A Brother's View

Again, someone else's views ...

"There is a lot of negative bias out there regarding teachers, lawyers, politicians and even the news media.
This makes it possible to make a blatantly incorrect statement and get it repeated.
Sometimes these things resonate so well they must be proven wrong again and again.
I will not draw any blanket conclusions about journalists not doing their research after reading Mr. Annan's cynical article about the motives of community college teachers on The Advocate's website (yorkregion.com)
The central pillar of Mr. Annan's piece relies on a quote from the president of Seneca College:
"$95,000 isn't bad for 14 hours a week, 35 weeks a year."
According to Mr. Annan, that has given our real game away.
Any journalist who deals with information and misinformation should be aware the more shocking something sounds, by some strange paradox, the more believable it is.
As a teacher who works at Seneca College in the computer studies department, I would like to reply.
Do we actually work 14 hours a week in my department?
I often find myself working through the weekend to keep up. One of our teachers posted an e-mail indicating that, for most of us, it is more like 60 hours.
It is interesting to note the average salary increase for college presidents over the past four years is 37.8 per cent.
Do we work 35 weeks a year?
I can assure you during reading weeks there is a lot of marking and setting of new assignments and lab work.
Other weeks are taken up with professional development.
It has been 17 years since the last college strike.
Since that time the number of students has increased by 50 per cent and the number of full-time faculty has decreased by 20 per cent.
We are all trying to do more with less but a line has to be drawn. The real issue is community college underfunding.
We don't all make $95,000 a year: the average salary is a lot less."

RUSSELL PANGBORN
Keswick