In the wake of the College's recent announcement that 30 administrative jobs could be eliminated, some staff are circulating a proposal that Dartmouth faculty and employees "voluntarily rebate one percent of their gross salary" to the College in order to prevent layoffs.
But while praising the concern he said the advocates of the salary reductions are showing for their fellow employees, Dartmouth Vice President for Public Affairs Bill Walker said that the proposal was unrealistic.
Betsy Alexander, the administrative assistant of the art history department, sent out a BlitzMail message late last week, outlining the proposal that she developed with Professor Allen Hockley, also of the art history department.
"There's enough groundswell already that a lot of people know about this. Our guess is that there will be support at certain levels," Hockley said, stressing that he was not advocating any mandatory reductions in salaries.
"If you say mandatory, people react negatively," Alexander said. "If you say voluntary, people are made to think about the possibilities and to consider the impact such a cut would have on them."
However, Walker said because of the structure of the budget cuts, he believed that voluntary salary reductions would not be a viable option for the College to pursue.
"It's certainly a laudable concern shown by the individuals who proposed this," Walker said, but added that it would probably not succeed in saving jobs because budget managers within individual departments are expected to make proposals based on their internal needs.
Alexander's email message asked College employees to "see what a one percent reduction would make on your household budget. Then think about what a one hundred percent reduction would do to someone else's."
Alexander requested recipients of her email to share the idea with their departments and calculate overall interest in participating. She said that most of the responses that she has gotten have been supportive, but some were cynical or questioning.
Sammie Travis, administrator in the computer science department, described the proposal as "benevolent" and said that she would be willing to participate.
"I would, in that I would rather help to save someone's job than to see them put out of work in December," Travis said.
Alexander and Hockley began talking about voluntary reductions in salary and suggested that members of the Dartmouth community should do whatever they can to help people who may face layoffs due to budget cuts.
Hockley worried that laying off staff would be detrimental to the future of the College. He said that Dartmouth should "retain highly-trained personnel" and figure out ways to do that, even in times of financial difficulty.
"The College intends to make every effort to aid displaced employees," Walker said. "People are going to be very much encouraged to look among the people whose positions have been eliminated when filling new positions."
