In an article in yesterday’s edition of the Nashville based Tennessean UT President John Petersen was quoted saying the following when asked about the adminsitration’s controversial “merit-pay” plan:

“The most important thing is protecting our quality faculty and doing the best we can for everybody else,” he said. “If I’m going to make decisions, I’m going to annoy some people. If I annoy the people who are adequate and don’t annoy the people who are excellent, I’m OK with that. They didn’t hire me not to make tough decisions.”

Petersen added that the merely “adequate” faculty members won’t be going anywhere anyway.