A perfect view and a union, too
Faculty at the University of Vermont consider how to achieve stability and a voice in governance.

Up until four or five years ago, it was hard to get faculty at the University of Vermont to think seriously about a union. In fact, attempts to organize the campus in 1976 and 1990 hadn't generated much excitement. Faculty felt privileged to build their careers at the prestigious university, founded in 1791 and known as a "public ivy." They could conduct their research, teach four or five courses a year to classes as small as 10 or 15 students, and raise their children in an ideal setting. True, the salaries were a bit low, but didn't the breathtaking view of the Green Mountains to the east and Lake Champlain to the west make up for it?"Ah, the view," sighs Luis Vivanco standing at the narrow window of his office on the fifth floor of Williams Hall. The 31-year-old assistant professor of anthropology waves his hand dismissively. "What is it worth? $5,000? $10,000? People here actually discuss this!"

Vivanco has recently returned from taking a group of students to Mexico for a study tour over the Christmas break. Although he did his field work in Latin America on the politics of cultural environmentalism, he hints that more than scholarly interest motivated him to take the stint in Mexico. He needed the money.

Last summer, in an internal memo, the vice provost for research and graduate education shared his views on professors who take on extra work: "The fact that a number of our faculty regularly volunteer to teach extra courses for continuing education during the academic year suggests to me that they may not be fully engaged in academic year research, or may not be carrying an appropriate regular teaching load. Of course, I realize that the supplemental income may not really be optional for some of our folks."

For Vivanco, whose salary is just under $39,000, the memo is an example of administrative insensitivity. The pressure is on junior faculty to publish prolifically and quickly to make tenure, he notes. The memo is an example of why faculty at the University of Vermont think they would benefit from being represented by a union. While the administration might acknowledge that the pay is inadequate, its heart is not devoted to solving the problem. An American Association of University Professors (AAUP) comparison of 21 institutions similar to UVM ranks the Vermont junior faculty dead last in terms of compensation.

The chasm widens

Beyond the pay problem, however, Vivanco and others are equally concerned about faculty's lack of voice in academic affairs. They note a widening chasm between the world-views of the faculty and of the administration. Given the strong forces of market and technology that are changing all institutions, it's no time to be left out of the governance process. Yet that is where UVM faculty find themselves today.

Mark A. Stoler, for example, has been teaching at UVM for 30 years. A highly respected professor of history and a prolific author, he has just published Allies and Adversaries: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War II (University of North Carolina Press). In a twist of irony, if Stoler were to write about power relations at the university, he just might find himself recycling the first part of that book title.

The third time around, the idea of a union has proven compelling, says Stoler, because of an accelerating sense that faculty are losing their prerogatives. "There is a feeling that the administration lives in a different world than faculty," he explains. A "bottom-line mentality" is leading to more decisions that nullify traditional academic values.

Acknowledging that UVM's problems are not unique, Stoler nevertheless ticks off a list of worrisome developments: increasing use of adjuncts and temporary faculty, a plunging of resources into distance education, workload increases, a decline in admission standards, inadequate salaries and raises, rising health care charges. But worst of all is a failure to agree on terms or definitions pertaining to governance, he says. "The administration feels they are doing their best to define academic governance," he observes. "They define collegiality as asking for faculty advice when they feel like it and ignoring it when they feel like it."

In the 1980s, Stoler remembers, the faculty senate had power. Since then, gradually, the senate has been made aware of the fact that it is only an advisory body. "The ground has been cut out from under us," he says.

Faculty senate chair Jean Richardson doesn't dispute this characterization. Getting faculty to come to meetings can be a challenge. Where they used to participate in a kind and collegial way, now, there is only a sense of "whiny, compartmentalized competitiveness." Why? An absence of leadership at the helm of the institution, a lack of a clear vision, a culture that increasingly rewards research and competitiveness and discourages teaching and service--all of these contribute to a less-than-effective governance body.

"Whenever there is a constant turnover at the senior administrative level," she says, "with each new team throwing out new ideas," overworked faculty respond by "retracting back into boxes. They bunker down." As a result, the collegial culture is lost. Junior faculty are not adequately mentored or oriented in the ways of service and governance.

Buyout or brain drain?

The last straw for frustrated faculty came last year at the end of a process called a strategic change initiative. To everyone's surprise, the administration offered a "voluntary separation" agreement to buy out senior faculty in order to free up funds and slots for younger faculty. At first, the administration hoped to coax 150 faculty and staff into leaving. Estimated cost savings: $2.5 million. Then, when the offer was made, the cost increased to $7.5 million over three years. When 200 employees applied for the buyout, the cost went up again to $9 million. However, the toll was greater than dollars, because the departure of 99 faculty from a total of 745 was a terrible brain drain, affecting some departments more dramatically than others.

