The final Faculty Senate meeting of the academic year lasted over two hours Monday, resulting in discussions of the recent student sit-in in Chancellor David Ward’s office and increasing teaching assistant compensation, as well as extensive questioning of multiple annual committee reports, including transportation budgets and faculty compensation.
Faculty senator speaks in support of student protesters
Faculty Senator Noah Feinstein read a letter written by fellow Faculty Senator Chad Goldberg in support of 10 students who staged a sit-in protest in Ward’s office last week over the university’s ties with Palermo’s Pizza amidst allegations of labor code violations. The students now face potential non-academic misconduct charges.
According to Goldberg’s letter, administration has “threatened” the students with penalties, including suspension or expulsion.
However, in his letter Goldberg argued student political protests have a positive impact on the campus community by educating students and that the student code of conduct should not be used to punish these actions.
The National Labor Relations Board denied Palermo’s workers’ appeal April 30, citing a lack of sufficient evidence. However, the university’s Labor Codes Licensing Compliance Committee advised Ward in November 2012 to cut ties with the company as its alleged violations contradicted the university’s labor code.
Allie Gardner, one of the students who participated in the sit-in, told The Daily Cardinal in an email Monday students staged a sit-in after Ward refused to acknowledge the shared governance process.
“The misconduct cases reveal a contradiction between the university's lip service to the Wisconsin Idea, and their severe threats for engaged campus citizenry,” Gardner said.
According to Gardner, students plan to organize a march to the chancellor’s home Thursday to continue their protest.
Teaching Assistants Association seeks faculty support for pay increase
Two members of the Teaching Assistants' Association also spoke to members of the senate, asking for their support in calling for campus administration officials to increase their take-home pay by increasing wages and eliminating segregated fee expenses for TAs.
Eleni Schirmer said because TAs are both students and employees on campus they must take money out of their wages to pay student segregated fees as well as premiums for the health insurance provided through the university.
According to Jason Lee, the burden of student segregated fees has increased, while TAs’ wages have decreased and health-care premiums have increased. Lee said the segregated fees have more than doubled over the past ten years.
“The typical TA is actually paying more than a month’s salary back to the institution in the form of segregated fees alone,” Lee said.
Schirmer said as a result the take-home pay for TAs has decreased at UW-Madison, where TAs have taken a net loss of $1,600 since 2002. According to Schirmer the take-home pay level for TAs is currently below the federal poverty level.
Additionally, Lee said the university is at a competitive disadvantage in the Big Ten, as UW-Madison ranks near the bottom in compensation for TAs.
“Honestly, considering that we're UW-Madison, we don't think it's a lot to ask that the graduate students get to the middle of the Big Ten in graduate assistant take-home,” Lee said.
Schirmer said the TAA had hoped to bring a resolution forward to the senate but was unable to, adding she hoped the discussion would serve as a “call to action” for faculty to support the TAA in making its “Pay Us Back” campaign a priority for administration.
The campaign aims to increase TA wages while also removing their obligation to pay student segregated fees.
“We hope this puts a little bit of fire under your collective seats to take our campaign into consideration,” Schirmer said.
Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell said at the meeting TAs are “critical” to the university’s functioning. He said the discussion will continue over the next few weeks as it becomes more clear whether or not the state legislature will allow for an employee pay plan, which would include TAs, in the 2013-’15 state budget.
He also added that he would be hesitant to remove obligations to pay segregated fees for teaching assistants because it would require the same option be open to other groups on campus and force a different source to fill in the missing funds.
“You have to answer the question who's going to pick up the tab because there is a tab to be picked up,” Bazzell said.
Faculty senators express concern over transportation budget
Campus Transportation Committee Chair David Noyce presented the committee’s two-year report to the senate, noting the continued monetary pressures in providing transportation options to the campus community.
Committee members voted to increase parking fees in numerous areas between 2010-’12, while also implementing a more stringent moped policy requiring permits for designated parking areas on campus, according to the report.
Additionally, the report showed the committee considered changing the bus policy to require a “small fee” for bus passes and recommended further discussion in the future. At the meeting Noyce said the committee passed a fee of $2 per month beginning next academic year.
Many faculty senators also questioned the transportation budgeting process.
Feinstein questioned the committee’s procedure of voting on the budget after the administration already approved it and without the committee looking at it in its entirety.
Noyce said the specific numbers in the budget were made available to all committee members, however, he said there are certain aspects of the budget that Transportation Services “moves on with on their own behalf.”
However, Faculty Senator Sara Goldrick-Rab pointed to the additional “Minority Dissenting Statements” in the report, written by the Associated Students of Madison student appointees on the CTC.
The statements said there was not a proper mechanism for reviewing the budget due to the fact that the Budget/Policy Subcommittee did not meet.
“It seems to me that students on the committee disagree with some of the things that are going on in here,” Goldrick-Rab said.
Noyce said he could not explain the difference of opinions between the report and the dissenting student statements.
Goldrick-Rab also pointed out the recent discovery that the revenue sharing agreement between Transportation Services and the university’s athletic department for athletic event parking violates Wisconsin state statutes, which require all of the revenue should go to Transportation Services.
Despite the fact that Transportation Services held a $1 million dollar deficit and raised a number of parking prices, Noyce said Transportation Services would not seek to regain funds from the athletic department because the errors were made “in good faith.” He added the two entities are currently in negotiations to resolve the issue.
A number of faculty senators also spoke in favor of giving more consideration to transportation accessibility for persons with disabilities in the future.
Faculty review progress, future of compensation fund
The Faculty Senate also heard a review report of the recently implemented Critical Compensation Fund, created under Chancellor Ward that aims to give a pay increase to some University of Wisconsin-Madison employees.
The CCF was created by Ward last spring to address continued concerns over faculty salaries at the university. UW-Madison is in last place among its peer institutions in terms of faculty compensation, according to the report. While the CCF was not an across-the-board pay plan, the initiative would offer a select group of employees 5-10 percent increase from their base salary.
Richard Keller, member of the Commission on Faculty Compensation and Economic Benefits, said UW-Madison faculty salaries remain “in crisis” despite a recent uptick.
According to Keller, the CCF provided a “limited increase but with a broad reach,” giving approximately 3,000 employees a pay increase in its first year.
Although Keller called the model “largely a success,” the commission also recommended a more sustainable model, such as a pay plan, should be pursued.
However, Faculty Senator Julie Mitchell said she would prefer additional funding be given to support faculty in other ways than compensation.
“My ego is not tied to the salary that I make,” Mitchell said. “If you gave me the option of a $5,000 raise tomorrow or $5,000 more in administrative support, more colleagues, I would prefer that.”
