Remuneration

In the early days of the College, it was easy to get faculty and staff to attend events without mention or thought of payment. The excitement of founding a college seemed sufficient to carry us into any conference, lecture or event. Also, the caliber of some of those events -- and of those who spoke at them -- was such that most were SRO. For example, Joseph Campbell led a weekend workshop in 1973 from which we actually had to turn folks away.

But as the years have passed and as faculty have tended to live in distant places like Philadelphia, it is harder to bring them out to College events without paying them. Our Fall Faculty Conference -- held each year -- pays faculty $50 to attend. I'm told that a substantial number of faculty leave by noon. That may be a comment on what happens at this event.

All of this is prelude to whether or not contributors to the book will be paid and, if so, how much.

I don't think Rob Gregg and I have spent much time thinking about NOT paying faculty to write for the book. There may have been a moment -- at the beginning -- when we thought that folks would want to write for the project and to do so for free. That moment didn't last. It was easy to conclude that this sort of work was way beyond faculty responsibility, that a long policy in media and publishing has been to pay for writing, that if we wanted faculty to take the effort seriously and to produce quality writing some sort of payment was in order. But how much?

To observe that State colleges are in financial difficulty these days is to utter a cliche. Stockton, as part of the New Jersey State College System, has serious financial woes because the State of New Jersey faces terrible financial problems. The sins of the fathers, etc.

A major publication of a large, coffee-table volume cannot be done on the cheap. There are many costs: student researchers, editor stipends, production costs, DVD production costs, design costs, travel/interview costs, copying costs and on and on.

In addition, as a small State College, we do not have a long history of producing books like, say, Rutgers which has its own college press. We do not have paid staff, contractual links to publishers, in-house designers and all of the other professional members of a university press.

I am not, I hasten to add, complaining. I am exceedingly proud of what we are doing and how far we have moved in just a few months to actually producing the history. I am merely stating the obvious: given the State's financial problems we are not awash in money.

We have looked at our budget and have finally determined what we can afford to pay our contributors; and while not a much as we would like, it is enough that we don't have to be ashamed to offer it. We have over thirty contributors; only one person turned us down. Faculty and Staff response has been wonderfully positive and supportive. Like in the early days, challenge faculty and staff and they respond -- with or without remuneration.