Ana Mari Cauci, a long time UW faculty member and activist, is now in the administration. Recently she wrote a response to faculty concerned that the Administration had mad salary decsiohnjs without the involvement of the faculty as required by the Faculty Code. Our School is fortunate in having a Faculty Code that is part of State Law/ The admin. says it tries to compby by a model they call shared governance and Dr. Cauci, now an admin. tries to explain the porcess in re the salary issue.

Her response (below) is well met. Her commitment is one of the best features of the new mood brought by President Emmert and Provost Wise. At the same time, her response illustrates the real complexity and the apparent reality of the inability of the faculty
to participate in the administrative process.

OOOPS ... did I say "apparent?"

The lack of authority of the Faculty in decision making is apparent, not just in this issue but in many other issues. The current administration, unlike some previous administrations, seems sincerely committed to communication and involvement of the faculty. However, the existing system, like the system of the soviets, effectively precludes faculty from real involvement in governance ... not only in regard to salaries but even in regard to such direct academic issues as the function of the branch campuses, graduation requirements, and student discipline.

Brad Holt, in his one year term as President of the Senate, tried hard to reform the system by insisting that the admin actually use faculty councils. From my limited perspective, Brad failed. Critical academic decisions are being made by committees where faculty may not even be present.

One step to the better has, I understand, been made by moving the Secretary of the Faculty's salary form the Provost's budget to the Senate's budget. Kudos for this step!

A lot more could and should be done, taking advantage of the legal precedent set by the Storti case and the apparent good will and sense of the Emmert administration.

1. Faculty Legal Advisor. The Senate should have the financial resources to employ an attorney to advise faculty on their rights. The usual argument has been that that the U can not pay for such a position because of the State constitutional prohibition of attorneys, other than the Attorney General, representing State units. This argument is specious. The Admin has a huge cohort of attorneys working in capacities that range from investigation of faculty misdeeds to IP. If this is allowed for one component of the UW, it must be allowed for all.

2. Faculty Councils. The Code is very clear that these councils must exist as part of governance of any UW activity that is academic. What is missing is an enforcement mechanism. The Senate should have the means to insist that such Councils work.

3. Senate Structure. The existing structure of the Senate, with leadership roating eveey year, guarantees an unequal relationship to the administration. Some way around this should be sought. Since changing the Code is onerous, it would be worth looking at ways the Senate can effect this within the existing structure. I see two ways this could be done. First, the Senate could create and the Admin could agree to fund, an Executive Director of the Senate. This would be a longer term position (like Secretary of the Faculty) and would have the resources to provide continuity. Again this would require that the Admin increase the Senate's budget. Alternatively, the admin itself, amidst the proliferation of Deans, vice Deans. assistant Deans, and similarly title Provosts, Directors etc, could create a position that would be responsible to the Senate.

Returning to my analogy to the soviets, consider the difference between WWLD? (What Would Lenin Do?) and WWJD? (What Would Jefferson Do?). Jefferson's life long insistence on the ideals of democracy, meeting up with the reality of the need to govern, led to the American system. The UW could learn from his example.

On 5/16/07, Ana Mari Cauce wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

I have contributed to this list on and off over the years, but have been
mostly off in ths last couple as I am now one of those "administrators"
and have believed it is inappropriate for this list to become a
mouthpiece for administration. But, I have talked (in person or e-mail)
with a few frequent contributors who have urged me to give my
perspective, and have decided to at least try to address a few areas
touched upon recently.

ON BUDGET AND CONSULATION

There is no question in my mind that we (e.g. admin) could have done a
better job of consulting with the Senate Planning and Budget Committee
on budget allocations, especially in non-salary areas. By the end of
SCPB we were already working on setting a date for a subgroup of SCPB to
meet to begin those conversations. It is set for Friday of this week,
AFTER the Regents meeting -- which should make it clear that continuing
discussion on budget were already planned. The budget going to the
Regents this week is as an information item only, there was NEVER any
plan to vote on it or ratify it until the next meeting on June 17th. It
is not, and was never intended to be, a fait accompli. This is the very
first time the Regents will be seeing it, and I suspect they'd have a
few things to say about anyone thinking its final.

If folks don't feel there was enough consultation now, I can just begin
to imagine how they'd feel if a draft budget didn't go to the Regents
until June 17th when most faculty and students will be away. If the
budget were not made public until then, with a vote on ratification not
happening until the dead of summer in July -- folks would have much more
reason to be upset by process.

