From Ben Nelson:
Senate met today at 3pm. I figured it would be not unhelpful to give a report of the goings-on at Senate to the executive. Distribute as widely or narrowly as you like.
Probably in response to some of our pointed remarks in town hall meetings, Shoukri announced that 10 million dollars has been cut at the administrative level, and that senior administration have voluntarily frozen their salaries at 2008 levels. They’ve also done cuts to deferred maintenance.
Shoukri also announced that a project was underway to examine the links between the BoG and academic issues. No idea at all what that project entails, except that they intend to compare to other universities, and examine how much of our budget is allocated to academic related matters.
A professor alluded to the fact that many of our current problems (i.e., irresponsible enrollment growth) are the result of our misadventures with Marsden. He also expressed concerns over the present administration’s unresponsive disposition to the problem of the casualization of labor, and expressed concerns over administrative transparency. The prof phrased his critical comments by calling into question Shoukri’s credibility. Other professors re-enforced the point through the meeting, that the lapse in tenured hiring is a major concern. A prof mentioned that the University academic plan (supposedly the thing that the Governors are meant to pay attention to when allocating money) is largely divorced from meaningful participation of departments. I pointed out that it would be nice enough if the Governors were to implement the 2001 UAC at all, since it mentioned the importance of keeping the growth of tenured positions to retirement, which we’re not. (I’ve asked the VP Academic to give more precise figures on the extent to which we’re failing to even tread water on this issue.)
The 180 million raised for York 50’s campaign, according to the admin, has been allocated in the following way: 24% to student access and achievement, 12% to “academic talent”, 35% to infrastructure, and 29%
to “pioneering programs”. 5 million of that will be going to bursaries for students that need it due to the strike.