Dear President Schrader,
We write in our capacity as the Executive Council of the Hofstra University chapter of the American Association of University Professors, representing over 700 faculty, to urge you to return to bargaining and negotiate a fair contract with your faculty.
The Wright State University Board of Trustees has attempted to unilaterally impose a contract on full-time teaching faculty which plainly assaults academic freedom and the integrity of the academic mission. Public records reveal that compensation and benefits for full-time teaching faculty at WSU constitute only 17% of the university’s budget. While you and the Board may now struggle with the consequences of fiscal mismanagement, they were not created by any investment in full-time tenure lines.
When you return to the table, we hope you will remember that wages and benefits are mandatory topics of collective bargaining; an unnecessarily long probationary period on non-tenure eligible faculty is disruptive to the university’s teaching mission; the implementation of “cost savings days” is little more than wage theft; that merit pay provides no standardized procedure for evaluating contributions to departments and disciplines but rather gives sole discretion to Chairs and Deans; the proposed elimination of a formula for summer teaching is also a form of merit pay, as it would give the administration sole discretion on assigning classes to faculty; and most egregiously, language on “retrenchment” is a dead aim at the principles of academic freedom and tenure, an attempt to transform faculty into contingent employees of the university.
We strongly suggest you invite AAUP-WSU back to the table. We at Hofstra will stand shoulder to shoulder with our faculty colleagues at Wright State as they fight for AAUP principles and quality education, for the sake of your students and our profession.
Sincerely,
The Executive Council, Hofstra-AAUP
American Association of University Professors 