It is a period of recession. Students, a notoriously busy folk, have barely reacted to the changes in their beloved NAU. President John D. Haeger and Co. are adding new dorms, new computer software and are tearing down recognizable monuments of NAU’s history — all to encourage an ever-increasing amount of potential students to attend our rather special university. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of what makes the school great. The latest move toward this goal is a cash-based incentive retirement plan for tenured professors 62 years and older.

This one-time incentive program has the potential to remove approximately 125 distinguished educators. It is an interesting move by a university that, quite frankly, has made a number of questionable decisions as of late. On the one hand, it provides veteran professors who are in need of retirement an added incentive to do so. However, it also encourages still-thriving, still-brilliant minds to get out while the gettin’ is good.

Either way you look at it, this plan frees up money to bring more young professors to the university. It is the first move NAU has made in 2009 that I wholeheartedly support.

See, there are large crops of young professors who need jobs in this struggling economy, and this plan provides them with job opportunities. Bringing these young’uns to Flag pumps more money and spenders into our local economy, which can only be seen as a good thing.

Editorial Cartoon by David Stoll / The Lumberjack

This plan also represents the first positive adjustment in accommodating the influx of new students. My primary issue with
NAU’s recent decisions is that they are simply designed to meet the physical capacity of the increased student population without considering the possible detriment to the personalized education provided by the university. Essentially, NAU is attempting to bring more people to a school that guarantees a personalized education, then doing everything in its power to default on that promise.

By encouraging an increased number of new educators to come to NAU, there can be more qualified individuals teaching without needing to pay nearly the annual salary of a tenured professor.

An increase in professors is good when current programs are being cut due to the inability to fund them and inability to pay professors to teach. The funds freed up by retired professors, if enough take the deal, could be sufficient to fund new or previously cut classes, as well as bringing in new people to ensure the viability of these programs.

There is the concern, voiced primarily from the faculty, that bringing in young professors will mean bringing a slew of inexperienced people to a labor force, thus compromising NAU’s mission of educational excellence. However, in a time of technological revolution and new thought, young minds that can think outside the box are more important than ever. Will there be some bad apples in the bunch? Of course, but not any more than in the currently employed tenured faculty, where some professors are too old and too jaded to provide students with a valuable educational experience.

Not to slam on people who provide me with an excellent education, but I’ve been very frustrated with several university policies and decisions of the last two years. However, so long as the monies saved by the retirement incentive are put back into improving our currently damaged programs, I’m going to recognize this as a good thing.

Good move, NAU. Now try and throw some of that brilliance over to Parking Services and individuals in charge of curriculum changes, and we’ll definitely be on the right track.