Announcements:
1. Rally & March for Last Bargaining Date: Nov. 19th, Noon - 1
Meet at SMSU 3rd Floor
Quick training if you can be a Marshall for the March:
8:30 am, Mon 18th, CH 265
2. Joint AAUP-Faculty Senate Budget Forum, Monday, Nov. 25th, 3 - 5 pm, CH 53
3. Contract Expires Nov. 30th
4. Bargaining Mediation Dates Set: Dec. 18th & 19th
NEWS !!
Please Join the PSU-AAUP Rally & March
for a Decent Contract!
Tuesday, Nov. 19th, 12 - 1 pm. Meet at Noon, 3rd Floor SMSU
Now is the time to come out to push for a decent contract for the next biennium!
We need everybody who can possibly make it - the strength of a union is people power.
Join your friends and colleagues in the PSU-AAUP, as well as
* Rep. MIchael Dembrow, Chair, Oregon House Higher Ed Committee
* Gwen Sullivan, President, Portland Association of Teachers
* Volunteers from Jobs with Justice
* Representatives from student government, adjunct faculty & classified staff, and
* Derek Rieth (Pink Martini and the Lions of Batucada) & Friends!
Right now we're facing an "offer" to
* lose ground on contract protection for Promotion & Tenure, evaluations;
* lose ground on salary to inflation; and
* lose ground on stability for fixed term faculty.
The shift of PSU governance to its own board raises the possibility that state regulations covering the evaluation, promotion and tenure process may not hold. We need contract protection for PSU's Faculty Senate created language, to ensure that shared governance, academic freedom and faculty-led evaluation, promotion and tenure processes are preserved.
The "offer" of 1% for '13/'14 and 1% for '14/'15 means that the real value of pay will
erode, while our comparators move forward.
* UO will receive 6% and 6%, contract protection of evaluation, multi-year contracts for
Fixed Term Faculty and paid parental leave.
* OSU faculty got big raises this biennium, focused on equity, compression
and retention.
* OIT faculty pay will increase 9% this biennium, 7.5% across the board and 1.5% for
equity and retention.
PSU's current "offer" would reduce stability and job security for fixed term faculty.
People at PSU for fewer than 3 years could be non-renewed with only 3 months notice,
and people with 3 years or more would receive a maximum of 6 months notice,
with NO multi-year contracts.
What's wrong with PSU?
Joint PSU Faculty Senate/PSU-AAUP Budget Forum, Monday, Nov. 25th, CH 53, 3 - 5 pm
Come out to learn about and discuss a faculty perspective on PSU's budget, and what we should do.
First, It's not at all clear that we really should cut 5 - 8% from the University budget.
Not even members of the Faculty Senate Budget Committee have seen anything other than a very aggregated budget. We're being asked to inflict a lot of damage on the academic mission and revenue-generating programs, without seeing the line-item budget common in other public enterprises.
Tuition is higher and state support for PSU is up this year to $58m, based on 2 "buydowns" of planned tuition increases that were even higher. (The buydowns were purchased with lower retirement income for PERS retirees (i.e our retirement income) by reducing future cost of living increases to only partially counteract inflation.)
What's more, a budget is only a set of assertions, a plan. What's reliable is an audit, conducted by an independent party. Usually we'd have an audit for OUS, including PSU, for the previous academic year made available in November. But one member of the Faculty Senate Budget Committee was told by the Secretary of State Audit Division that the release of the OUS audit has been delayed until at least December. When asked why, he was told that they were not at liberty to say!
and
Second, even if we should cut the budget AGAIN next year, there are many alternatives to cutting academic units.
You've heard that the administrative payroll - salaries alone - grew by $5m last biennium, and that Executive Administrator position numbers and salaries have soared over the past 10 years.
Did you know that 32 Administrators were paid more than $150k each last year, averaging $197k?
* 4 PSU Administrators earned more than $266,000: The President, the Provost
and 2 Vice Presidents
* Another 6 earned over $200,000: Another Vice President, a Vice Provost
and 4 Deans
* And another 22 earned more than $150,000, including the Football Coach!
PSU Faculty pay is at the 10% percentile of public, PhD-granting universities, but our President is in the top 1/3 of Presidents of Public Colleges and Universities, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Meanwhile, the average pay for full-time, nine-month Instructors is less than $39k a year, and adjuncts are teaching a third of PSU student credit hours.
PSU needs a budget that prioritizes academics! Student debt cannot be allowed to pay for administrative bloat and ill-conceived real estate deals.
No Big Cut to Academics, without Opening the Books!