The Southeast Missouri State University faculty remains divided over the merits of merit pay.

"It has created an amazing amount of bitterness on this campus," said Terry Sutton, an economics professor who chairs Faculty Senate.

"I am just philosophically against the whole idea, but I am not sure what would be better," he said.

Some faculty members think the university's latest merit pay plan is designed to give the administration a means to fire tenured professors. School officials insist that isn't the case.

Many faculty members are ambivalent at best about merit pay. Others want to return to across-the-board pay raises, something the regents have opposed.

Some faculty members are concerned that some of Southeast's colleges are less stringent than others in the awarding of merit pay.

The Faculty Senate earlier this week voted 20-6 to send a revised merit pay plan to Dr. Kala Stroup, the school's departing president. The plan would be in effect for the 1996-97 and 1997-98 academic years.

But some faculty members oppose the plan and are petitioning the senate to submit the issue to a vote of the entire faculty.

It is also unclear if the Board of Regents must approve the plan. Provost Charles Kupchella said the administration doesn't have to get the board's approval, but several faculty senators disagree.

Faculty member Dean Monahan has taught English at Southeast for 30 years.

He is worried that it provides a way for the university administration to fire tenured teachers who are found "unsatisfactory" in merit-pay evaluations.

"It is sort of being used as a cover to control the faculty," said Monahan, who serves on the Faculty Senate and was among a handful of senators who voted against passage of the merit bill.

The university could save money by having fewer tenured faculty, Monahan said.

"We are losing a lot of senior people already. Now it is going to be worse," said Monahan.

But Kupchella called the allegation "absurd."

He said, "I think it will ultimately help us keep the very best faculty."

Some faculty members think they don't have much choice when it comes to merit pay.

The Board of Regents determined in 1991 that it didn't want across-the-board pay hikes.

If the Faculty Senate hadn't passed a merit-pay bill, the administration or the Board of Regents would act on their own, faculty members concluded.

The revised plan is similar to a plan adopted in the past school year, which eliminates across-the-board pay raises and the set merit pay of $1,000.

Merit pay is now determined by the budget and how many faculty members qualify for pay hikes.

Faculty salaries for the current academic year were based on merit evaluations.

The university has had a merit pay plan since 1991 and prior to that had what amounted to faculty bonuses.

Under the 1991 merit plan, faculty received across-the-board pay raises designed to reflect cost-of-living increases, and merit pay of $1,000 added onto the base salary.

Kupchella said in March 1994 that the university couldn't be locked into what amounted to a 6 percent annual increase in salaries.

Initially, the merit pay plan was voluntary on the part of faculty. Now it is compulsory and all faculty must be evaluated annually.

The evaluation is done by the department chairmen or faculty committees. Merit pay recommendations then go to the respective college deans for their approval and ultimately to the provost.

Faculty members denied merit pay can appeal to a committee headed by the provost.

"I think everybody likes the idea in theory. In practice, I think what happens is that nobody likes to cut somebody off," said Giulio Venezian, a physics teacher and faculty senator.

"I am willing to try it, but I am skeptical," he said.

Faculty members like Venezian are concerned that the school's different colleges apparently aren't applying merit pay equally.

Seventy-three percent of the faculty in the College of Health and Human Services received the top level of merit pay this year while only 27 percent of faculty in the College of Science and Technology received the same increases.

Under the latest merit plan, faculty members who are judged satisfactory would receive base merit pay. Those faculty members who were judged to be exceptional would receive additional merit pay.

There would be two levels of additional merit pay. The previous plan had three levels of exceptional merit pay.

Most faculty will qualify for merit pay, said Allen Gathman, a faculty senator from the biology department.

"If you don't get base merit, it is because you probably are unable to fog a mirror," he said.

This year, only 12 of the school's nearly 400 faculty members were judged unsatisfactory for merit.

"It is not across the board absolutely, but it isn't asking very much to get the base merit level," he said.