IFS
Remarks to the OUS Board
Portland,
Oregon
Bill
Danley, President, Interinstitutional Faculty Senate
President
Lussier, Chancellor Jarvis, Board Members, University Presidents and Officers,
Students, and Guests;
As a long-time professor
and observer of the collegiate scene, I find it difficult not to be excited and
optimistic at the start of a new academic year. The students are full of enthusiasm and hurry across campus
with new books, new friends, and new goals. The professors are busy putting last-minute touches on their
syllabi, trying to memorize the names of their students, and generally trying
to get their courses off to a good start.
Administrators meet with department heads and communicate new goals and
directions, and we are finally out of our legislative session. There is a crispness in the air, the
leaves are changing, and as James Whitcomb Riley expressed it,
“…frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder’s in the
shock…”
My colleagues on
the Oregon University System faculty, I think, share my optimism and excitement
at this time of year, but this year our collective energy is dampened by
factors external to our universities.
While understanding the urgent necessity for increased revenue, we share
our students’ anxiety over continuing tuition increases and fee
increases. We know that Oregon is
in a financial crisis, but we on the faculty feel unfairly burdened by our
pitifully low salaries, decimated benefit package, and withholding of promised
salary increases.
In recent days,
we read that with some fancy bookkeeping OUS is being asked to return
$14,000,000 to the state at a time when our resources are at rock bottom to
begin with. Regardless of how one
rationalizes the “paper accounting” of these funds, it has the appearance
of using student tuition increases to balance other parts of our state
budget. I’ve been told that
we haven’t really lost this money, but especially in Oregon we have been
told that “…if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and
quacks like a duck…” well, you know the rest.
I have spoken to this group
on other occasions of
·
declining faculty morale
the frustration
of younger faculty as they are asked to publish and stay up with their field
but are denied travel and research budgets
As you all know,
these consequences of our economic situation are real, they are continuing, and
they are getting worse. The
faculty that meets with our students each day and which bears the academic
burden of being on the front line of the business of learning is growing
increasingly uneasy. It is
impossible to say when these effects, or consequences, will become too great,
and I know that my colleagues are incurable optimists, but as our leaders and
directors you should know that the tuition increases, budget cuts and salary
levels cannot continue forever without serious impact on our university
system. Can we make it another
year – another biennium – another two biennia – before we
lose our best students and faculty?
How much are we willing to gamble before we start to reinvest in higher
education in Oregon?
We are certainly
fortunate to have some exceedingly talented new administrators in our system,
many of whom are in this room today.
We are looking for more with considerable optimism, hoping to attract
new faculty and administrators with our history of academic excellence and our
beautiful state. The day may soon come, however, when we can no longer compete
for these talented leaders, and the day may already be here when we begin to
lose some of our brightest prospects when they look at Oregon’s
university salary and compensation package.
I know that each
one of you around this table regrets the situation we face, and would
immediately vote to increase our budgets and salaries and lower tuition if
there were any reasonable alternative.
But we can’t just say it’s not our fault and resolve to
muddle through, either. Somebody
has to finally say this is not working and to do the job we are being asked to
do will take more resources and a lot of help from our citizens and our legislative
system. We need to revise our
revenue system and streamline our state budget system. We need help from our Governor and our
state lawmakers. I hope that help
is coming soon, and I call on you to lead the effort to get Oregon’s
universities back in the leadership role they deserve. Your faculty will help, and the
students will help. We’re on
your side, and we know you are on our side. Let’s keep at it.