As administrators finalize plans to cut $100 million from Dartmouth's budget over the next two years, Students Stand With Staff has criticized the College over the past week for lacking transparency and accountability and adopting a "corporate" ideology toward budget cuts. College administrators, as well as several faculty members, have disputed these complaints.
SSWS and faculty members presented their arguments in a series of teach-ins held last week, during which they urged the Dartmouth community to become more politically active.
Eric Schildge '10, one of SSWS's co-founders, opened the week's events with a discussion called "Unpacking the Budget Cuts," which looked at the various ways in which he believed the administration addressed the budget reform process poorly. According to Schildge, the administration has presented certain changes as short-term, when they are in fact long-term cuts and changes to the direction of the College.
Chris Peck, vice president of the local Service Employees International Union 560, also believes long-term measures are being disguised as short-term ones, he said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
"How is the savings of this percentage 10 years from now going to save them the 100 million they need now?" he said. "We're talking about long-term savings. This is money the College will make up may have already made up now."
College President Jim Yong Kim has stated that to make the endowment sustainable, long-term structural changes to spending must be made to protect the endowment from future market volatility. Kim's repeated emphasis on the urgency of the changes may be one reason why many people perceive them to be short term.
On Feb. 8, Kim wrote in a message to the Dartmouth community, "The scale of this challenge requires us to act boldly, and with urgency, to ensure that our budget is in balance for the next two years."
According to economics professor David Blanchflower, the College must make substantial long-term changes to its finances to continue to function as an institution. College officials have made these intentions very clear, he noted.
While layoffs a significant component of the budget reduction are an immediate concern for SSWS, the group objects more strongly to the lack of transparency and accountability of the College's governance, Schildge said.
"People are constantly shocked to hear that [SSWS] is the only group that has met with every stakeholder group [in the budget issue]," Schildge said at Wednesday's teach-in. "The administration has not done that sit down with concerned groups and listen."
Representatives of the SEIU have met with the administration to discuss ways to avoid layoffs, The Dartmouth previously reported.
"The eight times we did meet, [the College] offered nothing," Peck said. "They said they do not want to negotiate over the Hanover Inn."
College administrators have held large open forums and maintained an online interface to gain input from all sections of the Dartmouth community, according to Senior Vice President Steven Kadish. They have met with many faculty members through faculty forums, observed presentations by the Committee on Priorities and the Committee of Chairs of the Arts and Sciences Faculty, and held smaller in-person meetings.
The Council on Benefits Committee, the Committee on the Faculty, the Committee on Instruction, the Committee on Priorities and the Committee on Organization and Policy presented recommendations on the budget they reached in collaboration with the administration at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting April 5.
Faculty on these committees come from all three major academic divisions of the College, Kadish said.
The presentations were followed by an open question and answer session with Dean of the Faculty and acting Provost Carol Folt.
Some faculty members at the meeting said they expressed their desire for detailed written reports of committee work in advance and a meeting format that better facilitated discussion.
According to history professor Walter Simons, the committee presentations at the meeting were "so vague, so uncommitted, that it was impossible to know what [the committees] were doing."
He called the meeting "the most frustrating meeting I've attended at Dartmouth."
Simons is one of 75 faculty members who sent a joint letter to the community suggesting alternative areas for reduction in order to avoid layoffs.
Art history professor Mary Coffey, who also signed the letter, said faculty were given information without adequate detail to make an informed decision. Faculty members are still not privy to the key conversations that go into the decision process, she said.
"Nothing significant happens in terms of process [at the meetings,]" Coffey said. "We're just there to decide on things that have been decided in committee."
Peck said the College's outreach to faculty and staff committees "looks almost like a way of [the administration] sharing the blame," because administrators can shift responsibility for their decisions onto the committees.
The administration's protection of faculty in the budget cut process bestows "a funny sort of privilege," history professor Annelise Orleck said at Wednesday's teach-in.
Since faculty are "responsible" and do not want to take a stance without fully understanding all context, the lack of information cripples their ability to speak out, according to Simons.
Although she has never experienced opposition herself, Coffey said faculty may feel discouraged from speaking out on budget-related issues due to the potential dangers of taking a politically controversial position.
Tom Cormen, chair of the computer science department and a member of the Committee on Priorities, said his committee's meetings have been attended by many members of the administration, including Kadish, Folt and Kim. The meetings gave faculty "plenty of opportunities to express opinions to the senior administrators," he said.
