AAUP Statement on Faculty Salary Policy
The Executive Commitee of the University of Washington chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP-UW) has drafted and approved the following statement regarding the recently proposed revision to Executive Order 64.
Janelle Taylor, President, AAUP-UW
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AAUP-UW statement on proposed revision of Executive Order 64 May 31, 2010
The proposed revision of Executive Order 64 institutes major changes to faculty salary policy that will have profoundly negative effects for many decades on faculty remuneration (and, perhaps even more importantly, on the faculty’s right to have a meaningful say in how the university is run, as part of this institution’s tradition of shared governance). As such, the AAUP-UW urges all colleagues to examine the document with great care and to communicate concerns to their Faculty Senate Representatives.
The Faculty has foregone minimum merit increases during the current biennium, and would presumably forego future minimum increases when particularly harsh economic times require the State Government to freeze all salaries. However, the President's new EO-64 version creates an entirely new set of rules under which annual merit raises can be lowered or totally abolished from year to year -- even in the absence of statewide salary freezes -- simply because the UW Administration and Regents argue that building renovations, new programs, and modernized infrastructures are a higher priority than Faculty merit raises. Even the 7.5% raises that faculty receive upon promotion would be jeopardized, as the President’s new version inserts language making those raises contingent on the Board of Regents’ approval of a “promotion allocation.”
The AAUP-UW urges UW faculty to consider these issues carefully and to communicate their views to their Senate Representatives in advance of Thursday June 3, since this date has been established as the deadline by which time the Senate needs to respond to the President Emmert's EO-64 revision. On May 20th the Senate resoundingly defeated the Administration's attempt to prematurely extend the salary freeze through 2012.
The Faculty Senate leadership has called a special meeting on June 3rd. AAUP-UW calls upon the Faculty Senate to take the initiative to speak out clearly, forcefully, and with a unified voice in opposition to the proposed Executive Order, because it will effectively eviscerate the current Faculty salary policy and weaken shared governance on this campus. _______________________________________________
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