Jim, et al, As I've been reading these posts I find truth in all sides of the arguments but I keep thinking back to 1992 when I took my first position at a University after being an independent tech for 10 years with my own rebuilding business. My income had dropped 40% over the 2 previous years due to the Reagan recession and I was tired of the feast-or-famine, no such thing as a vacation routine. I wasn't in the Guild at the time so I joined because I saw a couple of ads for university jobs that "suggested" RPT status. I wasn't a tuner either but I got a copy of the Sanderson/Baldassin 2-octave A temperament from a friend in the PTG and commenced to practicing tuning on a nice Baldwin L I owned that I had rebuilt but couldn't sell to save my soul. I practiced like hell for a couple of months, passed my exam aurally with flying colors, became an RPT, got a job and then really started learning what a piano technician was. I began tuning for concerts and recitals, rebuilding concert grand actions, dealing with action geometry problems, tuning and regulating for musicians constantly, etc, etc...I took advantage of every possible educational opportunity the PTG made available and applied it to my craft. I became a member of the CAUT committee because I saw there were some pretty savvy people there that I could learn from. In the 15 years since I took that first job I have successfully applied for equity review, changed jobs (once), gotten a job offer with better pay and threatened to leave if my salary wasn't adjusted upwards(once), and just recently went through the process of getting myself a promotion through a comprehensive position review. Through these 4 methods I have doubled my salary since I began in the Ohio state system. I'd like to think that the PTG and CAUT have had a great deal to do with my success. In my last position review the Human Resources person who was given my case contacted the PTG home office (I didn't tell her, she is pretty smart and found it herself while looking for professional organizations that could give her some demographic information on piano technicians). She became aware of the income discrepancies and professional demands we write about in this forum all the time. The home office gave her some (good) names of techs in positions similar to mine to contact and I benefited from their past work at improving their positions. I was promoted and got a raise. I've given this kind of long-winded personal history because I am positive about a couple of things. Being in the PTG has helped me immensely along my path BOTH by helping me educate myself and by promoting the profession to the public in general and academia in particular. The more we promote PTG, RPT or a CAUT credential to institutions, the more credibility those titles will have. I've already seen the results in my brief tenure. Institutions don't seem to care too much about credentials if the pay-scale is low, but if we start to be paid as well as some faculty (and some technicians are) they are going to start looking more closely at qualifications. WE are the ones who must push the salaries up. Nobody is going to just give it to us, we have to fight for it. You have to do it yourselves. When one of us gets themselves a big raise or negotiates a better starting salary it helps everybody because the HR people go around looking for comparisons and it will put upward pressure on salaries everywhere. At any rate, a good CAUT curriculum with targeted classes at the regional and national level will be of benefit to all who aspire to improve themselves whether it leads to a CAUT credential or not. The more you know, the more ways there are to make a good living... Eric Eric Wolfley, RPT Director of Piano Services College-Conservatory of Music University of Cincinnati -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jim Busby Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 2:19 PM To: College and University Technicians Subject: Re: [CAUT] Job Opening, U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor Alan, List, As you may know the CAUT Committee is working on such a credential. I hope I'm not overstepping anyone by this post but it seems a timely topic seeing as how we're approaching deadlines for council proposals. I would GREATLY appreciate a dialogue on this. Is it "pie in the sky" to develop a CAUT credential? Is it too exclusive? I don't know if this is a good place for this discussion, but any private emails to me would also help. Eric is now the chairman of this committee and I'm a committee member (along with Alan McCoy) given the charge of developing a curriculum. Thanks -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of ReggaePass at aol.com Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 12:02 PM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: Re: [CAUT] Job Opening, U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor List, Having some kind of CAUT certification may well run into the same problems as RPT. On the other hand, the places where such a credential would be meaningful are far fewer and more predictable (than "the general public"), so maybe this is a realm in which establishing and publicizing certification actually IS feasible. If, knowing that it exists and what it means, a given school decides not to require it (or, at least, express a preference for it), "Oh, well..." Alan Eder In a message dated 10/9/07 1:31:49 PM, edoss at utm.edu writes: << It all comes down to educating University Faculty and Administration. Is the head technician at UMich an RPT? I checked his vita on the School of Music website and it stated he was a "craftsman in the Piano Technicians Guild," but said nothing about being an RPT...and there's good reason for that since he is not. He's listed in the 2006 directory as an Associate. That may be why the job description does not mention RPT status. Here the faculty is aware of my RPT status and it garners some respect for me. Even if CAUT members were certified at a higher level of competency than an RPT, who would know what that meant without a huge amount of education on the part of PTG and CAUT? It would be the same as we now find with RPT. I don't think we need more initials after more intensive exams, we need more education about the present designation. We keep wanting to fix something that "aint broke." Joy! Elwood >> <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> See what's new at http://www.aol.com</HTML>
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