent for all those papers, lectures, committee work, conferences attended (and in some cases actually put on by the faculty members).

One percent could equal $12.50 per week (or less). Based on a 40-hour week, a 1 percent increase works out to about 31 cents per hour. Now that?s incentive to get out there and hustle.

What was particularly egregious for some faculty was that their departments had recommended them for more. Now their only hope for a higher raise is in the hands of President Gerth.

The President, theoretically, has the responsibility of reading several thousand Faculty Activity Reports in the coming months (of all full and part-time faculty) to render his decision on how much merit each faculty member has and whether college deans were accurate in their assessments of faculty.

Let?s hope he included an Evelyn Woods speed-reading course when he studied at the University of Chicago.

Michael J. Fitzgerald is a professor of Journalism and a member of the CSUS Faculty Senate. He can be reached by telephone at 278-7896, by mail C/O the State Hornet? CSUS, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA, or by e-mail at [email protected]