AAUP statement on salary cuts and UNLV's situation

As reported in this morning's Inside Higher Education, the Executive Committee of the Collective Bargaining Congress of the American Association of University Professors yesterday issued http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/newsroom/2009PRS/prnogivebacks.htm. It urges that faculty, in exchange for cuts in pay or unpaid furloughs (such as NSHE faculty have received this year), university administrations should grant faculty greater insight into the institution's financial situation and a greater voice in the management of the university's decision-making.

The AAUP thereby resolves that faculty should work to turn this situation around, and should not give their pay away in temporary measures that do not structurally readjust higher education’s direction," says the statement. "Turning the situation around means that faculty should (a) gain access to full information about institutional finances and all other strategically relevant data, ensuring that institutions open their books to shed light on the institution’s overall condition; (b) exercise a fuller voice in analyzing and making recommendations about budgets and strategic directions, opening the boardroom door to take a central role in institutional decision making; & (c) pursue measures that reverse the long standing trends and protect the core academic functions of higher education, opening up educational opportunity by reinvesting in educational expenditures.

At UNLV, the administration has (as we understand it) agreed that faculty will receive this information and voice through the Faculty Senate's role in the program review process that is now beginning, specifically through faculty representation on the Joint Evaluation Team which will review ducanal recommendations on program review, beginning next month.