"In the past 20 years, colleges have gone on a hiring spree of administrators—up about 40 percent; actual classroom professors, just 18 percent. Pay for administrators has jumped 70 percent faster than for professors. What are these people doing? Maybe they’re processing drop-out forms, because 60 percent of students fail to graduate in four years. The old model of colleges might have worked in keg party comedies, but nowadays, the laughs are on parents and young people."

April 2012 Akron-AAUP Newsletter

New Vice-Presidents + Budget Cuts to Colleges and Departments = "Strategic PRIORITIES" at the University of Akron.

Department chairs and deans are reporting the administration's notice to them of another nearly 8 million dollar budgetary shortfall.

We'd like first to call attention to the difference between a shortfall in available monies versus a shortfall in what is nothing more than a plan for spending. A budgetary shortfall does not translate necessarily into an actual shortage of available funds.

Indeed, public notice of recent administrative expenditures suggest quite clearly that the administration has all the money it wants to expand and enhance its own presence on campus; witness the creation this academic year of two new associate vice-presidential and one new full vice-presidential positions at a combined salary cost--exclusive of benefits, retirement contributions, administrative assistant salaries, office furniture and expense accounts--totalling more than 540,000 dollars.

Clearly, there can be no question that the University of Akron has money to spend as it sees fit.

Nevertheless, colleges, and by extension, academic departments are being subjected, yet again, to administrative demands for another 3-6% cut in operating expenses. The manifold effects of this demand will, of course, extend to the faculty, and, by extension, to our students, and then further and ultimately to their tuition and tax-paying parents. These constituencies, it should be stated, are not responsible in any way for the administration's planning and fiscal shortcomings.

As per business-as-usual, the University administration continues to grow and to fund its own agendas in spite of these reported financial restrictions and state and nationwide economic concerns. All the while faculty and students experience evermore demands for larger, not smaller and more educationally effective, class sizes; expectations to produce more with fewer resources; interminable holds on new or replacement faculty positions. Fall semester's announcement of two new associate vice-presidents at a salary cost of $340,000 came immediately after the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences lost $320,000 in operating expenses. Support for maintenance (let alone growth) of the University's academic mission is clearly an issue secondary to the continued metastatic growth of the upper administration.

What's next? Is it possible that departments will have to do without fulltime administrative assistants? Will successful departments, which receive very little in return for the monies they generate for the University--even the small departments do--every semester, be folded one into another regardless of legitimate academic affinities or our academic reputation? Perhaps faculty can make do without telephones?

Our question: What, exactly, is the university administration willing to sacrifice to meet the financial demands of its own newly self-made crisis? Will the athletic department, home to a spectacularly failed football program, be asked to sacrifice a single dollar? Will the university suspend any part of its relentless building of new and attractive structures, none of which contribute a single square foot of real estate to classroom and educational use?

Writing, for a moment, not as faculty but as taxpayers, we'd like to remind the administration that the money so lavishly and profligately spent on its own growth is not theirs: it's ours.

We'll repeat a collegial challenge posted here last year to justify these expenses. How has administrative growth and changes in administrative leadership contributed in any demonstrably material way to the University of Akron's abilty to discover and contribute to the store of human knowledge? How has a single student's success in achieving graduation and a post-collegiate career been facilitated?

If such cannot be factually demonstrated in trying economic times then the administrative expenses cannot, by reasonable and responsible adults, be deemed justifiable or defensible.

In light of the economic straits of the State of Ohio and the nation, and despite its own shortfalls in budget planning, the administration maintains its continued growth, no matter the cost to our educational mission; no matter the cost to faculty, students, or their parents.

For the rest of us, look for another round of budget cuts coming to an office near you-- just as long as that office isn't located in Buchtel Hall.

NOTE: We understand the administration will be making a presentation on the budget to the BOT tomorrow, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14. Interested faculty are invited to attend the public session at 12:30 p.m. You have a RIGHT to be there.

Join Akron-AAUP Now.

By the way, due to careful monitoring of our finances and disciplined restraint in expenditures the Akron-AAUP has been able to reduce the cost of full-voting-membership (above the cost of fair share fees) by nearly 24%.

