A few important links

First: Nine layoffs in University of Illinois Facilities. I thought we were suffering through furloughs in order to avoid layoffs?

And second: Central Michigan University NTTs form union. This is great news for contingent faculty across the country. Nice work CMU!

American Universities as Hedge Funds?

We'd also like to direct your attention to the following story at Huffington Post by Bob Samuels: How America's Universities Became Hedge Funds. A few notable quotes:

When journalists asked the UC president, Mark Yudof, how the university could lend millions of dollars to the state, while the school was raising student fees (tuition), furloughing employees, canceling classes, and laying off teachers, Yudof responded that when the university lends money to the state, it turns a profit, but when it spends money on salaries for teachers, the money is lost....

To understand how both public and private research universities have gotten themselves into this mess, one needs to understand five inter-related factors: the state de-funding of public education, the emphasis on research over instruction, the move to high-risk investments, the development of a free market academic labor system, and the marketing of college admissions. These different forces have combined to turn universities into corporations centered on pleasing bond raters in order to get lower interest rates so that they can borrow more money to fund their unending expansion and escalating expenses.

Do go read the whole thing. David Swenson and others are implicated in this move, and many major universities, including the UC system, Harvard and Yale, are all doing the same stuff.

And as someone who is an alum of both Harvard and Yale, and a former organizer for Yale unions, I want to say the union movement at Yale was critical of Swenson's tactics from the beginning. From a Yale Alumni Magazine story in 2005:

Perhaps because Swensen prides himself on his integrity, he bristles when critics come after him. Student activists have accused Yale of investing in oil and timber operations that are environmentally irresponsible. Others, including a U.S. senator, blamed Yale for backing a hedge fund that planned to pump, export, and sell water in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. Yale's unions, in particular, have targeted the university, saying it is needlessly secretive about its investments. "They're doing a fabulous job of making money, but what are the social and environmental costs?" asks Ben Begleiter '04PhD, who works for the group that is trying to organize a graduate students' union. Two years ago during a union strike, eight retired employees seeking higher pension benefits occupied Swensen's office overnight. They refused to believe him when he tried to explain that he had no sway over their pensions.

Farallon is the hedge fund many universities use, and it is important to consider not only our own personal costs -- loss of raises, furloughs -- that have come from higher ed financial mismanagement, but the social costs. This is a report from 2005 sponsored by the Yale Unions showing Farallon's support of Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the country. It details Farallon's relationship to CCA, but also the human rights abuses that occur within the CCA's prisons.

The BUNSIS report

If you would like to read the in-depth report on the overall health of the University of Illinois system, there is now a link to the pdf for you to read.

This study was commissioned by the UIC United Faculty Organizing Committee, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT). It has somewhat more detail about UIC finances because it was commissioned on our Chicago campus. The study was prepared by the AAUP's national treasurer, an elected office held by Howard Bunsis of Eastern Michigan University. Dr. Bunsis has a law degree and a PhD in accounting. He specializes in analyzing university finances.

A Pay Cut Masquerading as a "furlough"

Dear Colleagues:

Pay cuts (masquerading as “furloughs”) are on the way. The Campus Faculty Association believes:

(1) if we must have furloughs, they should be more progressively tiered. The administration has made some effort in this direction, by exempting those who earn less than $30,000/year, and by singling out a small number of highly-paid administrators for the greatest number of furlough days. A greater number of days off for those with the highest salaries will yield the greatest financial returns for the university. Moreover, it is clearly unreasonable to expect an adjunct instructor who makes $32,000/year to take the same amount of time off as a tenured colleague who earns $200,000/year. In some other universities with similar budget problems, the number of “pay cut days” is being calibrated with increments of—for example—$20,000 in salary. Such an arrangement would be somewhat more difficult to implement, but much more equitable than the current plan."

(2) if we must have furloughs, they should be taken in such a way as to demonstrate to students, their families, and the public the educational “costs” of the budget crisis. If the impact on teaching is disguised, then the legislature has no incentive to restore even the limited contribution they now make to the university’s budget. While many colleagues will feel ethically and professionally bound to teach their classes, it is possible to do this in ways that publicize the university’s budget crisis. One possibility is to use “furlough days” to engage in alternate forms of teaching; another is simply to announce on a given day that one is teaching without pay, and then state on the University "Furlough Days Taken" form that "I was too busy to take a furlough." Please contact us with your creative responses to the furlough situation (and read our blog—address below—for other people’s ideas).

(3) though the university’s cash crisis compels sacrifices from all of us, calls for pay cuts as “shared sacrifice” ring hollow in the absence of real shared governance. The process culminating in the announced furlough policy cast faculty as subordinates rather than partners. We instead must shape what we are sacrificing for. Financial transparency, including explanations for rises in administrative costs amidst shrinking resources for teaching and research, would be a key step in that direction.

Now is the time for faculty to take action to protect their own interests, as workers, as professionals, and as the beating heart of the university.

We encourage our members to join us in “collective furlough/action days” in order to demonstrate the effects of the furloughs to students, the media, and the broader public. Exact dates will be announced shortly.

Our intention is to use these days to strengthen the faculty response to the budget crisis and issues of equity on our campus. Common activities might include lobbying the legislature, a teach-in on the increasingly corporate character of the university, and, most importantly, devoting any furlough time to organizing a union that will be able to resist these and future cuts.

In the meantime, any and all of the following will help:

—Write to administrators about furloughs.

—Discuss furloughs in your units, to develop responses to this threat. Language authorizing furloughs is now a permanent part of our contracts. CFA senate members will work in the senate to produce a unified faculty statement regarding the furlough threat.

—Contribute your ideas about how to resist the administration’s current furlough policy, including efforts at surveillance and intimidation, to the CFA blog: http://campusfacultyassoc.blogspot.com.

—Use the media to educate the public about the impact furloughs will have on higher education in Illinois.

—Help us organize. If you would be willing to organize or host a recruitment meeting for your unit, please contact Kate Clancy (kclancy@illinois.edu) or Jim Barrett (jrbarret@illinois.edu).

REMEMBER, A UNITED FACULTY IS A POWERFUL FACULTY!

PLEASE SHARE THIS MESSAGE WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES TO BUILD A MOVEMENT TO PROTECT OUR UNIVERSITY!

Sincerely,
Megan McLaughlin, President
for the Campus Faculty Association Executive Committee