UDMPU
Open Letter to President Stockhausen
At its
|
Open Letter to UDM
President Stockhausen September 2005 Last Fall the administration requested the
faculty help balance the budget and, during the ensuing negotiations,
repeatedly expressed the desire to work with the faculty as “partners.” Promises made to us as incentives for our
agreeing to the giveback of part of our compensation included the assurance
that UDM would begin a capital campaign and the assurance that the Board
would approve and move forward with the search for financing. The administration based its appeal on its
claim that saving the $2 million would start a whole series of things in
motion. The proposed savings were
repeatedly referred to as the “locomotive,” meaning that the train was fired
up, loaded, and ready to go, and would pull out of the station just about
immediately after the University secured the savings. The faculty, endeavoring to cooperate as
partners, voted to give back the requested part of their compensation. Since then, even though we were led to
believe that our cooperation was the final step of a deliberate process, no action
has been taken that resulted in securing the financing and no explanation of
the sort that “partners” would expect has occurred. The administration made assurances to us
that it did not fulfill, further damaging the administration’s credibility
and lowering faculty morale. We are disappointed that the UDM
administration has undermined the trust that must exist among the
stakeholders in our University. As we
observed repeatedly during the negotiations, we were taking the
administration’s assertions on trust, trust that would not be granted again
in the future if the administration’s assertions prove to be unreliable. We have little choice now but to view any
further administrative promises and assertions with extreme skepticism. |
Return to UDMPU Home Page
Last Revision:
19 Semptember 2005