An Editorial Opinion from 2009 On Crises and Cuts

Forget “Trust, but verify.” A more apt phrase to describe the mood at some colleges today would be “Don’t trust, and challenge.”

Read the item HERE.

UA ADMINISTRATION CONTINUES TO GROW

The University of Akron recently announced another newly created Vice-Presidential position: Vice President for Strategic Engagement. If approved at the May 1st meeting of the Board of Trustrees, the position will be filled by former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, at a starting base salary of $200,000.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer says "Tressel will be a vice president of the university, in charge of fundraising and "strategic engagement"...unless the university trustees say no. Which is exactly what they should say. "

In other, related, news, the university's colleges and departmental units have been forced to accept reductions in operating budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars; tenure-track faculty positions remain unfilled; and the number of Vice-Presidents hired to manage the affairs of the United States of America remains at one.

Perhaps it's time to update this informational piece from the time of our last contract negotiations.

See an editorial opinion in the Beacon Journal's online "Voice of the People" HERE. Look for the letter titled "UA Makes the Wrong Choice."

Clarification: Right to Work?

There are political attempts underway to have Ohio made into a "Right to Work" (sic) state. We feel this should be clarified.

If successful, these attempts will render Ohio a "Right to Work FOR LESS" state. See here and here for more information.

We recommend that you oppose these measures as directly, and publicly, and as loudly, as you can, as often and wherever you can.

Give Ohio ~~A Right-To Work~~? ~~A Right to Work For Less?~~ A Right to Freeload!

January 2012 newsletter

Call for nominations: Chapter Secretary and Treasurer; Employee Rights Take 2--More anti-union legislation; Negotiations at BGSU; Around the country; Update on pay raises.

Read these items HERE.

Spring 2012 Executive Committee Elections

The chapter is soliciting nominations for the upcoming April election of the Akron AAUP Chapter Secretary and Treasurer. Each officer is a voting member of the Akron AAUP Executive Committee. The term of office for these two positions will be two years. You may nominate yourself or someone else for either position. Only FULL DUES-PAYING chapter members are allowed to hold office or participate in chapter elections. If you are not currently a Chapter member, this is an excellent time to download and send the Chapter Membership Form to
our current Treasurer, Richard Elliott, as indicated on the form.

Many of the "old guard" among our leadership team will soon be retiring or stepping away from AAUP responsibilities. It is time for new blood and new leadership. The work of Akron-AAUP is ongoing, and includes protecting your contractual rights as well as securing those same rights and responsibilities for future colleagues. It is important work for individual faculty members, and also for our collective professional experience.

We encourage you to become involved in this engaging and rewarding work. Nominations for Secretary and Treasurer are due by 5 p.m. on Friday, March 23rd, 2012. If you would like to nominate someone, please send your nomination to:
Jennifer Holz (Past President, Chair of the Nominations and Elections Committee) at jh16@uakron.edu or drjenniferholz@yahoo.com, or phone 330-972-8790.

The election will be held in early April, 2012, after nominations have closed. All active Akron AAUP chapter members will be receiving an electronic ballot for these two important leadership positions.

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SB 5 is Repealed

From the Ohio Conference of the AAUP

From the AAUP national office

But Don't Think For A Moment That It's Over!

"House Speaker William Batchelder, R-Medina, already has said lawmakers will try to resurrect some parts of the bill next year."

From a story in the Beacon Journal online

We suggest that you write to your State Representatives and Senators recommending that they not participate in such actions.

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University of Akron AAUP: Einstein "It is evident that any restriction on academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action."

- Albert Einstein, Member of AAUP

University of Akron AAUP: Lovejoy "...truth is more likely to emerge through the interplay and conflict of ideas resulting from the exercise of individual reason than through the imposition of uniform and standardized opinion by authority."

A.O. Lovejoy, Co-founder AAUP

University of Akron AAUP: John Dewey "To investigate truth; critically verify fact; to reach conclusions by means of the best methods at command, untrammeled by external fear or favor, to communicate this truth to the student: this is precisely the aim and object of the university. To aim a blow at any one of these operations is to deal a vital wound to the university itself"

John Dewey, Co-founder AAUP