Remarks to the Board of Higher Education, June 6, 2008

Mina Carson - Past President, IFS

I'm so happy to see you all again. Lee Ayers could not be here today because she is traveling to a meeting on behalf of the system. I'm also delighted to report that our faculties have been doing what professional groups ought to do, which is to respond to irrational and unfair threats to their well being and the health of the contexts in which they exercise their professions. I hold in my hand copies of resolutions from the faculty senates of OIT, OSU, PSU, SOU, and U of O - and one on the way from Western -- protesting the withholding of the salary pool and expressing politely and cogently what will happen to our workplaces if our respective budgets have to close up around the holes left by unsupported faculty salary increases. Of course the bitterest pill is that, weirdly, we who retain our increases become the bad guys as the walls crumble around us. So we will take up these resolutions on Saturday at IFS and Lee Ayers will draft a letter to legislative leaders summarizing our actions on this point.

And unlike Senator Joe McCarthy, I really DO hold those resolutions in my hand - except for Western's, which is virtual but I'm sure not fictional -- , and I'm happy to share ... we just didn't make enough hard copies for everybody.

In other news - IFS continues to think about and participate in the system's projects concerning assessment, sustainability, and articulation. My friends on IFS would disown me if I didn't say about all of this that as always, identifying and sustaining high quality in teaching, learning, and research continues to be our top priority.

I bet I wasn't the only one in this room who sat in front of my TV crying the other night as the first black man in American history claimed the nomination of a major party for president of the United States. The thing is, it felt like a miracle, but it isn't. It came from hard, sustained work, his and that of millions who came before - including some of us. It's a different world. [And then Kirby and Jim said we really didn't have to be polite in asking for the salary package restoration.]