It seems to us at The Chart that a person fortunate enough to have a job in today’s economic landscape would be thankful for that alone.

It seems to us that faculty at an institute of higher education would be more concerned with helping to place its graduates into the workforce than the administrative problems it sees.

We’re not “in the trenches” day to day, or at least not in the same ones as the faculty and staff of this University, but we would think that it would take an awful lot for someone whose job is to guide young minds to lose sight of that responsibility.

One would think that the faculty, of all groups, would understand that the backbone of any institute of higher education is its students.

There are some on this campus who seem to disagree with that notion.

For years, tensions between administrators and faculty flared over the lack of cost of living raises.

Guess what?

When a company doesn’t make money, employees don’t get raises.

The argument will be that a school is not a company. Sure, but the comparison is still strong.

Individuals who would have or did accept raises while tuition continued to rise for students and state appropriations continued to fall are the problem we’re talking about.

At Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting, some members expressed concern over the views of President Bruce Speck on shared governance. We’re fine with that, everyone should have a voice, after all. Especially in their place of work. And administrators shouldn’t be governing classroom activity.

But the thing that everyone whose place of work is a school should also keep in mind is that their ultimate responsibility is to the students.

Our point is not to endorse or defend the president, the Senate or any other party in any other pissing match. We don’t have a dog in the fight.

But if faculty members want to spend their days complaining, arguing and overlooking the people they are supposed to represent, perhaps they are a better fit for the U.S. Congress than an institute of higher education.

Our point is that if administrative issues cause faculty members more concern than student issues, those individuals are not fit to be educators.