Hostile Takeover

by

A Very Concerned UM Employee

 

 

By the time you read this, the game will likely be over. 

 

No, not the Missouri-Kansas football game.  Rather, the game that the Republican Right’s been running on the University of Missouri for the past 20-plus years. 

 

It's a game called "Hostile Takeover." 

 

Why do I hear Governor Blunt and his wealthy cronies chuckling with glee—chortling at the poor suckers who trusted them to protect the public welfare, rather than sell it off to the richest bidder?  

 

Because Blunt's appointment of Gary Forsee, his handpicked candidate, to be the University of Missouri’s President, culminates the GOP’s long campaign to seize control of––to corporatize and “Republicanize”—an institution which the Right distrusts, denigrates, and despises.

 

After two decades of financial starvation and political bludgeoning, Republicans judge that UM is ready for their final solution.  Forsee is the Blunt instrument chosen to subvert and transform the University into something that its godfather, Thomas Jefferson, would have found repugnant.

 

Who is Gary Forsee, anyway?  Does he have any qualifications for this post?

 

Well, he’s rich.  Very, very rich.  Rich enough to buy his own university (and maybe that’s what’s going on).  According to the Forbes website, Forsee made nearly $16 million last year as CEO of Sprint Nextel, the nation’s third largest telecommunications company, and that sum doesn’t include multi-million dollar “bonuses” and perks. 

 

Also, Forsee’s allegedly a “successful business leader.”  The Republican Right’s always argued that UM needs corporate-style leadership by a guy like Forsee, who will run UM on a “business model,” ensure its resources are used "wisely and efficiently," and thus win "public trust."

 

Wisely and efficiently?  Judging from recent experience, the Republicans’ “business model” is “crony capitalism”—think Enron, Halliburton, Jack Abramoff, today’s house-mortgage fiasco—rotten with corruption, scandal, incompetence, and total contempt for the public welfare. 

 

Public trust?  Last time I looked, polls showed the American people’s trust in corporate leadership was deservedly rock-bottom, just slightly above their respect for the Saudi Arabian royal family.

 

Sure, Republicans love to apply business terminology to UM.  In their jargon, top administrators are the University’s CEOs, the public are its shareholders, the students are its consumers, and the faculty and staff are (or should be) just employees to hire and fire at the CEO’s discretion. 

 

OK, let’s try that jargon out.  How does Forsee’s record as CEO predict his performance as UM President?

 

A few months ago, Sprint Nextel fired Forsee as its CEO.  Why?  Because under his brilliant stewardship, Sprint’s profits and share values tanked.  Stockholders and Wall Street alike screamed for his head on a platter.  Of course, Forsee got a $54 million severance package (yes, you read that right—$54 million), but he left Sprint belly-up and gasping for air.  So much for shareholder satisfaction! 

 

What about Sprint’s consumers?  During Forsee’s management they were in full-blown rebellion, deserting Sprint for its competitors by the hundreds of thousands, because of what they called overcharging and lousy service.

 

And Sprint’s ordinary employees?  Well, during Forsee’s tenure they got wage freezes, shrinking benefits, and vanishing pensions.  Yet despite their “sacrifices” for the “good of the company” (not to mention for Forsee’s outlandish salary), their jobs were out-sourced en masse to India.  Five thousand layoffs in just one day!  Heck of a job, Gary!  

 

Is this the “business model” in UM’s future?     

 

Probably.  Blunt's Republicans never saw a public institution they didn't want to "re-structure" or "privatize" out of recognition or existence, while milking all its assets for their and their corporate cronies' profit.

 

Think FEMA and about what happened to post-Katrina New Orleans's public schools, public hospitals, libraries, housing, etc.    

 

But, hey, it gets even worse!  Forsee's not only part of the GOP corporate kleptocracy.  He also helped the Bush Administration break the law and trash the Constitution.  

 

Sprint Nextel—and BellSouth (also formerly under Forsee’s benign guidance), along with other telecom giants—shredded both the legal code and the Bill of Rights by secretly giving millions of ordinary Americans’ phone records and other private data to the Bush’s now infamous warrant-less spying program. 