Please recall, the budget was only signed by the Governor on May 7th, we
saw it in final form on the 20 something of April, so we only had a few
weeks to turn things around to get something to the Regents before
summer. This leaves a very tight schedule for consultation on exact
figures.

What is clear to me now is that we need to talk about allocations before
we really know what the budget will be. Lesson learned. But, I do want
to say, and I do not think this will be disputed by anyone on SCPB --
there is no question that SCPB members have asked admin that has not
resulted in a direct answer or in further information.

ON FACULTY SALARIES

This year the total proposed increase in faculty salaries is about 6.7%.
(The actual allocation may vary from this depending on the unit
adjustment process and amount). 2 merit/no merit, 2.5 extra
meri/compression/inequities, 2 unit adjustments (1 of this from college
allocations), .2 for promotions. This is the best salary package the
faculty will have seen in over a decade (the best I can recall in my 21
years here, but my memory is imperfect. In 2000 we were almost 13%
behind the HECB-24 (our nominal peers) 75th percentile of faculty
salaries, at this point we are 4.7% behind. By the end of this salary
period we should be between 2 and 3% points behind the HECB 75th
percentile. Our catch-up on faculty salaries is moving faster than our
catch-up on per student funding.


ON SALARY ALLOCATIONS

If you look up the budget given to the Regents, you will see salary
allocation listed as 2% regular merit (which is the minimum mandated by
faculty code) and 2.5% for extra merit/inequities/compressioin. This
allocation was meant to provide the type of "flexible pool" talked about
on this listserve. We got voluminous information from SCPB about
compression and how it varied widely from unit to unit. Since faculty
distributions vary so widely from unit to unit, the only way to make any
real progress is to deal with some of this at the unit level. This can
only be done with a flexible pot as some here have noted. An allocation
of 2.5% as extra merit/compression/inequities does not mean that a unit
can't make the decision that their meritorious faculty will see 3% as
merit. In fact, at a Board of Deans meeting before SCPB and at the SCPB
meeting itself, the Provost made it clear that her expectation is that
unless there is good reason for why this is not the case, all
meritorious faculty should be seeing at least 3% increases. I would not
be surprised if something of this sort weren't in the directives to
Deans about salary allocations.


Another aspect of this budget is the proviso for unit adjustments. We
have heard a great deal on this list not only about compression between
faculty members, but about how some units are much further behind that
others. For the first time since I've been here, we have a plan to
ensure that not only will the faculty, as a whole, reach the HECB 75th
percentile, but that no individual unit will be appreciably behind the
HECB 50th, which we view as a floor. In the past there have been some
allocations to make sure that no unit is more than 20% behind the HECB
50th, but our present goal is to get us to a point where all units are
no different (statistically speaking) from that mark.

Thus, we are trying to deal with two of our salary problems
simultaneously --- getting the full faculty average to the HECB 75th (we
are projected to be within 2 percentage points away, if not closer, by
the end of the biennium) and to get ALL units to the HECB 50th (it
should take a couple of biennium to get there). In addition, by
providing salary allocation in as flexible a way as allowed, we provide
units the best tool possible to deal with internal inequities between
highy meritorious faculty.


We can, and should, continue to debate whether this is the best
allocation strategy. We can, and should, continue to debate and have
conversations about other areas of budget allocations. (For example,
with rising tuition, it is imperative that we do something significant
for our students, and we must do something about our crumbling
infrastructure, and for areas related to compliance and human resources
-- remember the pleas on this list about safety, about human subjects,
about our information technology?) The next few weeks will surely be
busy ones as we begin to move toward a budget ratification. We can, and
will, utilize SCPB better, and earlier, in the process in the future.

But, let's not lose sight of the fact that the overall budget picture,
and the overall salary picture, is one of good news. There is a great
deal of research (psychological and historical --remember Hobsbawm?)
that discontent peaks during times of rising expectations. And, having
lived through the McCormick years, I understand the distrust of admin.
Even under the best of circumstance, some tension there is healthy and
needed. But, as I've told a few colleagues, I fear we are on the brink
of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The opinions expressed here are mine and only mine. But, thought another
persepctive (albeit from the darkside) might be useful


Ana Mari