Word: mather
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...profited by the change. Some additional $644,000 would have been obtained, and only $479,000 disbursed to the faculty. Bill 1030, the pay-raise proposal, seemed certain of passage. Governor Foster Furcolo deliberated a special message ("high quality public education is the Commonwealth's greatest natural resource"); President Mather stumped the state and appeared before the powerful Committee on Education; and students rallied to the support of the bill...
...double-cross of the first order." President Mather minced no words in expressing his opinion of members of the State Senate following the defeat of the pay increase. "After all, we cannot attract professors with fresh air and a small town atmosphere. And the idea of a 'dedicated teacher' who completely ignores his salary is a great deal of bunk," Mather cuttingly remarked. Two days later, in order to call public attention to the legislature's actions, the president resigned his post effective June 30, 1960. He showed no intention of dropping his fight, however. "During this, my final academic...
Students Support Mather...
...priority, giving faculty members hikes of $430 to $1,261, and an across-the-board raise of $360 to all state employees. Political compromise may have caused smiles on Beacon Hill, but the entire maneuvering cost the state one of its finest educators and administrators. Some senators resented Mather's resignation for the political sympathy it aroused and they misinterpreted his motives; one senator accused him of "trying to play the part of a martyr for education when he is actually scheming to protect his own selfish interests." The senator was utterly mistaken. Mather still does not know what post...
Though the university won the wage battle, it lost out in attempting to maintain a 13:1 student-faculty ratio. Legislative fiat revised this figure to 15:1. (Harvard's ratio is approximately 3.1.) "Even if we received the salary increase, we lost out," Mather comments wryly, "since professors are not interchangeable parts. The type of thinking--that a 13:1 ratio means there are 13 students to each class--is completely wrong. This makes professors only teachers; they must have time to think up ideas." With so much time necessarily devoted to instruction, few members of the UMass faculty...