 

Scores of lawsuits by outraged citizens are now pending against Sprint and its CEOs.  Will UM's presidential mansion be big enough for Forsee to hide in?  Will his Right-wing political connections and contributions—including $1,000 to something called the “Texas Freedom Foundation” (I couldn’t make that up)—protect him from justice?    

 

Look, Forsee’s probably not a bad guy, at least by today’s standards of bloated plutocracy.  The fundamental problem here is not Forsee, personally.  It’s not even the Robber Baron culture of private greed and public theft that reigns in Washington and Jefferson City. 

 

The big but unspoken issue is that there are (and damn well should be) fundamental differences between public institutions, especially higher education institutions, and private corporations. 

 

UM’s job is to educate Missouri's public and enlighten its citizens.  Neither UM nor any other university can do that job unless its faculty can carry out their appointed mission.  Naïve though it may sound in this prostituted world, that mission is to study, teach, and publish what they discover and believe to be true—whether about science or business or social studies—and do so without fear of retribution from the powerful, who often depend on blatant untruths (Remember Saddam’s WMD?  Global warming denials?) to promote their interests.

 

Sprint Nextel and other corporations have a different job, and their CEOs have a different mission:  to make the biggest profits and the biggest executive salaries possible, by virtually any methods this side of jail.  If that means screwing consumers, employees, even shareholders (not to mention the environment or the long-term public good), so be it.  If that means disregarding the truth or outright lying—or conspiring with the government to break the law—so be it.    

 

As far as Blunt and many Republicans are concerned, however, these fundamental  differences don’t exist.  To them, higher education’s mission is meaningless or downright dangerous.  For them, considerations of power and profit are all-consuming. 

 

Fortunately, higher education, like the internet (source of the data for this article), remains one of the few American institutions not yet under complete GOP and corporate control.  Fortunately, Missouri still has a real university—not as good as it could be, more expensive for students than it should be, both thanks to GOP cuts in taxes for the rich and in funding for public services—but still reasonably true to its mission.

 

The economic hit-men have not yet won the game.  

 

I suspect that’s why the Republican Right still hates and attacks the University of Missouri.  And, unless we can stop their Hostile Takeover, I bet that’s what Gary Forsee will be appointed to change at UM forever. 

Blunt Not Quite Truthful On State's Education Facts

Springfield News-Leader Editorial

Gov. Matt Blunt has been traveling the state in the past week patting himself on the back for all he's done for education funding in the state of Missouri. Indeed, Blunt is right when he says he's increased funding for higher education in the past couple of years. He's right when he tries to earn political points by pointing out that the previous governor, Bob Holden, withheld money from schools during a recession and budget crunch.

He's right when he points out that his plan to sell Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority assets pumped millions of dollars into university construction projects, including $29 million at Missouri State University.

He's right that he did all of this without a tax increase.

 

All true.

 

Here's another fact that's equally true. Even with the increases, in fiscal year 2007, the state spent more money on prescription drugs - $884.5 million

- than it did on higher education - $883.3 million.

 

So pardon us if we don't quite buy into the governor's campaign rhetoric when he tells college students, as he did last week:

 

"Education is my highest priority, and I am committed to ensuring that our children receive a world-class education."

 

World class?

 

For those college students who understand a little bit of math, here's how world-class Missouri's funding for higher education is:

 

- The state ranks a pitiful 47th in the nation in higher education funding per capita, spending less per state resident than every state except for Colorado, Vermont and New Hampshire.

 

- Missouri ranks dead last in terms of the percentage increase in higher education funding between fiscal years 2005 and 2007, the very two years the governor is bragging about.

 

- Missouri only spends 1.2 percent of its total state revenues on higher education.

 

- Regionally, Missouri's spending on higher education fails in comparison to every border state. The race isn't even close. Missouri's 2.7 percent increase in the last two fiscal years is minuscule compared to 3.9 percent in Illinois, 8.2 percent in Iowa, 10.2 percent in Kansas, 10.6 percent in Tennessee, 11.9 percent in Kentucky, 13.4 percent in Nebraska and 14.6 percent in Arkansas.

