[Vision2020] AFT Response to UI President White

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

The following letter has been sent to the press in response to the 
President White's solution to the UI financial crisis.

To the Editor:

All UI employees owe the Vision Task Force a debt of gratitude for their 
creative and sensible plan to address the UI's financial crisis.  President 
White is to be commended for endorsing most of its proposals.

We are pleased to see that the administration will be taking more cuts than 
academics.  For the past eight years the instructional budget, the core of 
the UI's mission, has remained stalled at $29 million, while employment 
packages for mid-level management have risen $1.5 million.  Over this 
period the UI added 241 positions, but only 20 of them were faculty slots.

We are of course disappointed that the athletics department has not and 
will not suffer any cuts.  In fact, athletics will most likely get its 
annual subsidy from the legislature in addition to a $13 per student 
increase in fees to replace the astroturf and general event fees.

White argued that he could not disrupt the Vandal's move to the Western 
Athletics Conference, but previous presidents have repeatedly delayed the 
salary increase to peer institution levels that they promised.  One would 
think that keep quality faculty from being hired away would be the number 
one priority for a university president.

Since 1982 administrative salaries have increased 213 percent while full 
professor salaries, currently 24 percent behind our peers, have increased 
139 percent.  If UI faculty had gone to the salary step system that we 
proposed in 1976, we would now be at the top of our peers rather than at 
the bottom.

We do not have figures for staff salaries, but Rep. Tom Trail reported last 
year that 20 percent of these employees are below the poverty line.  We 
know some UI instructors who have worked for 15 years without a pay raise.

White promised that faculty would soon enjoy 4 percent salary increases 
until we reach peer levels, but the UI's past record cannot possibly 
instill confidence.  In 1982 the UI Federation of Teachers called for a 
freeze on administrative salaries until faculty salaries caught up, and we 
call on White to do this as a sign of good faith.

White likened the UI to an ecosystem, but we think the idea of a family is 
more appropriate.  Families become dysfunctional when some of their members 
are favored over others.  Over the years instructors have taught thousands 
of credit hours and none of us could do our job without staff support.

President White, it's time that some members of the UI family are treated 
more fairly.

Nick Gier, IFT President