This problem of low salaries, poor benefits, low public esteem, etc., is a
situation that has gotten worse in the past two decades.  When I began my
brilliant career in 1967, I got $1.10 per hour (for a 30-hour week).  But
in those days there were strong supports -- socially, culturally -- for
lives dedicated to public service and education.  It was also possible
for a modest standard of living to provide one with safety, cultural
opportunities, and so on.  We fought very hard to push up levels of
compensation, and to reduce idiotic forms of discrimination.  The museum,
for example, routinely paid its women staff only 75% of what it paid men
for the same work.  Development and administrative officers were paid 50%
more than better-prepared curators.  But no one was more scorned than
museum educators, and it took some interesting tactics -- suggesting that
we enroll the whole department on food stamps, etc. -- to open up a
discussion of compensation for our staff.

Now, the gulf between rich and poor has widened, and subsistence wages
are much more dangerous walks on the tightrope than they were thirty
years ago.  The political assault on public employees, especially
teachers, over the past decade has delegitimated the old Kennedy-era
ethos of lives spent doing good.  Public goods have become market
commodities, accessible less as an opportunity of citizenship and more as
a cash purchase.  And perhaps the cruelest stroke of all is that we are
increasingly pressured to serve as public relations flacks for the
society rather than as critical intellectuals.

Volunteer coordinator, indeed!  Sounds like a euphemism from one of the
great dystopian novels of the early 20th century.

RR