 

So Blunt is right when he says his budget is inching in the right direction.

But he misses the point if he really wants to make education a priority.

Higher education in this state hasn't been a priority in at least a decade, not under Republican or Democratic governors, not under Republican or Democratic legislative control.

 

If Blunt truly wants to be the education governor, then we challenge him to tell college students and their parents the truth: This state's performance in terms of higher education funding over the past decade is nothing short of tragic. And the result is that fewer people short of the very poor or very rich can afford to go to college. Indeed, between 1979 and 2004, according to the Center for the Study of Education Policy, Missouri's access-cost ratio, the statistical measure of affordability, skyrocketed.

Tuition during that time has nearly tripled, while need-based aid per student has fallen dramatically. And state funding hasn't come close to keeping up.

 

That means that students don't have access to state colleges and universities.

 

It means Missouri is falling miserably behind its competitors.

 

This is not a political issue in which our elected officials should go around patting themselves on the back for incremental progress or pointing out failures of the past. The failure is all of ours. It's the governor's, the previous governor's, legislators for more than a decade and university presidents more caught up in fighting for their piece of the pie than standing up and demanding that the state put students first. While our state lawmakers are in Jefferson City this week giving tax credits away to special interests and calling it economic development, the real economic development opportunity - investing in our colleges and universities - is being ignored.

 

 

When it comes to the increases Blunt is telling college students about, we're not first. We're not world class.

 

Missouri is dead last. Worst in the nation.

 

It's time that our politicians, elected officials, university presidents, parents and students focus on that sobering statistic. Maybe a tax increase is what we need - that's what Republican lawmakers are mulling to bring our roads up to higher standards. Maybe we need to do a better job of holding on to the revenue we bring in, and not hand it out to business interests whose economic effect on the state pales in comparison to universities. Maybe we need to re-examine our regionalized system of two-and four-year colleges and universities and consider bringing them all under one umbrella so we can do more with what we've got.

 

What we must do, however, and there are no maybes about it, is start telling the truth about Missouri's state of higher education funding. Our students and parents can't afford school. Our colleges and universities have buildings that are falling apart. Our state has turned its back on the biggest and best economic development tool they have. We have become, hands down, one of the worst states in the nation over the past decade when it comes to spending taxpayers dollars on our schools.

 

If Blunt truly wants to be the education governor, these are the facts he should be talking about as he travels the state speaking to students.

 

Missouri is failing its students. What are we going to do about it?

 

Copyright, August 2007,

 

Springfield News-Leader

MU budget plan could draw faculty to join MNEA

COLUMBIA MISSOURIAN

By CARL FRANZEN

July 23, 2007 | 10:05 p.m. CST

COLUMBIA — For members of the Missouri National Education Association, MU’s new financial plan, Compete Missouri, could turn out to be one of the organization’s primary recruiting tools.

“At this point, the university is actually helping us because they don’t give faculty and staff realistic opportunities to provide input,” MNEA organizing director Steve McLuckie said. “They are making decisions from a top-down, command style.”

The MNEA is a branch of the nation’s largest professional employee organization, the National Education Association.

The MNEA is hosting a four-day seminar in Columbia this week to help local members build stronger support for collective bargaining, a method of labor negotiation in which representatives for employees and employers come together to draft agreements about working conditions, wages and other employment issues.

IF YOU GO

What: The MNEA’s 35th Annual State Summer Academy
When: Tuesday, July 24 - Friday, July 27
Where: Holiday Inn Executive Center, 2200 I-70 Drive S.W.
Cost: $170
For more information: Call 888-968-4820 or visit www.mnea.org/info/Summer
Academy/07/GeneralInfo.htm

Collective bargaining means that the experts in education — the faculty, the staff, the people who work with students every day — can get to the table and talk about what the priorities in education should be,” McLuckie said.

Paul K. Rainsberger, director of labor education at MU, has done extensive research and writing about collective bargaining in the United States. He said workers look to collective bargaining as a way to gain a voice in determining terms and conditions of employment.

“Whether any group of workers has the interest, power or will to engage in collective bargaining is a question that will change as the law changes,” he said.

