Excerpt from WDTN
Wright State’s faculty union is asking Miami Valley residents for help to “protect the university from Trustees who do not understand higher education.”
They shared an open letter requesting that alumni and community members reach out to Doug Fecher, CEO of WPCU and Chair of WSU’s Board of Trustees, and ask him to "negotiate a fair contract that would safeguard the integrity of academics and research."
Full-time faculty members at Wright State University now face a difficult situation. Following two years of failed negotiations, the administration has unilaterally imposed an unfavorable, unfair, and unreasonable contract on the faculty. We believe that accepting their contract would lead to a reduction in the quality of education at the University and adversely impact our working conditions. For these reasons, we have overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike, which will begin on January 22, 2019.
For a taste of who our faculty are and what they do, please visit: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u5tvvr17kvjjy2m/AABl99K5UuEXIF__pQRTAksGa?dl=0
We do NOT want to go on strike, but the stakes have never been higher. Over the past several years, our students, the local workforce, and the region’s economy have been negatively impacted by the administration’s poor stewardship. We must stand up to a Board of Trustees that continues to be fiscally reckless and that prioritizes an expensive basketball program and real estate boondoggles while slashing support for the university’s academic mission, including deep cuts to the library.
The administration’s imposed contract is overwhelmingly negative for the community we serve, our students, and the faculty. We cannot permit our students to suffer the inevitable decline in quality of education if faculty are forced to teach more and even larger classes, if critical courses are offered much less frequently, and if Wright State is unable to recruit and retain the best educators and researchers. We cannot permit our alumni from having their WSU degrees devalued – but that is what will certainly occur if the administration/Board is allowed to continue attacking the academic core of our University. Already, some top faculty who have been at our University for years have left WSU (or have entered the job market) because they recognize that the administration and Board do not respect or value faculty; we cannot permit that hemorrhaging to continue.
Like other members of the university community we have also not received raises for five of the last eight years and do not expect any raises in the near future. But, we’re NOT striking over raises.
