[phas-faculty_staff_others] Senate today

[Carlos Bertulani]

Hello Colleagues,

Today we had a faculty senate meeting. 

1- A new group of students, the “Student Senate” presented their structure (president, secretary, etc.) and what they plan to do. Basically they will act as an interface between students, faculty and administration at the College and university levels, similar to what the faculty senate does in the faculty-administration relations.

2- The Provost presented some news:

(a) Our Library will be refurbished and restructured. It will probably look great when finished.

(b) The President and the deans council are worried about faculty salary equity. They will move forward with discussions, such as how much raise should go in passing from assistant to associate, and associate to professor. They also intend to diminish the gap between well paid and underpaid faculty. I mentioned that some faculty get higher salaries because they work harder and they deserve it. The provost was quiet.

(c) They (the guys/ladies up there) decided to decrease the adjunct budget faculty to 75% of its present value. Something like 5 million to 3 million (I might be wrong with the numbers). The Provost said she asked (whom? The President? Probably) that 1 M would be separated for faculty salary raise. She said the President is thinking about it. In the end, she said that probably we will not get the whole one million (typical politics: first the good news, then the bad news).
Someone asked if this is a one lump sum payment (< 1000 dollars per faculty, not sure where merits goes in) or would be permanent. She said it would be permanent.

I intervened and told the Provost that since I arrived in Commerce in 2007 everything went from bad to worse for faculty. In my case, they took away part of my IDC, they took away our HEF funds, they are now taking away salaries for adjuncts. I told her that when bad changes are made, they are never reversed, even when a better overall budget emerges . 

I told her that our adjuncts get 3000 dollars for one course since 15 years or more, whereas the upper administration salaries have increased nonstop. I told here that if they are really worried with teaching quality, they should not be doing that, but increase the adjunct salaries.

I told her that if she wants to save 2 M dollars, then decrease the upper administration salaries, and fire some VPs.  She said that she is not responsible for increasing the number of VPs, nor for increasing their salaries. These are initiatives of the President. I always heard that politicians always do the same. It is never their fault.

One senator mentioned that if we will be a R2 institution, we should be teaching 3 + 3 and not 4+4. The Provost evaded. Nobody added anything else on this. I think that because, for the majority of instructors at this university, teaching 4 + 4, and doing nothing else and going is a wonderful job. I think it is. I wish I also thought the same way and my problems would be solved.  

I think this discussion with the Provost was heated, full with disagreements, and many other senators intervened to catch on it. When the Provost left, one senator, who did not say anything for an hour and half told us that we need to be more courteous with the Provost. I told him that this is the faculty senate, where we need to express our disagreements, to defend our class, sometimes in a harsh way, otherwise we are absolutely useless. But sometimes, one has nothing else to say. University originated from latin = a community of teachers and scholars, not a community of administrators. 

3- The next discussion was again about university name [sic] change. The senate president said that the university President is still thinking about it. His argument now is to change to East Texas A&M University because there are alumni who are so attached to  this name that if we change back to East Texas they would make a lot of donations. I asked if these are billionaires, or they will donate a thousand dollars each. I’ve also asked if we can make a deal with the President, and if we change the university name to East Texas, and if in 5 years we do not get enough donations, we get back to Commerce again. People laughed and I thought that was the end. But then some of our senator colleagues started talking for 10 minutes, and then 15 minutes, and then..,  about why they like or they don't like  a numa change. 

I showed them all my courtesy and asked them if they and the university President did not have anything better to do, and I left the room.

Probably, nothing, or very little of what I said here will appear in the senate minutes, which you will get in about one month. Enjoy.

Carlos