Bucks for Buckeyes

Dr. Joseph Alutto, the executive vice president and provost of Ohio State University, last week sent a statement to the whole Ohio State faculty-a three page, nine-point declaration titled, "Principles for Faculty Reward Systems in a Higher Performance Academic Culture." If that sounds like management mumbo jumbo, well, perhaps it is. A more lucid title might have been: What We Pay You for and Why.

But Provost Alutto comes by his management mumbo jumbo honestly. He has spent more than 35 years cultivating the art. From 1976 to 1990 he was dean of the SUNY Buffalo School of Management. From 1991 to 2007 he was dean of Ohio State's Fisher College of Business. He then spent part of a year as interim president of Ohio State, before his appointment as provost. He has written lots and lots of "organizational research" in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly and the Journal of Applied Psychology. He's been elected the head of professional associations and served "as a consultant to banks, manufacturing firms, aerospace companies, health care agencies and educational institutions."

And more remarkably, he did all this apparently without being able to write clear English. Exhibit A, the first paragraph of "Principles for Faculty Reward Systems in a Higher Performance Academic Culture."

The Ohio State University has evolved over time with a continuous focus on achieving excellence along all dimensions of research, teaching, and service. Perhaps most noticeable over the years has been a concentration on developing all aspects of a high performance culture in which outstanding achievements are aligned with carefully guided decisions about resource allocations. At its core, the assumption is that achievement of agreed upon performance objectives should provide the primary basis for allocating institutional resources. In effect, accountability is a guiding principle that should be reflected in guidance provided to individuals as well as in assessments of their performance.

I don't propose to translate the whole document into English or to dwell on the redundancies ("evolved over time"), superfluous modifiers ("continuous focus"), tub thumbing ("achieving excellence along all dimensions"), and prolixity of the Provost Alutto. Yet it might be helpful to see what this paragraph would look like shorn of its excess. I imagine something like this:

Ohio State University encourages faculty members to pursue excellence in research, teaching, and service. The administration allocates funds with these goals in mind. Faculty members know this and should act accordingly.

But let's not begrudge Provost Alutto his magniloquence. Without mumbo jumbo, he might have not have been a mere consultant to banks, but an actual banker. Things could always be worse.

The reason Provost Alutto swims into view for us is not the magnificent awfulness of his writing, but the even more magnificent awfulness of his ideas. In this document he goes on to explain that to align resources with objectives, Ohio State University must pay attention to markets and furthermore, within markets, submarkets." Submarkets? He explains:

We all operate within relatively defined markets. Those markets should largely, though not entirely, dictate levels of reward differentiation. That includes initial salary levels, annual increases, and support resource distributions. Markets are defined externally and not simply by rank. Thus, faculty members in some disciplines will require higher salaries or different levels of support than those in others. Furthermore, within markets, submarkets exist based on perceived excellence. Thus, if faculty member A in market I is seen as more productive than faculty member B also in market I, the salary and support levels for A will be higher than for B, even if they are of the same rank. Such differences are a reflection of scarcity, and that applies to gender, race, or other conditions that might create scarcity. While difficult to accept for some, failure to recognize this will deprive the university of its ability to compete effectively. Interestingly, one also has to deal with the fact that markets are defined in part by like institutions. Generally, top tier institutions will respond affirmatively to markets created by other top tier institutions and not markets based on resources second or third tier institutions are willing to allocate. Indeed, it is not unusual to find second or third tier institutions over-committing resources to lure a faculty member from a top tier program. That does not mean that the top tier program can or should necessarily let that action set the market rate for the targeted faculty member.

Basic translation: We pay more to people who are in high demand.

Sub-translation: We discriminate on the basis of race and sex.

Did you spot that? The "submarket" Provost Alutto concerns himself with is faculty members of the right races and gender. Being of a particular race at Ohio State is therefore a form of "excellence." Likewise excellence can be achieved by having two X chromosomes.

Or do we have that wrong? Scarcity can be achieved by having preferred racial and/or sexual characteristics. Markets drive up the price of desired goods that are scarce. And Ohio State bases its resource allocations on competing for excellence conformity to market fashions.

It is hard to know just how far Provost Alutto takes this logic. Further on in the "Principles," he recognizes that "not all faculty members will be able to contribute excellence in all evaluation dimensions." This might mean that Ohio State recognizes a division of labor where some compete for excellence in teaching and some compete for excellence in research. Or it might mean that some make their contribution to excellence by just being who they are.