13 May 2002

Save UMass

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Save UMass initiative this spring. We had some spectacular successes, including the "Teach-In" voter registration and letter-writing campaign and the terrific State House Rally for UMass and public higher education. If we could figure out a way to institutionalize the Teach In day, to have it every spring, we’d quickly make ourselves a higher state priority than we are now. We’re thinking about whether that’s possible.

Special thanks to Dan Clawson (Sociology), who served as a special MSP Vice President this spring in order to work with the Save UMass coalition. Dan’s energy, good sense, and dedication were indispensable to the entire effort. Dan, thank you.

Election Results

The following faculty were nominated and elected to open MSP Executive Committee and Board positions.

Vice Presidents: Barbara Cruikshank (Political Science), Laetitia LaFollette (Art History), Randall Phillis (Biology).

Executive Board: Ann Ferguson (Women’s Studies), Max Page (Art History), Robert Sullivan (German), Jerome Mileur (Political Science), Arnold Well (Psychology), David Mix Barrington (Computer Science), Ed Calabrese (Environmental Health Sciences), Mary Christine King (Nursing).

Profoundest thanks to George Cernada (Public Health) and Ellen Pader (LARP), who are stepping down as officers and Board members; and to David Lenson (Comparative Literature), for filling in this semester as treasurer.

Farewell to Retirees and Hope for Those Who Remain

We are losing many, many faculty and librarians to retirement this year. We are sorry to see you go. You helped build this university, despite chronically insufficient resources, into a nationally recognized institution of higher learning. You helped make this campus a good and decent place to work. We’ll miss you in more ways than we can tell, but we are happy for this opportunity for you.

Those of us who remain will doubtless miss you all the more next semester. But we’re an energetic and resilient lot, and prospects are good for surviving the next bit of time. We will pull together, and prosper as a team!

Budget and Contract

The University budget: Despite the new revenue package, it’s almost certainly not going to be good for next year and could be quite bad. So we are probably not going to be able to make significant headway in replenishing faculty and librarian ranks, already depleted over the course of the last decade and now hit harder by the retirement plans. But we’re still committed to building up the permanent faculty as soon as possible and will miss no opportunity to communicate this to the Provost and the new Chancellor. We’ll continue to talk publicly about this as a matter of the utmost importance for our viability as a high-quality academic institution. We will also urge our legislators and administrators to make library funding a top priority, which is vital to maintaining our standing as a research university.

The contract: We still expect the contract to be funded sometime this summer, perhaps in this current budget, perhaps in a different way. The MTA and the statewide Labor Coalition have been immensely helpful in trying to get this and the other UMass contracts funded. We would not be as far along as we are without them, and, in fact, would stand no chance. When we do achieve success, we’ll owe them a debt of gratitude.

Other Matters

We’re still trying to bargain a reasonable Distance Learning contract with an Administration bargaining team that doesn’t seem eager to bargain. Could take awhile and hit a few bumps. We’ll stay with it.

We’re urging the Administration, in every possible venue, to drop its resistance to the new RA union and address the problems of residence hall working conditions across the negotiating table.

A personal note. It’s not been the easiest of years. Working with so marvelous an Executive Committee and staff has not only helped me avoid making even more dopey mistakes than I have but has kept me more or less focussed, more or less sane, and occasionally even productive. Bob, Ellen, George, Randy, Sundar, David, Nick, Dan, Beth, Mary, Lori, and Diane – thanks.

Keep the faith.

Ron Story

President