What does the Pope and the people of Oregon agree upon.
Not much, when it comes to full-body scans. The Pope says no. The people of Oregon say yes.
In a Catalyst poll, 1042 people were asked if they “approve of airports using full-body computer imaging scanners. Two-thirds said yes.
The Pope made his remarks at a meeting in the Vatican, where he told an audience from the aerospace industry that "the primary asset to be safeguarded and treasured is the person, in his or her integrity".
Yes: 639, 61%
No: 403, 39%
Total Respondents: 1042
In a Catalyst poll, 1042 people were asked if they “approve of airports using full-body computer imaging scanners. Two-thirds said yes. The Pope made his remarks at a meeting in the Vatican, where he told an audience from the aerospace industry that "the primary asset to be safeguarded and treasured is the person, in his or her integrity".
Yes: 639, 61%
No: 403, 39%
Total Respondents: 1042
In brief: It would not cost that much to deal with the salary issue, maybe 5% of the available budget (I'm leaving out things that are not available, like dorm fees, research grants, athletic revenue). It's a matter of priorities. There was an excellent plan about 10 years ago but the administration at UO lost interest. Maybe things will change with a new UO president.
On tuition: I don't see how tuition can keep rising at the rate of the past couple of decades. On the other hand, strong pressures on cost that will not go away. Partly it's a matter of priorities. Administrative growth? Perhaps a reorientation of private giving to support core operating expenses.
What are "the strong pressures on cost that will not go away" that you are saying keep driving up tuition beyond "sustainable" levels?
Schools, universities, and most government services are similar. They are by necessity labor intensive, and for the most part require well educated and trained people. They are not like industrial production, which often can make more widgets every year with fewer labor inputs.
It seems to me that the big issues to tackle in the public sector are health and pension costs. Unfortunately our country is allergic to a single payer health care system which would save a lot of money. And changing pension systems results in future, not current savings due to the pipeline effect.
The other big issue is tackling civil service career tenure. Its long past time we made public employment less rigid and more of a privilege than a right.We need people moving into and out of public sector work more easily.
I'm biased, but I don't think tenure for faculty increases costs. It probably decreases them, at least in fields where there is competition from outside employers (think: science, business, finance, law, engineering).
At UO, at least, most of the support staff were productive and motivated. The big exception was the building crews, and there, they are outsourcing more and more.
I'd like to see something along the lines of renewable service contracts, say 5 years at a time. That way if someone slacks off they can be let go without appealing to the pope for blessings. In academia, there is some benefit to the students if professors step in and out as well, especially in active professional fields like law, business, and engineering. It would relieve burnout, keep more fresh blood coming into the system, and allow profs to test theories in practice. Plus the students get more exposure to real world work and employment ops.
But I agree that one outcome might be the need to pay more money in exchange for less job security.
Can you elaborate?
Some of that money could be used, if priorities changed among both fund raisers and donors, to relieve the increases in tuition costs. For various reasons -- I've outlined many nearby -- I don't think these increases are going to be completely ameliorated by reining in costs, without a drop in quality.
So, if the tuition increases are unsustainable, which I think they are, something else is going to have to happen. It would mean funneling a few million more each year into offsetting tuition increases.
Full-body scanners are a virtual strip search. To strip-search every single passenger is a frightening erosion of the basic human right to dignity—preserving the integrity and privacy of one’s person—let alone our Constitutional right to freedom from unreasonable search.
If strip-searching individuals who are not suspected of carrying dangerous contraband is not an unreasonable search, I do not know what is. If Americans give up defending the integrity of their person, the most basic of human freedoms, I wonder what we still think worthy of defense.
Assuming the Catalyst poll by some quirk reflects what most Oregonians or Americans think, people have almost always been willing to trade away individual rights for increased security. I've seen polls that suggest most Americans would repeal the 1st amendment if they were given a vote on it.
And, I've seen Catalyst on many occasions complain that most people are in favor of taxing the rich at higher rates.