The Council on Benefits Committee, which includes staff members, worked in conjunction with the administration to develop the recommended changes to College benefits plans announced Tuesday.
A staff member interviewed by the Dartmouth, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed support for the work of the Council on Benefits Committee and its staff representation in particular, but said staff should have much more committee representation than they currently do.
Students have also taken part in the budget process through the Student Budget Advisory Council. SBAC's efforts to garner student input included publicizing a web site where students could voice their opinions, as well as holding a panel with administrators to hear student concerns, according to SBAC member Maya Granit '11.
"I think there has been an effort to solicit student input, but in the same vein, so much of the budget reduction efforts are things that students aren't involved in," she said.
The committee had weekly meetings with Folt, Kadish and Dean of the College Sylvia Spears to update SBAC on the process, according to Granit.
Spears made a particular effort to ensure the openness of the budget process and the restructuring of the Dean of the College Office, Student Body President Frances Vernon '10, another member of SBAC, said.
Although SBAC discussed the effects that staff layoffs would have on the community, the letter they sent to the Board of Trustees was concentrated on the protection of financial aid because that issue most directly affects the student body, according to Granit.
The administration ultimately did make changes to the College's financial aid policy by re-instituting student loans for individuals with family incomes over $75,000.
Many staff members have refused to speak publicly on the budget cuts due to their fear of losing their jobs, Schildge said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
"If [staff members] speak out now, the next round of cuts [their] heads will be on the chopping block," he said.
Two staff members interviewed by the Dartmouth insisted on anonymity because they hope to retire soon and are concerned about the state of their benefits packages, they said.
"People are very scared to speak out," one of the staff members said.
Others, such as DDS employee Kim Wasick, have found that many staff members are "speaking out," and are not afraid to share their opinions about the budget process.
The College's announcement of layoffs and benefit cuts before it has completed negotiations with the union has driven a wedge between union and non-union workers, Peck said. The College still must negotiate with the union over benefits provided to union employees.
Yet Peck also said union members are speaking out on behalf of staff who cannot because union members feel safe enough to do so.
The most recent round of layoffs was significantly smaller than projected by SSWS, however. Layoffs have also not been concentrated among staff members, but have included a variety of employees and several administrators.
As one alternative to layoffs, SSWS has suggested graduated pay cuts for all faculty and staff members.
SSWS's proposed alternative budget plan originally sought to cut $30 million through pay cuts, with a 2 percent cut for the lowest-paid employees and cuts as high as 20 percent for the highest-salary employees, Schildge said.
Because the hiring changes only need to account for $5 million in savings, however, the percentages could in fact be lower, which would result in pay cuts that would be "relatively small," according to Schildge.
The original SSWS graduated pay cut plan using the 20 percent rate would be "untenable," and would be "fundamentally damaging to Dartmouth," Kadish said, because it would make Dartmouth less competitive in faculty recruitment and retention.
The idea that a graduated faculty pay cut substantial enough to take the place of layoffs in the budget reduction plan would make Dartmouth less competitive for faculty "is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Simons said.
Simons and Schildge both argued that faculty come to Dartmouth for benefits and the College's atmosphere, not merely paychecks.
Simons said that if the faculty were permitted to reduce their salaries voluntarily to prevent layoffs, the attitude demonstrated by the gesture would attract more gifted faculty to Dartmouth.
According to Blanchflower, however, faculty do come to Dartmouth for salaries.
"There's an international market for faculty, and for us to compete we have to compete for the salaries paid by competing institutions," he said. "Unless you pay the market price, the high quality people will leave."
Schildge said that the declining job market would make it difficult for faculty to find jobs elsewhere.
Coffey pointed out, however, that not all the signatories of the letter sent by faculty members in support of staff were in favor of graduated salary reductions as a means of reducing the deficit.
"It is a divisive issue among the faculty," she said.
Coffey said she believes that the faculty as a whole is opposed to the cuts, and that forcing unpopular decisions on the faculty would be ill-advised for the administration.
Several of the speakers at the various teach-ins brought up the positive benefits of their exposure to social justice, but many commented that students often avoid controversial discussions.
The "corporatization" of Western universities has led to an increased focus on efficiency at the expense of social justice because education is approached as an enterprise, history professor Russell Rickford said at Thursday's teach-in.
Kim responded to such criticism by citing the College's efforts to minimize financial burdens on lower paid employees throughout the process.
"I reject it outright that this was not a people-centered process," Kim said. "To say that some group is really devoted to efficiency, effectiveness, and getting the job done does not equal corporatization."
