[CAUT] Faculty as Colleagues, was Steinway... The "Safe" Piano.

[Porritt, David]

Jeff:

As I've said before I'm really sorry that your situation at USC was such a negative thing.  I don't have that at my school and I'm certainly glad.  The head technician at the local Steinway Hall told me recently that I had the best CAUT job because of the people I work with.  I had to agree.  They all are truly wonderful human beings who happen to be excellent musicians.  They treat me with respect and collegiality.  I know that this is because of who they are rather than who I am but there are places where this is true.  

It does take a certain number of good people to create a good culture.  Fortunately for me we have that critical mass of good people.  

dave


David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Tanner
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 4:39 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Faculty as Colleagues, was Steinway... The "Safe" Piano.

Rick Florence wrote:
"We are as involved in the musical process as most faculty.  It is to our 
advantage to be considered colleagues as opposed to staff.  We have more to 
offer than solely the service of  pianos."

Now, Rick,
You and I and most of the rest of us understand and agree with that.  But 
the music faculty most certainly do not, and never will.

"If we allow ourselves to be marginalized by not participating in such 
important decisions, we put ourselves in the position of being thought of as 
nothing more than piano mechanics."

Unfortunately, I'm afraid the music faculty puts us there without any effort 
or lack thereof on our part.

"For a group that constantly complains about the lack of pay and respect in 
our profession, we sure have a strange way of enabling such a position by 
assuming such a benign existence."

This, I agree with 100%.  But the down to earth reality is that until there 
is a university degree that awards a doctorate in piano technology (which 
would be about the silliest example of diminishing returns we could endeavor 
to create), I'm afraid that we will always be looked at as mere custodians 
by those who have the doctoral degrees.  It is a sad thing to say, but those 
degrees are about the only thing that gives many academic types their self 
worth, and with them they create their own little disengaged world where 
anyone else who doesn't have one doesn't belong.  The reality about lack of 
pay and respect in our profession is that academic musicians with doctoral 
degrees are our glass ceiling and they're not working for much more.  Just 
let one of them find out that that lowly piano tuner is making more than 
they are.  I later found out that when I was initially hired at USC, the 
junior piano faculty with a doctorate found out I got a couple thousand more 
than he was making (which was a pittance) and he created quite a ruckus.  It 
didn't matter that with his position there was opportunity for advancement 
whereas with mine there was not.  It was all about that degree.

That is the biggest reason I got out.  There was no way to ever move up.

Jeff Tanner