pays to virtue. Somehow that old adage sprung to my mind when reading that “the administration remains committed to improving faculty salaries” today in the DE. In fact, the only real progress we have seen toward making our salaries comparable to peer institutions has been brought about since the faculty association has put some pressure on the administration. I cannot speak for other departments or colleges, but in my own department, our salaries lag, on the average, 10 to 20 percent behind peer institutions – I like to use the example of my friend at NIU, same age, same rank, same years of service-but earning about $10,000 a year more than I do. An editorial in the DE proclaimed that faculty raises are “untimely.” Perhaps so, unfortunately, raises for us have been “untimely” since I started teaching here in 1993 and, if the present behavior of the administration continues, will be untimely until I retire in 2030.