The Missouri Constitution grants employees the right to collective bargaining, but it wasn’t until May 29 that the Missouri Supreme Court definitively extended collective bargaining rights to law enforcement officers, public school teachers and university employees.

The right to collective bargaining requires that a majority of employees in a workplace elect or decide who will be the exclusive representative of their rights. Currently, with only 18 members at MU, the MNEA is a long way from gaining the support it needs to negotiate with administrators on behalf of faculty and staff.

“The court ruling fundamentally changes our opportunities on campus and statewide,” McLuckie said. “It changes everything because now we have the legal right, if we get enough people, to come to the table and begin to bargain.”

MU's cost-cutting plan lacked faculty input, group says

Columbia Missourian

---

By CARL FRANZEN

July 23, 2007

When MU Chancellor Brady Deaton announced July 9 that the university’s new financial plan, Compete Missouri, would require an administrative “hold” on new teaching hires, he said the support of faculty would be important to the plan’s chances for success.
“It will involve a great deal of discussion,” Deaton said. “It’s not a top-down planning process.”
But a new campus organization looking to unionize faculty and staff at MU says that the plan was initiated with little or no faculty input.
The organization, the Missouri National Education Association, says the details of Compete Missouri were decided upon well before faculty were asked to contribute their ideas about how to cut costs to fund salary increases.
“I think that this bad plan — and imposition by the Board of Curators — has illustrated the faculty’s lack of power and lack of voice,” said MNEA member Robert Smale, a professor of history. “There is no real independent body representing faculty.”
The impetus for Compete Missouri was a motion passed by the University of Missouri System Board of Curators in April to reduce the general operating budgets of UM’s four campuses by 1 percent. MU’s share of the cuts under the 1 percent plan would be about $4.2 million for fiscal year 2009, which begins next July.
In the wake of the curators’ action, Deaton and MU Provost Brian Foster created three committees to figure out how and where to make the cuts. On April 30, MU professor of rural sociology Rex Campbell, who chaired one of the committees, sent out an e-mail to all faculty members asking for cost-cutting ideas.
Among its many criticisms of the process, the MNEA says that faculty were given less than two weeks to respond to Campbell’s request. Indeed, among the responses Campbell received, which were obtained by the Missourian under the state’s open records law, were several comments about the lack of detailed financial information needed to guide faculty input.
One response stated that, “In the absence of data about the budget, the costs of instruction, faculty load, credit-hour generation, etc., etc., one could easily dismiss your request for budget trimming suggestions as a charade designed to make faculty believe they have some input into MU’s always secretive budget process.”
Campbell said no budget data were included along with his committee’s request’s because “we didn’t have it at that time.”
Campbell’s e-mail prompted the MNEA, which has 18 members among MU faculty and staff, to draft an open letter opposing the plan to university administrators. The letter accused curators of not fighting hard enough to secure state funding and questioned the logic of funding salary increases through budget cutting.
Compete Missouri aims to secure $7 million by next July to make faculty salaries competitive with MU’s institutional peers. About $4 million is expected to come from salaries currently allotted to unfilled faculty positions. Another $2 million is projected to come from the reorganization and consolidation of academic programs and centers. New revenue sources, such as new distance-learning courses and expanded summer school, would account for $1 million, according to the plan.
MNEA member Michael Ugarte, a Spanish professor, said many faculty were surprised and angered by the portion of the plan that requires all open faculty positions be reviewed at the “provost/chancellor level” before being filled. He said this will force MU to hire more lower-paid, nontenure track instructors, which he believes will lower the quality of education.
“What the hiring freeze is going to do,” Ugarte said, “is place a greater load on service departments, those that teach a lot of students — like English and math.”
Campbell agreed that, under Compete Missouri, more adjunct and nonranked faculty instructors would likely be hired. But, he said, they are “absolutely not of a lower quality.”
Other MNEA members are concerned about the proposed consolidation and closing of some campus centers, libraries and non-essential departments. Phebe Lauffer, an administrative associate in the theatre department, said that part of the plan could amount to “pitting departments against one another for allocation of dollars and for survival.”
Lauffer, who has worked at the university since 1978, said that MU has considered consolidation in the past, but that the efforts have failed because the decision on what to cut is left to department chairs.
“Quite frankly, generally chairs don’t have the finance or business experience to charge them with this important function,” Lauffer said. “It’s not a good business policy.”
Campbell doesn’t agree that consolidation would “turn departments against each other. I don’t know where that’s coming from,” he said.
Campbell continued: “You can’t support everything. Someone must decide on certain high quality programs to give more resources to. We’ll be continuously evaluating programs to see which should be trimmed, which will be enhanced. That’s just good management. The provost’s office should be doing that anyway.”
However, Smale said that too much consolidation could ultimately make MU less attractive to potential new hires and perhaps drive away the qualified teachers that are employed here.
“What if we are sacrificing libraries?” Smale said. “What if there’s no staff support? What if there are overcrowded classrooms?
“Professors look for more than just salary. If you have a nice salary, but everything else is falling apart around because the university is being cannibalized, then you will still lose people.”

