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WHY NOT KICK US AGAIN?
YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED A TOOTH OR TWO!
One of the numerous nasty side effects of a fiscal crisis is
that it affords those in authority a prime opportunity to pursue
their own personal and political agendas. Higher education
has not been particularly popular in Georgia for a long time
among a certain coterie of legislators who represent districts
where even the Episcopalians handle snakes and some folks
think the Bible and the Sears catalogue constitute a mighty
fine library. This problem grew infinitely worse with the ascen
sion to the governorship in 2002 of Republican Sonny Perdue,
a self-serving slug who is unfortunately just smart enough to
know a relatively defenseless political punching bag when he
sees one. Throw in a university system chancellor who is a
former businessman and thinks that a university should be run,
you guessed it, "like a business," and you have all the behind-
the-scenes info you should need to understand what it's like to
teach at the University of Georgia these days.
Just in case you're having trouble with the empathy thing,
however, let me tell you about vhat happened in a recent two-
day stretch, beginning on July 21, when I received the follow
ing email:
To: UGA Faculty and Staff
From: Tim Burgess, Senior Vice President for Finance
and Administration
Re: Duty to Report Arrests and Convictions
This is to remind all faculty and staff that, under
policy mandated by the Board of Regents, all University
of Georgia employees are required to report any arrest to
the Office of Legal Affairs within 72 hours of the arrest
and to report the outcome of any criminal case within
24 hours of a court decision. Failure to report is a viola
tion of the policy and may lead to negative employment
action above and beyond whatever action might be
taken because of the arrest itself...
Feeling more like a probationer than a professor at that
point, the next morning about 11 a.m., I signed a contract
into which this language had been inserted:
Notwithstanding any other provision of this con
tract, for fiscal year 2009-2010, the Board of Regents
has authorized the president to implement a manda
tory furlough program requiring employees to take not
more than 10 days of unpaid annual leave. In the event
it becomes necessary for the president to exercise this
. authority, employee furloughs will be implemented in
accordance with guidelines promulgated by the Office of
the Chancellor.
Well, let's just say it didn't take very damn long for it to
become "necessary for the president to exercise this authority,"
because about 5 p.m. I got this email from him:
To UGA Faculty and Staff:
By now, most of you have heard or read about
Governor Perdue's order to state agencies to cut 5 per
cent from their budgets and implement three furlough,
days by the end of the calendar year. I know that you
have many questions about what this is going to mean
for you, your colleagues and your families..
We are working with the Board of Regents and their
staff, and expect to receive further instructions on
implementing these reductions. All of us are trying to
work through budget scenarios both at the campus level
and at the University System, and there remains a possi
bility of additional budget reductions and furlough days
after the first of the year.
I will be making more information available as soon
as possible, and I will be making a full report to the
community on August 20... We will have a more detailed
discussion on the furloughs and other budget issues at
that time.
Until then, I would ask each of you as individuals ■
and members of departments and units to continue to
function as efficiently as possible. Throughout this time
of economic challenge, we will continue to make the
preservation of jobs a top priority, second only to serv
ing students.
Thank you for everything you do for the University of
Georgia.
Michael F. Adams
President
According to the local daily, "Each day of furloughs saves
taxpayers $135 million when teachers, University System of
Georgia employees and all state workers are included." I don't
know who figured that out, but she or he must have one hell of
a calculator. In any event, if these figures are correct, why not
simply cut the budget 5 percent plus the equivalent of three
furlough days, or $405 million? If the object is to avoid lay
offs, where's the guarantee that won't happen anyway? What's
so magical about three days?
It will surely be interesting to see how this will work
at UGA with a full-time faculty-staff population of roughly
9,000, where salaries range from the president's reported
$630K+ to clerical folks, I'm sonry to say, making barely 3 per
cent of that.
Obviously, furloughing the three-percenters isn't going to
help the state nearly as much economically as it will hurt the
individuals forced to forego three days' pay. In reality, the only
humane way to go here is to impose more furlough days on
administrators, assuming we can spare them for more than 72
hours (pause here for laborious removal of tongue from deep
in cheek), and higher-paid faculty (of whom, I hasten to add,
I am one.)
Maybe you believe this is all really just about money, but,
like the Board of Regents' Big-Brotherish obsession with moni
toring faculty conduct off campus, these mandatory days off
without pay (which have already been instituted in some state
agencies but thus far avoided in four-year colleges) strike me
also as a sharp reminder to faculty that, in the minds of the
powers that be, they are no different from the folks who mow
the shoulders of the highways or slave anonymously away deep
within the bowels of the state bureaucracy. It's true enough
that the paychecks all come from the same place, and univer
sity faculty are certainly no more worthy of high regard than
any other contributing member of society, but in this case,
showing disrespect for them translates directly into devaluing
what they do.
Finally, even taking the furloughs out of the equation,
by my calculation, we have now absorbed budget cuts of 17
percent over roughly the last 18 months. Yet I read that offi
cials are trying to figure how furlough days will be scheduled
"so that absences don't affect the smooth running of the
university."
"Smooth running of the university?!" Who, pray tell, has
any right to expect smooth running after the butchering we've
been subjected to? Better yet, if we can realty appear to oper
ate just as effectively after 17 percent budget reduction and'
faculty and staff taking the equivalent of 1 percent pay cuts
(in addition to earlier reductions in benefits), just exactly who
is going to believe that we needed all that money in the first
place? Even if they wanted to, there is no way in hell that
faculty are going to be allowed to take furloughs in a way that
means canceling classes, which might not strike many stu
dents as forcing them to s^are our pain, although it might get
through to some of their parents. However, if staff furloughs
are coming anyway, bus service should be curtailed and the
hours for computer labs, cafeterias, the student center and
workout and recreational facilities should be reduced as well.
This may sound cold, but getting cut to pieces while trying to
repulse repeated knife attacks with high-minded appeals to
reason is getting a little old. Unless students, parents, clients
and beneficiaries of our outreach efforts are made to feel that
gutting their university has hurt them in some meaningful way,
in this hostile environment, any hope we might have of recov
ering what's been taken away is certain to fade from faint to
non-existent.
Gloomy as things sound, not all the news around here is
bad. With football season fast approaching, the $40 million
expansion of our football and track facilities is proceeding
apace. Any way you slice it, of course, the real thrust behind
this modest project, said to include "a new weight training
room, athletic training facility, a multi-purpose area, and new
coaches offices and meeting rooms," is the perceived need to
impress 17- and 18-year-old athletes we are wooing to rep
resent an institution, which, solely on the basis of their aca
demic prowess, would not give more than a very few of them
the time of day.
I have to confess that after all these years, trying to make
sense of all these incongruities accomplishes little more than
stoking my thirst for a beer or several. That reminds me! Just
in case you're watching, Regents-Voyeurs, can you tell me, if I
have a few too many and wind up in the'old gray bar motel, do
I have to report it even if I'm on furlough?
Jim Cobb
Jim Cobb is Spalding Distinguished Professor of History at UGA.
Republic
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