In a December op-ed for The Tribune, I predicted that the Utah System of Higher Education’s R485 policy and, perhaps more importantly, the University of Utah’s interpretation of that policy, would have catastrophic consequences for faculty and students alike.

I admit that at the time — and despite knowing better — I held out hope that someone, having understood these inevitable consequences, and possessing a modicum of common sense, would step up and stop this absurd, unfair and pedagogically ill-advised change to the career-line faculty’s workload.

Sadly, it appears that no such person exists. The workload increase appears imminent.

What this means, in essence, is that career-line faculty who currently teach a 3/3 load (three courses in the fall, three in the spring) in the College of Humanities will be required to teach a 4/4 load, which is a 33% work increase but without additional pay.

Keep in mind that enrollment caps in our first-year writing courses were, contrary to best practices, increased from 23 to 27 students, again without additional pay.

What USHE, the public, current and prospective students, faculty, legislators, and administrators need to understand is that if the College of Humanities and other units’ 4/4 interpretation of R485 prevails — the USHE policy itself says nothing about a 4/4 policy — we can expect more burnout, morale to plummet even further, less time and energy to work with students, and the departure of our best teachers.

Unfortunately, as Professor Jay Jordan noted in another Tribune op-ed, “The U.’s administrators seem far more interested in placating political leaders and corporatizing our work than they are in supporting that work. They risk losing faculty members, staff members and students who are increasingly concerned that the tuition and fees they pay fund questionable priorities.”

Of course, the university has already lost faculty members. I know this because I am one of them.

Given the current and pending uncompensated changes to the career-line faculty workload, what those changes indicate about the university and, in my case, the College of Humanities’s values and lack of commitment to its faculty and students, and an already abysmal salary, I resigned effective June 30 to accept a Professor of Creative Writing and Environment position at another R1 university.

I am beyond thrilled to have this extraordinary opportunity at this stage of my career.

I realized many years ago that universities are, despite their aspirations to the contrary, just as susceptible to baseness and folly as any other institution, but this past year has been the most demoralizing and sobering year of the 20 years I have taught here. It affected me in ways that I could not have predicted. Disillusioned doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel, and I am not alone. Notwithstanding the continued efforts on the part of students and faculty to oppose these changes, under the current leadership, things are only going to get worse.

The Dean of the College of Humanities assures us that an analysis of career-line faculty compensation and workload distribution is underway. But talk is cheap. The fact is, the university, college, and my own department have known about these pay disparities for years. For years, my colleagues and I have been telling anyone who would listen that something needs to be done about low pay. And I personally met with the current Dean of the College of Humanities at the beginning of her tenure to express my concerns about unfair compensation. Ultimately, the powers that be have had every chance to do right by me and my career-line colleagues. And yet they chose not to. Why, then, would I or any other reasonable person expect them to do so now? The short answer is, we wouldn’t.

Thus, the time has come for me to take my talents elsewhere.

I have mixed feelings about leaving Utah. I am going to miss our landscapes, the bright-eyed students and my excellent colleagues who did so much to enrich my life and nurture my love of teaching. But when it comes right down to it, by demonstrating such gross indifference to the needs, importance and contributions of career-line faculty, the university and the College of Humanities (anymore I feel like “Humanities” at the University of Utah should be in quotation marks) made the choice easy.

I am just grateful to actually have the choice to leave for something better. I hope other career-line faculty will be so fortunate.

I will close by thanking my amazing colleagues for their courage to fight for fairness. Thanks, also, to the Associated Students of the University of Utah (ASUU) for its work on and passage of the deftly crafted JR7. These people give me hope.

I am also grateful for everything I have learned and accomplished here, and for all the amazing experiences I have had while working with our remarkable students. I now look forward to everything I will accomplish, and to all the other amazing experiences I will have, as I start this new chapter of my career.

Goodbye, Utah! Wish me luck.

Maximilian Werner has taught at the university level for more than 30 years and has published seven books, dozens of articles, essays and poems. He currently lives in Millcreek and this summer will teach his last class for the University of Utah.

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