university CUTS pay of already low paid part time faculty

it would be nice if past actions were brought up from the memory hole

http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/2007/10/conservative-reckless-approach.html

October 22, 2007 3:54 PM | Permalink
"Policymakers in South Carolina learned late last week that the state will likely face a budget deficit of some $430 million heading into FY 2009. A number of states will have to close budget gaps in the coming fiscal year -- in part because critical sources of revenue growth have slowed with the cooling housing market. But South Carolina has brought some of this problem on itself. As the Bureau of Economic Advisors -- the body responsible for the latest budget projection -- indicates, one of the three largest factors contributing to the likely deficit is the $240 million in tax cuts enacted this summer.

News like this should give elected officials in Utah some pause. According to the Deseret Morning News, legislators there are already talking about using a projected $400 million budget surplus to cut taxes once again. Yet, as the News points out, that surplus may exist only because Utah's budget projections have not yet been updated to account for previously enacted tax cuts. In other words, some elected officials want to use these surpluses, which may not even exist because of previous tax cuts, to fund more tax cuts. Anti-tax politicians with this kind of mindset like to portray themselves as conservative, but this kind of behavior can only be described as reckless."

Talk about your management for idiots.

in State institutions

than education.

Just about every campus has brand spanking new building and buys multi-million dollar software contracts when their old software still works fine, but can't be bothered to give health insurance to adjuncts or give them job security or equal pay for equal work. Most likely, it is because the contracts for things are with people who have money and can provide kickbacks, and contracts with faculty don't have that little perk.

Large amounts of adjuncts were just one result...

immoral things, eventually, you attract immoral people to the job.

1. Be sure that you have already sent a letter to the President. See template below.
2. Be sure that you have asked and asked again every one you know to also send a letter. This is organizing for power.
3. Write a letter to the Editor of the student newspaper: The Signpost, Weber State University, 3848 Harrison Blvd., Ogden, Utah, 84408.
4. Write a letter to the Editor of the Ogden Standard-Examiner, 332 Standard way, Odgden, UT, 84404. Or email: letters@standard.net.
5. Write to any blogs you know or have a relation to about this situation.
6. Then do it all again!

In solidarity, John

_______________________________________________________
You can send of give this email to you friends and colleagues to encourage them to join you n this protest and to show them what to do with the letter below.

Greetings Faculty Colleagues,
Pasted below is a template for a letter of protest to the
President of Weber State University in Utah. The
administration at WSU has announced that it will reduce
the pay of their contingent faculty by 7% and use the
money to address budget concerns. For more information
on the Weber State cuts see Inside HigherEd at this link:
http://www.insidehighereducation.com/news/2009/03/02/qt

The Coalition on Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL)
is initiating an email campaign to urge the administration
to find that money somewhere else.

We are asking you to send to the Weber
State University President an email with the letter of
protest you will find pasted below.

Do several important things before you send the email:
1. Copy and paste the letter of protest into an email,
2. Add the name of your college or university, whether you were a student there who appreciated your instructors or a current faculty member. Add your
name at the end of the email,
3. Add your own subject line (be creative but not
offensive),
4. Blind copy your email to COCAL at: cocal@cocal-ca.org.
This will let us know how successful we have been in
getting lots of emails sent to President Millner,
5. Send the email to presidentsoffice@weber.edu

____________________________________________________________

TEMPLATE FOR LETTER OF PROTEST TO COPY AND PASTE INTO
YOUR EMAIL

F. Ann Millner
President
Weber State University

Dear President Millner:

I write in protest of the proposal at Weber State University to
cut the salaries of contingent faculty by 7%. These
faculty members are part of the professional workforce of your university.
Their lack of benefits and low salaries, made worse by
being singled out for this pay cut to their entire salary, are an indication
of the lack of respect you have not just for this group of faculty,
but for the work of the profession, and the mission of the university.

To propose such inequity is unacceptable at a university,
the place at which our students study democratic ideals. I join with members
of the Coalition for Contingent Academic Labor from across North
America in asking you to show respect for all who contribute to Weber State.
If sacrifice is necessary, that burden must be shared equally by all at
the university. What cuts are administrators and managers taking?

Sincerely



John Hess
465 65th Street, Oakland, CA, 94609

Not only the existing faculty but potential new scientists for the future. The author was estimating there would not be good opportunities for years between budget cuts and delayed retirement by faculty whose retirement funds have been gutted.

It is online:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/40808/title/Comment__Nation_needs_recovery_plan_for_science_faculty_jobs

Nation needs recovery plan for science faculty jobs
By David Spergel
February 28th, 2009

Over the past few months, many graduate students and postdocs have been receiving letters from department chairs apologetically explaining that the faculty job search at Institution X has been canceled. State and private universities are facing declining tax revenues and falling endowments, and are unwilling to raise tuition on newly impoverished families. From Harvard to small local colleges, junior faculty searches are being put on hold as the nation suffers its worst economic downturn in most of our lifetimes.

<SNIP>

The lack of tenure-track jobs in the United States will likely lead many of our best young U.S.-trained scientists and engineers to seek faculty positions in Europe and Asia, or to abandon their scientific careers. Many of our promising young Ph.D.s are foreign-born scientists who will likely return to their home countries. Most other advanced nations have mandatory retirement ages at their universities and do not have retirement pensions connected to the stock market.

What is to be done? If Congress were to direct 10 percent of its planned increase in science spending toward creating junior faculty positions, the resulting new jobs would replace many lost positions and completely alter the job landscape over the next several years. A federally sponsored “advanced” fellowship program to provide support for the first three years of a junior faculty position would create many new academic jobs. As part of this program, universities would commit to providing support for the next three years to guarantee a six-year appointment. The British and Spanish governments have already implemented a program on this model. By restricting the number of government-supported advanced fellows at any given university, this program would foster the creation of new jobs at universities across the country.

This investment in creating new faculty jobs will likely save a generation of researchers and yield long-term benefits. These young faculty members will produce new advances in medicine, new technologies to spur long-term economic growth and new insights that will deepen our understanding of the world around us.

David Spergel is chair of the department of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/40808/title/Comment__Nation_needs_recovery_plan_for_science_faculty_jobs

been discussing, and cutting, pay.

In my state, the education budget was cut at the state level mid-year. Districts budget according to yearly projections. When the budget was cut mid-year, my district cut school days and they cut my pay. By about double my yearly heating bill.

Surrounding districts have been doing the same.