BY CHAMPLAIN AND SAINT MICHAEL’S COLLEGE AAUP CHAPTERS

The Champlain and Saint Michael’s College AAUP chapters wrote a joint letter last week protesting the recent pay cuts to non-tenured faculty at the University of Vermont and in support of the UVM AAUP chapter, which is currently engaged in bargaining with the university administration.

The letter, addressed to the members of the board of trustees, the president, the provost, and the VP of finance, notes that the pay cut will push many lecturers’ families below the “livable wage” threshold—and that although lecturers’ salaries have been cut, their teaching load for the fall in many cases has not been.

In particular, the letter notes the inequity of a 25 percent reduction in salary for low-paid lecturers compared to significantly smaller pay cuts for higher-paid administrators (including the three administrators to whom the letter is addressed, each of whom makes over a quarter of a million dollars a year, according to the university’s most recent financial report).

The letter cites the centuries-old academic tradition of “shared governance,” according to which faculty and administrations are supposed to work together to develop academic policy and negotiate faculty compensation and other working conditions. The AAUP’s guidelines emphasize that shared governance should not be suspended in emergency situations; instead, if anything, cooperation between university faculty and university administrations becomes even more crucial during a crisis.

However, as the letter points out, even if the tradition of shared governance did not exist, “simple humanity and our revered New England tradition of direct democratic participation would call for a more collaborative and transparent approach to getting the university through this crisis” and the letter calls for UVM to “embody the values of community and integrity for which Vermont is justly celebrated.”