 

MU group decries pay hike from cuts

By JACOB LUECKE of the Tribune’s staff

Published Sunday, July 22, 2007

Members of a fledgling faculty and staff union at the University of Missouri-Columbia have come out against a plan to fund pay increases through cutbacks.

Earlier this month, MU officials announced a plan to free up about $7 million to bump professors’ salaries. Comparisons show faculty pay is no longer competitive. The university has not finalized how it will get the money, but it has several ideas, including adopting a faculty hiring freeze on 30 to 35 positions, combining administrative functions and consolidating services.

Robert Smale, an MU assistant professor of history, agrees professors need a pay increase. But he said the university’s plan would end up "cannibalizing" the school.

"They have correctly diagnosed the problem, but they are incapable of coming up with a viable solution," said Smale, who is the organizing committee chairman for the National Education Association branch at MU.

Smale and other campus NEA members are particularly critical of a possible hiring freeze. They say it would likely ratchet up class size and burden professors with more work - hurting the quality of instruction.

"The hiring freeze, I don’t think, is the way to go," said Michael Ugarte, a Spanish professor at MU.

Phebe Lauffer, an administrative associate at the university, had a similar concern. "We’re burdened with picking up slack from people who leave and they don’t replace," she said.

Lauffer and Ugarte also are members of the campus NEA.

Vice Provost Brian Foster, who helped formulate the pay increase plan, said university leaders are looking for ways to minimize extra work. For example, the university might opt to have small classes taught less often. Another idea is to combine classes if two departments happen to be teaching similar classes.

"There will probably be some of that in the mix," Foster said of larger class sizes. "But if a class increases from 20 to 23, is that going to affect the quality of instruction or the faculty workload in any significant way? My guess is no."

Smale said the plan had upset many people who work at the university. However, he said most won’t speak up for fear of "drastic fiscal retaliation."

"There are many professors, there are many staff on this campus that are afraid that if they speak up against this plan that is immediately going to put their program under the gun sights of the administration," Smale said.

The MU union is about two years old and has 18 members, Smale said. Statewide the Missouri National Education Association touts 33,000 members.

Smale and others said rather than make cuts, the school should work at increasing state funding through the General Assembly.

"What we need to do as an institution of higher learning is, first of all, try to elect people who are going to be more favorable to the university," said Ugarte. "But also to have a better relationship with the legislature."

Ugarte said it would benefit MU if the administration would get more faculty involved in lobbying legislators.

Foster stressed that the process of making cutbacks to balance the budget is something the university goes through each year. This time, the university is simply looking for extra money to shift toward faculty salaries.

He said he didn’t disagree with the position that the school should get more money from the legislature.

"But the fact is the level of state funding has just not been enough to keep us competitive," Foster said. "That, together with the tuition cap, has left us with little choice but to find some other ways to make ourselves competitive."

 

Staff might consider joining MNEA.

To the MU Community,

The University can be a marvelous place to work. We have benefits to rival
most corporations; a readily available teaching hospital with superb
resources in many areas of medicine, and some departments allow flexibility
in work schedules. There are upward mobility opportunities for those willing
to learn and work within the political structure.

