Argument 140

TOPIC: ARGUMENT140 - The following appeared in a report of the Committee on Faculty Promotions and Salaries at Elm City University.
"During her seventeen years as a professor of botany, Professor Thomas has proved herself to be well worth her annual salary of $50,000. Her classes are among the largest at the university, demonstrating her popularity among students. Moreover, the money she has brought to the university in research grants has exceeded her salary in each of the last two years. Therefore, in consideration of Professor Thomas' demonstrated teaching and research abilities, we recommend that she receive a $10,000 raise and a promotion to Department Chairperson; without such a raise and promotion, we fear that Professor Thomas will leave Elm City University for another college."

WORDS: 446 TIME: 00:30:00 DATE: 2008-4-3 14:35:45

In this argument, the verdict is that Elm City University should offer a $10,000 additional salary raise to Professor Thomas and promote her to the dean of her department, in order to attract her to still work for Elm City University. To support this conclusion, the speaker cites that Thomas's classes are among the largest at the university and that during the past two years Thomas has brought more research grants than her wage each year. However, close scrutiny of evidence unveils that this argument actually suffers from several critical fallacies, as discussed below.

To begin with, the fact that plenty of students in Elm City University study in Thomas's classes does not necessarily imply that Thomas is quite popular among college men. Certain other explanations including that many students are required to go to Thomas's class does exist. Or classmates are highly disgruntled with the content and method of Thomas's teaching, which is left untended in this argument.

Secondly, albeit Thomas has brought greater research grants than her wage in each of the past two years, the speaker fails to mention the situation before two years ago. Perhaps for eight or ten years Professor Thomas had not attract even one dollar to university. Besides, the prospect of more research grants from society next year is hard to predict. In addition, provided that money brought to Elm City University by Thomas just slightly exceeds Thomas's payment, it is especially unreasonable that the majority of study funds are paid to Thomas. Furthermore, the speaker also fails to provide sufficient information about Thomas's outcomes of research and publication. We can not rule out the possibility that Thomas achieved no prominent result in the past two years.

Thirdly, since other faculty's wages are not manifested in this statement, Thomas may earn much higher than average level of other professors, including the chancellor of Elm City University. Therefore, a salary of $50,000 is enough for Thomas's daily expense, the university do not have to raise the pay of Thomas, which is already extraordinary high. Moreover, whether Thomas has the ability of managing a department is equally questionable. Maybe Thomas is not suitable for a position which demands a universal idea. And, there is no evidence that Thomas is malcontent with her current wage and is searching for a new job.

To summary, this statement indeed suffers from a few vital blemishes as discussed above. To solidify the ultimateness, the speaker would have to demonstrate that Thomas's classes are highly appraised by her students, and provide more detailed information about the funds out of the university. Without considering these potential factors, the arguer would be too cursory to arrive at the conclusion.