2008 Woodie Awards
Leftover funds cause debate among faculty
Maggie Willis
Issue date: 10/18/07 Section: News
An e-mail appeared on the faculty listserv last Tuesday stating that the money set aside for faculty equity is unjustly eliminating other employee groups.
Jesse Harris, a member of the Faculty Senate and the University Planning and Budget Council wrote the e-mail, which spawned an upsurge of controversy and a flurry of
e-mails in response.
"The letter surfaced to preserve the right of groups to vie for equity dollars," Harris, who is also an academic counselor, said.
In the UPBC minutes from Jan. 26, which can be found on the chancellor's Web site, it states that the chair noted an unanticipated amount of funds to be used for a faculty equity study.
The issue regarding the distribution of funds was never voted on, according to Harris.
"My position is that the employees of the university - faculty, civil service and professional staff - labor under small amounts of dollars that have come from the state for salary dollars and that, in order to remain competitive, we need a fair wage," Harris said. "The university runs because of the will and the talent and commitment of employees who work for small increases in salary. That's one side of it. The other side is that all employees and all groups have equity issues."
According to John Navin, chair of the UPBC, the e-mail is referring to money that was leftover from implementing the university's mainframe software program, Oracle, used for human resources, employee databasing and payroll.
Last year, the UPBC decided to allot the left over funds to a faculty equity survey to compare faculty salaries to comparable positions at other universities.
"You have to understand how this came about," Navin, who is also a professor of economics and finance, said. "It wasn't a question of having the money and deciding what to do with it. It was the other way around. There was an equity study being done by the faculty and it was a question of how we were going to fund it."
Jesse Harris, a member of the Faculty Senate and the University Planning and Budget Council wrote the e-mail, which spawned an upsurge of controversy and a flurry of
e-mails in response.
"The letter surfaced to preserve the right of groups to vie for equity dollars," Harris, who is also an academic counselor, said.
In the UPBC minutes from Jan. 26, which can be found on the chancellor's Web site, it states that the chair noted an unanticipated amount of funds to be used for a faculty equity study.
The issue regarding the distribution of funds was never voted on, according to Harris.
"My position is that the employees of the university - faculty, civil service and professional staff - labor under small amounts of dollars that have come from the state for salary dollars and that, in order to remain competitive, we need a fair wage," Harris said. "The university runs because of the will and the talent and commitment of employees who work for small increases in salary. That's one side of it. The other side is that all employees and all groups have equity issues."
According to John Navin, chair of the UPBC, the e-mail is referring to money that was leftover from implementing the university's mainframe software program, Oracle, used for human resources, employee databasing and payroll.
Last year, the UPBC decided to allot the left over funds to a faculty equity survey to compare faculty salaries to comparable positions at other universities.
"You have to understand how this came about," Navin, who is also a professor of economics and finance, said. "It wasn't a question of having the money and deciding what to do with it. It was the other way around. There was an equity study being done by the faculty and it was a question of how we were going to fund it."
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