"Everyone I knew thought that this was not a well thought-out plan," reports Stoler. It was the brainchild of a relatively new provost who arrived in 1998. Within months of beginning to implement the plan in 2000--complete with discussions about how departments would or would not replace lost scholars--the provost announced his own departure to assume a university presidency. He left Dec. 1.

"The strategic planning process was described as a joke," says Gagan Mirchandani, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. "It was embarrassing." Although he has taught at UVM since 1968, Mirchandani had no interest in the union until this drive began. Dissatisfaction began to seep in four or five years ago, he says. "In a university where you have to have some sense of concern for faculty rights, for scholarship, that seems to have gone by the wayside. The administration doesn't seem to have heard us, and it doesn't seem to care."

What's more, says Mirchandani, there is no sense of priorities and no clear vision for the future. "This is why we have no choice but a union to achieve what we desire."

Last October, the faculty senate allowed a meeting to be devoted to an informational presentation on the union. More than 100 people came to what was the best-attended session in years. Not one person spoke against the idea of unionizing.

Linda Backus, a lecturer in the department of education, spoke out about the declining percentage of tenured faculty at the university. In the past eight years, UVM lost 72--or 12 percent--of its tenured positions. It acquired 86 nontenured positions, an increase of 86 percent, and part-time faculty increased by 21 percent. This pattern undermines academic freedom and teaching and educational quality, she notes.

Union voice welcomed

From that point on, organizing the faculty proceeded in earnest. The UVM United Academics-AAUP/AFT, a joint project of the AFT and AAUP, gathered signed cards from faculty in preparation for filing a petition with the Vermont labor board to hold a collective bargaining election. The Vermont State Colleges Faculty Federation/AFT stepped in to share its successes in negotiating significant salary increases. The local has become a force in the Vermont Legislature, laying out its case for the colleges, says Roy Vestrich, president of the VSCFF and of the state federation--the United Professions of Vermont.

"These two higher education systems have the dubious distinction of being the most expensive to attend in the country," Vestrich says. Even state residents are priced out of the market, he notes, and the state's financial aid program encourages out-of-state migration with its policy of funding portable loans. Vestrich points out that there is a lot of work to be done with the Legislature, which does not fund the systems adequately.

In November, the organizers dropped a bombshell. They released a report that analyzes the financial statements of UVM for the academic years 1995-99. The analysis, by economics professor Rudy Fichtenbaum of Wright State University, shows that the university is much healthier financially than it had led faculty to believe--with a total annual compounded growth rate of 8.17 percent for the four years studied. Fichtenbaum found that the university had achieved an increase of $34.6 million in the total fund balances. The university had put forth a much leaner picture of its budget by shifting monies into various quasi-endowment funds.

Given that information, Nancy Welch, an English professor became curious about the effect retirements caused by the buyout plan is having on her department. When she came to the department six years ago, she was the 30th faculty member in a program that served 450 majors. This year, majors were up to 500 and faculty were down to 22. After the buyout, the number of faculty might shrink to 15. Will faculty be consulted, she wonders, in determining how to serve the students? "The real deficit will be if we are not available to do the advising or we don't have time for students," she says.

Dawn Saunders teaches economics at UVM as a visiting professor. Now in her sixth year, she pays close attention to the university's finances. For example, an analysis of U.S. Department of Education data by the AAUP shows that for the past decade, UVM's administrative expenditures have been growing much faster than its instructional expenditures. From 1991 to 1999, institutional support (the administrative category) increased 58 percent, while instructional expenditures rose only 28 percent. "We've been told we need to downsize in order to do better with less," she says, "but we don't see that emphasis in the administration's actions."

With the union, Saunders says, faculty will be more able to monitor the choices the administration makes to see if priorities are set with the best interests of teaching and learning in mind. For example, the university is embarking on a new building project called the Gateway Center. "An intellectual commons" that will provide space for students to gather, use technology and experience community, the center will cost upwards of $50 million. "There is much good there," says Saunders, "but is this where we want to place our hopes and dreams for students? Is the return it offers, in terms of how it may enhance the learning environment, better than investing in faculty salaries, for example, so as to attract and retain the best teachers?"

"If we had a union, we could define our own agenda, and our needs," said Linda Backus, speaking to her colleagues at the faculty senate meeting. "Without us, there is no university. Students come to UVM not for the buildings, not for administrative programs, but to receive an education from qualified scholars who have a voice in what is taught, the research that is conducted and how education is delivered."

Next month, UVM faculty will vote on whether to make their voices heard as one.

Postscript: As AFT On Campus was going to press, the Board of Trustees accepted the resignation of UVM president Judith Ramaley, who was in her fourth year. This will have no effect on the union drive, noted Stoler. "The removal of one individual makes no difference. Our issues are structural, not personal."