One might argue that if the lectures are online then the tuition (and professor pay) should be proportional to the value they produce - and that can't possibly be the same as last year.
This comment seems to misunderstand professors and universities. Instruction is a relatively small part of professor responsibilities. Most tenured professors will teach perhaps one class a year, some one class a semester. Some do more, though often by choice and at least at Georgia Tech, much of the undergraduate instruction is done by lecturers, who are not tenure track faculty.
So the value they produce won't decrease by much. In fact it might actually increase. Georgia Tech is, and has been, one of the leaders in online instruction through the OMSCS program. This allowed professors to be in many ways more valuable and teach more students per professor (with an increase in TAs).
My experience is limited mostly to the College of Computing, but some courses taught by other Colleges (notably gen-ed physics I and II in the College of Sciences) have been optionally taught in mixed online form for years (I took an "inverted" Physics course where the lectures were online in 2014). This allowed in-lecture time to be much more tailored to specific student questions.
So there's no a priori reason to believe that online instruction is less valuable. (This isn't the same, by the way, as the opinion that university education that is completely online is as valuable as in person, there are environmental factors that are advantageous for in person experiences).
There are some classes and subjects where this doesn't always work (Engineering courses often need specialized equipment for more applied course), but these aren't the majority of classes, and forcing a CS professor to lecture in person when the same course, often taught by the same professor, already exists as a MOOC is ridiculous.
(Later you also state that there are subjects where it cannot possibly work at all)
I am not saying that online education is useless, just that it produces less value. I also believe that professors are not even remotely open to the idea that this could be reflected in their salaries.
Lecturing online vs in person, yes I think there's not a huge difference. From my experience at Tech, I think of all of the parts of the environment (other students, 1:1 time with professors, research opportunities, labs, lectures, random events, extracurriculars, etc.) lectures brought some of the least academic value, and are impacted the least by the move online. Class structures as a whole are impacted, but a professor lecturing into a chalkboard on how to take eigenvalues isn't a better experience than what you can get on youtube today. The value I as a student got wasn't from the lectures, it was from everything else.
And you can't provide the everything else anyway.
> Later you also state that there are subjects where it cannot possibly work.
Indeed, but that doesn't excuse not trying for the subjects where it can.
> I am not saying that online education is useless, just that it produces less value, and I don't think that professors are even remotely open to the idea that this could be reflected in their salaries.
And I'm saying that the opposite is likely true: the OMSCS program is cheaper tuition wise, but still an enormous cash cow for Georgia Tech. So if you mean value per student, maybe, but that has, again, little to do with the professor, it has to do with the other services the university environment provides. In an online education scheme, the value provided by the professor actually increases, while the value to charge the student decreases, because the student no longer has access to all of the other valuable things that the university provides that have nothing to do with the professor (everything from the concrete: a world class weightlifting studio to the more nebulous: the ability to interact and network with other students, which is for example a key reason that schools can charge more for their MBA programs, it has little to do with the classes and more to do with the people, the other students, you'll meet).
But you are not getting any of these either! You seem to focus too much on lectures. The learning experience obviously includes all that above.
>In an online education scheme, the value provided by the professor actually increases
ok this is so wrong, I don't even know where to start or if it is even worth discussing. Most of the professors there haven't got a clue on how to design an online course. That takes years of practice, a loop of evaluation, enthusiasm and hard work (I know because I developed an online course and it took me five years to get it right). What they produce will be a tedious, unwatchable hourlong expose that will be a burden to follow.
Saying that a professor produces even more value online is absurd - perhaps relatively speaking since if students don't get to be there thus compared to nothing, or course, it is a lot.
My opinion firmly stands, none of these universities can even hope to pay their professors the same if they teach online.
This is why the administration wants the face-to-face so badly, do you honestly think that they have not thought about how insanely badly it makes them look? They know what the letter signers don't, there is no future if students are not there.
I know, that's why I said "And you can't provide the everything else anyway." That has nothing to do with the professor. The professor's value doesn't affect the value one gets from extracurriculars. The professor shouldn't be paid less because the university can't provide extracurriculars, because, under your scheme the professor is still providing the same value.
> Saying that a professor produces even more value online is absurd
A single professor can, on campus, teach a course of at most ~200 students. Some universities can support more for a few courses due to larger lecture halls, but at Georgia Tech 2-250 is the limit. On the other hand, in an online course the same professor can teach thousands of students. Georgia Tech is the prime example here: the OMSCS program has professors teaching tons of students per professor.
> Most of the professors there haven't got a clue on how to design an online course.
Indeed, and you'll see that many of the professors are complaining because they weren't given clear timelines. You overestimate the time component required for many subjects, I saw approximately 3 months to convert an existing on campus CS course to online, given the resources (which Tech has), which again, remember this is a university with the resources and experience to provide multiple masters degree programs entirely online, has at least one lab devoted to online education and MOOC research, etc.
> My opinion firmly stands, none of these universities can even hope to pay their professors the same if they teach online.
Sure, but not because the professor is providing in less value, but because the university is providing less value.
Nonetheless, the reason why institutions are biased towards face-to-face is because 1) without face-to-face, there is no need for room and board- which is a significant portion of revenue. 2) Support service contracts - such as dining/cafeteria services - may stipulate that institutions still are financial obligated even if they are not generating the typical revenue from the services. There are other examples, but as I said in a previous post -operating budgets of tuition dependent colleges/universities are generated with the assumption of physical bodies being present - and all the peripheral income that generates. Most schools would not be able to survive without that income.
> This isn't the same, by the way, as the opinion that university education that is completely online is as valuable as in person, there are environmental factors that are advantageous for in person experiences
But that has nothing to do with professor salaries. A professor's value to a student is about the same whether they're lecturing in person or through a screen. The rest of the system however has less value to the student. But that the university can't provide as much value doesn't impact the professor's value. So if you're looking at this from a value-driven economy, the professor's salary shouldn't change, the university should profit less from the Prof's labor because the university is providing less value-add over just the professor.
I'd argue the value of the lectures is about the same for large classes, it's the ability to ask questions or students ability to focus that gets harder online.
This product if worth X amount for you, but I can only build it for 2X
An online course that an average professor puts together will be much worse than what is already available on Coursera.
This is what scares the administration, they know cannot compete with that, and bigger things are at stake, like the future of the entire institution.
If anything, a lot of the cost of a college tuition these days isn't in the pay for the instructors anyway. It's in the campus, the labs, the sports, the social life/club funding and the like.
It seems like you are missing the point, if the student is not coming the professor can't get paid either. Do you thing GT will just print more money?
I'm not sure what will end up happening, or if it will be fair to either party here. And obviously, if students drop out over this, then that will cause financial issues all over, but that doesn't seem like what's happening. Students are still enrolled and interested in taking classes where possible. On the other end, telling non-tenured professors that they now have to teach entirely online for less money is an easy way for them to go find a different job, which isn't good for GT either.
It will in a way work out, all I am saying that I don't think these petitioners ever thought about it, or considered that.
All I am saying here is not that you should push faculty to do things they don't want - just to have everyone understand they can't get the same salary as before if they provide less value as before.