Dear colleagues,
I'm taking a few moments to let you know what your union has learned about the current budget crisis, and the best ways that we think we can help each other.
First, let’s all support our adjuncts on national adjunct walk out day, this Wednesday (tomorrow!), by wearing black armbands.
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Secondly, it is election time. Here is a message from Jim Phillips
UFAS Members,
We will be holding an election for executive board members this spring. The terms for the current executive board members expire on August 1, 2015.
Here is the timeline:
Now thru March 20, 2015). We will be accepting nominations (see below for protocol).
Friday March 20, 2015. Nominees announced (I will reserve the right to extend that deadline in cases where we lack at least one willing candidates for the position).
Week of April 27, 2015 (4/27 - 5/1): Elections (via electronic survey).
Results will be posted shortly thereafter.
Open Positions and how to nominate:
We will be accepting nominations for the following positions (below). Terms are for two years, beginning August 1, 2015. Self nominations are encouraged.
You can nominate people (please check with them first) by emailing Barbara Young (UFAS Secretary, youngbg@uwec.edu) and copying me (Jim Phillips, UFAS President, phillija@uwec.edu). Self nominations are encouraged.
Positions:
• President (currently Jim Phillips, Chemistry):
• Vice President (currently Dan Strouthes, Geography and Anthropology):
• Secretary (currently, Barbara Young, Music and Theater Arts):
• Treasurer (currently Jim Oberly, History)
• College of A&S Representative (currently vacant):
• College of Nursing Representative (currently Mary Canales, Nursing):
• Library Representative (currently vacant):
• College of Business Representative (currently vacant):
• College of Education and Human Sciences Representative (currently vacant):
• Professional/Administrative Staff Representative 1 (currently Patti See, Academic Skills Center):
• Professional/Administrative Staff Representative 2 (currently vacant):
Please consider serving UFAS. We need your support. I will be stepping down as President at the conclusion of my term. I am planning on continuing and a executive board member in a different capacity.
Thanks!
Jim Phillips
UFAS Prez
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Important news on the budget:
Some of you may be unaware that the governor's proposed budget bill was reached in accordance with Ray Cross, the president of UW system and chancellors of the University of Wisconsin. The chancellors and president of UW system wanted greater autonomy, even though they knew that the budget cuts made as part of the deal for the greater autonomy will result in job losses. Gov. Walker proposed to restore collective-bargaining for unions associated with universities, but the UW system turned this proposal down.
Many, especially at Madison and Milwaukee, are angry about this. ASAP, Alliance of Students Achieving Progress, a UW Milwaukee student group, is calling for university senates across the system to take votes of no confidence in institutional and system governance. If you think that this is appropriate, please let me know.
An interesting bit of information about Ray Cross, from a Journal Sentinel article from January 2, 2014, reporting on the then ongoing search for the president of the UW System:
Cross moved to Wisconsin in 2011 after serving about three years as president of Morrisville State College in Morrisville, N.Y. Cross previously was president of Northwest Technical College in Bemidji, Minn.
Cross, of Fitchburg, made donations to three Senate Republicans as they faced recalls over Act 10, which significantly curtailed collective bargaining for most public employees.
The donations included $250 to Terry Moulton (R-Chippewa Falls); $250 to Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls) and $250 to Luther Olsen (R-Ripon). Harsdorf and Olsen survived recalls in August 2011; Moulton survived a recall in June 2012.
The other two finalists did not make donations to Wisconsin politicians.
Cross has recently suggested that UW professors at four year schools should in the future try make ourselves more useful by directly assisting commercial activity in the state.
There are many unknowns about what public authority will mean for us at this point.
It appears that for-profit colleges will be a significant part of the higher education picture in Wisconsin in the future. State Rep. Dana Wachs (Eau Claire) has reported recently that lobbyists for for-profit colleges are so numerous in the halls of government in Madison that " they are lining up." Perhaps, with the coming weakening of the UW system, they sense an opportunity. Gov. Walker recently proposed to help the for-profit colleges by eliminating state regulation of them.
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Action
The best thing that we can do to help each other, according to Dana Wachs, is to write letters to our representatives in Madison. He suggests using paper letters, and writing specific, detailed accounts of how the budget cuts would harm education in our state. You may find your representatives here. Since all negotiations related to the budget will take place in the joint finance committee, with the final product being presented to the legislature for a simple up or down vote, it would really help to write letters to the members of the joint finance committee as well.
Let’s let local businesses know what our university means to their profitability. I propose to have some buttons made, and distribute them to all UWEC employees who want them, and who will wear them when they shop locally or eat out. I designed a button (attached). But I would really like to hear any better suggestions for snappy language or eye appeal. If you have a better idea, let me know.
We must also take action against Alec.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as Alec, is an organization of elected state officials and business and industry leaders. Its goal is to produce and help to enact the legislation at state legislatures across the United States, which are beneficial to business interests. It works by drafting model legislation, often in secrecy, and passing it on to sympathetic legislators and governors, who introduce the bills into the state legislatures in their own names. The legislation uses very innocuous-sounding language to achieve a number of goals, some of which are antithetical to the democratic process: including voter suppression, ending of collective bargaining rights for unions, and the privatization of education[1]. Public education is a public good. The central mission of this university is to provide public education. Privatization of public educational threatens that public good, and thus our mission. More than 98% of Alec's funding is from private corporations. This university purchases goods and services from some of these companies (for example, Georgia Pacific paper, a part of Koch Industries), thereby providing resources for agents who wish to damage our ability to accomplish our mission. This makes no sense: we must stop purchasing from companies who are members of Alec. It is important to remember that consumer action has so far proven effective in convincing corporations to leave Alec; just last month, a group of nuns from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin convinced Northrop Grumman to drop its Alec membership.
I will be introducing a resolution into the University Senate which will stop the University from purchasing goods and services from Alec.
Dan Strouthes