Letter to the editor: thoughts on contract negotiations, Labor Day
Photo courtesy of Eileen Johnson
Oakland University Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Organizational Leadership Eileen Johnson.
As a long-time faculty member, I am relieved that our negotiations with administration have been temporarily resolved. We faculty want nothing more than to commence with the fall 2021 semester and the courses we have planned for our students, the programs we have developed, and the initiatives we have begun. Our work never ceases because we love what we do. So that leads me to want to address my opinion on something I think has been lost in the media campaigns that have been launched from one camp to the other. Let’s be clear about one thing: no one is living large at OU. We are and have always been and hopefully always will be a non-profit organization that is dedicated to higher education. Our administrators do work hard and long hours and for far less compensation than they could receive in the private sector.
What was at stake and that was perhaps lost in all of the social media frenzy is the fact that OU has consistently and repeatedly, for fifteen years, bemoaned the anticipated loss of incoming students due to population decreases in college-aged students and shortages of labor in lucrative vocational/technical fields along with slashed state-funding for higher education. These concerns were and are valid. The point is that it was the administration’s duty and primary purpose to plan for this expected enrollment issue. Yet the administration failed to plan appropriately as it should have, and this was used against the faculty as if we somehow could control any of these variables. It was the administration of OU that failed to properly address this known looming issue and it was the OU administration that continued to increase student tuition while simultaneously increasing administrative bloat. The solution was apparently to attempt to balance the budget on the backs of OU faculty and staff.
What was also at stake were issues of shared governance in the very fabric of our beloved OU. Administrators tend to come and go, and the average time of their stay is, I believe, something on the order of 4-5 years. But it is the faculty, the students, the alumni, and the surrounding community who are the beating hearts and soul of Oakland University. We exist in perpetuity. Without us, there is no Oakland University. Without us, the vision and mission of our original benefactor, Matilda Dodge Wilson, would have been lost long ago.
Therefore, on this Labor Day weekend, let us all take a moment to reflect on what the holiday means, what fair labor relations require, and of what one would think should be one of the final bastions of egalitarianism, equity, and shared governance: the public university.
Pissed-off faculty • Sep 7, 2021 at 1:08 AM
And, by the way, isn’t that nice:
https://horizonleague.org/news/2021/8/25/general-horizon-league-announces-leadership-update-to-board-of-directors-and-council.aspx
“In addition, Oakland President Dr. Ora Hirsch Pescovitz has been selected as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors…”
Of course, this is much more important than the university affairs right when things are going to heck.
Pissed-off faculty • Sep 6, 2021 at 9:20 PM
Exactly. The recent transition of Lentini and Piskulich (whom everybody will forget in a year) to, respectively, President and Provost positions at Molloy are an example of just that. Of course, Pescovitz is responsible for this debacle, but that pair had also contributed quite a bit and conveniently absconded right before [fecal matter] went down.
Anon • Sep 6, 2021 at 2:31 PM
Well said, Eileen. Itinerant administrators are undermining higher ed at every turn: they don’t care about sound leadership, institutional stability, or any other long-range concern. Administrators like Ora Pescovitz only want a few vague talking points to win their next job with. Wherever Ora interviews next, she will be bragging about all of the money she was able to squeeze out of faculty at OU. Never mind that she has injected a new and permanent toxicity into campus relationships, destroyed countless social contracts, gave a hearty “fuck you” to more than sixty years of institutional history, gave a very personal “fuck you” to our faculty, and undermined the ability of OU faculty to do great work. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t have to care. She won’t be here in 10 years. Ora’s $750 per month car will still be on the road long after her OU career is over.
I should also note that when you don’t care as an administrator, you also don’t have to be honest or fair. Ora said and did things during the negotiations that were unethical and she spread blatant mistruths to try and get her way. Just ask any traveling salesman: you can get away that kind of stuff when you won’t be sticking around long. In fact, when you’re an itinerant, you have every incentive to be untruthful, to be dishonest, and to bargain in bad faith.
The past 30 years have been marked by increasing calls for accountability for teachers and professors at every level. It’s way past time for accountability for administrators. They’re breaking us, and they’re destroying our great public institutions from within.