Notwithstanding the above positive elements, there are also many reasons to
join a union. The first is, of course, the solidarity it brings to the
workforce, and the strength in numbers mentality. Another reason is the
relative Œvoiceless¹ nature of staff in an academic environment. Although we
have the Staff Advisory Committee, with all due respect, they are powerless
against an administration that clearly define their goals with little
consideration for the staff in their decision-making processes. We have seen
medical insurance premiums and incidental expenses rise while staff continue
to be paid at increasingly sub-standard hourly salaries. Our already
monumental job descriptions increase with ³other duties as assigned² each
year. We are rarely given input to accepting, nor monetary reward for these
³other duties². As faculty increase in various departments, staff numbers
oftentimes remain the same, thus further increasing responsibilities and
workload.

Furthermore, although it is an anecdotal observation, it seems increasingly
more difficult for staff to be ³reclassified². I believe this a Human
Resource attempt to curtail ³administrative² titles. However, the staff of
the University are truly ³skilled, professional workers² and increasingly do
not fit into the ³clerical² category. Please consider joining as well. We
would welcome your input, and applaud your courage in changing the climate
of MU to a more equitable and even better place to work.

Phebe Lauffer

More Cuts Announced Without Faculty or Staff Input

Columbia Missourian

MU faculty hiring restricted for ’07-’08

By CARL FRANZEN

July 10, 2007

If MU faculty want higher salaries, the university will have to forgo filling 20 to 30 faculty positions for the 2007-08 school year, and possibly beyond, under a three-year financial plan announced Monday.
Chancellor Brady Deaton said the plan, called Compete Missouri, aims to secure $7 million by next July to make faculty salaries competitive with MU’s institutional peers.
“It has become increasingly difficult to acquire high-quality faculty,” Deaton said. “You can always hire somebody, but we want to hire the best.”
Each year, MU has about 60 to 70 teaching positions to fill. Under the new plan, all current faculty openings are on “hold” and cannot be filled without being reviewed at “the Provost/Vice Chancellor level.” Deaton said about half of the current openings could be filled within the next year, but new hires would be limited to “critical positions.”
Michael O’Brien, dean of the College of Arts and Science, said hiring faculty has become “an arms race,” with American universities having to offer higher and higher salaries to attract qualified instructors. Current faculty could bear some of the burden, he said.
“We know what the market is,” O’Brien said. “We pay incoming faculty market value (now). The problem is, you’ll have incoming faculty making more here than associate professors.”
According to the Association of American Universities, the salaries paid to MU faculty are among the lowest offered at public research universities. MU ranks 33 on the AAU’s list of salaries at 34 public universities, above only the University of Oregon.
Deaton said his goal is to move MU closer to the middle of the AAU listings to become more competitive.
“That’s why we emphasize ‘compete’ in the title,” he said.
About $4 million of the $7 million needed to balance MU’s operating budget by July 2008 is expected to come from the salaries currently allotted to the unfilled positions.
Another $2 million is projected to come from the reorganization and consolidation of academic programs and centers, which Deaton
adamantly stressed would not lead to layoffs.
“There will be no jobs lost in this process,” he said. “Current faculty and staff will not lose their jobs. We are looking at some reassignment of responsibilities in order to save resources that will then be reallocated to increasing current faculty salaries.”
The final $1 million of the $7 million is supposed to come from new revenue sources, including new summer school, evening and distance learning courses.
Deaton said current faculty will “not necessarily” have to teach larger classes. Many classes, such as statistics, he said, are interdisciplinary in their scope and content and could potentially be taught across several departments.
John Curtis, director of research and public policy for the American Association of University Professors, said that MU’s hiring hold is part of a larger, nationwide trend by public universities to deal with budget crises.
“There are similar programs in other states,” Curtis said. “Just last week, Florida just announced a hiring freeze. Maryland just announced a cut or freeze. In any case, I’m pretty sure this is not unique.”
Deaton said he expected Compete Missouri to be a “very challenging” initiative. He acknowledged that not everyone would agree with it. “It will involve a great deal of discussion,” he said. “The faculty here have to support this plan. It’s not a top-down planning process.”