Will UVM Faculty be Neglected?

Published February 12, 2008

By Charles Winkleman

“Get ‘em, keep ‘em, and let ‘em do their thing.” This was the hope of economic professor Ross Thomson last week for the academic faculty’s role in UVM during the coming years. Last week United Academics held a news conference discussing the many problems they hope Fogel will address during the coming contract negotiations. The sad part is that they asked for many of the same things several years ago and were already promised them.

As usual, UVM costs will be on the rise for the next several years. Whether this be because of meal plans (voted down in the Senate last week) or tuition, the least any UVM student expects is that the money they are paying directly helps their education. Yet when there are 20 Vice Presidents and assistant Vice Presidents all making at least $115,000 during the last fiscal year, we are right to worry.

Four years ago, in the UVM sponsored publication “ The View,” Fogel laid out his hopes for the future. Some of these goals included keeping student-faculty ratios low, keeping the intimacy and feel of a small liberal arts college, and fixing the economy of scale for the faculty payroll so that the faculty is getting paid a fair and competitive salary. What are the teachers asking for this time around? All these things, and a little more. The faculty was promised 80 new positions in 2004, but only half of those have been filled. They want these 40 positions to be filled, and also want the University to invest in long-term faculty members, not just part-time faculty. Faculty members should have a loyalty to this wonderful University.

This year professors have been plagued by over-enrollment (especially in introductory classes), told by the administration that they’re not working hard enough, and have continuously been discouraged to commit to this illustrious university. As tuition rates have increased, faculty is not getting their share. As upper administrators’ salaries (those 20 VP’s, provost, and el numero uno Fogel) have increased by 150% during Fogel’s reign, full-time faculty’s salary has increased by only 30%. And even this increase has kept their salary 10% below nationally comparable public universities.

On top of that, part-time and non-tenure faculty has increased at higher rates than tenure-track faculty. What this means is that the talented faculty is not getting the job security they need, and are looking elsewhere for support. It is no surprise that faculty morale is down, and that the faculty is finding themselves stressed with the extra workload.

I hope by now you are asking why professors would want to stay at this university. As many students know, the dollar may have decided their enrollment into UVM, and the dollar decides whether faculty can afford to stay here for significant amounts of time. But when the faculty is being underpaid, paid part-time, or sees little future for themselves at the university, why should they continue to stay here? When professors and faculty advisors are being overloaded with an increasing number of students, why would they want to deal with this extra stress of an already stressful job?

Maybe we don’t need to worry. Maybe UVM will still be able to attract the wealthy out-of-state students with new flashy buildings like the Davis Center and Burlington’s proximity to the slopes (until global warming, of course). Hopefully, however, this wonderful university will heed the faculty’s calls for change and progress. I believe a university is only as good as the faculty it provides, and I hope UVM will continue its progress towards excellence.

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