By a member of the Raider Community
Why Should Students Support Faculty?
Bottom Line: They Shouldn’t
Fellow Raiders,
For the past couple of weeks we have heard about the current strike. We have received emails from the administration and we have received lectures from our faculty. We are being stretched between the two and it can be difficult to figure out where you stand because, after all, students are the only ones being hurt by this strike. (A strike which is about a one year contract! Their contracts last three years and they are striking over the 2017 contract and will have to negotiate a new 2020 one afterwards!) We do not know who is in charge of our classes, we are doing coursework from two professors for the same class, we are looking into internships and graduation requirements, we are searching for grad schools and we need help. We need our faculty, but this is not a call for the administration to give in. If our faculty cared about their students and were really “fighting for wright” they would be in the classrooms and at the negotiating table. But they aren’t. They are on the sidewalks having a blast. They are smiling, dancing, and having a good old laugh. They even said their sound track would be “Happy, Best Day of My Life, and We are Family.” They are enjoying being on strike. They do not care their students are having panic attacks in the bathroom. They do not care that they are negatively affecting current and future enrollment. They do not care about the long-term health of the university. They do not care that they are hurting their students. They care only for themselves. That’s not what they told their class though, right? They said they had to do it and didn’t want to. Well I’ve research search some of the “reasons” they have given for “having” to strike and it’s not for students, that’s for sure.
When your professor said, “they are taking away our insurance and making us pay astronomical prices. They are taking away our right to ever negotiate our insurance price ever again” what they really mean is the contract makes them have the same insurance as all other employees at the university (Like most universities in the state do). They previously had a 90%-10% plan and they will be transitioned to an 80%-20% plan. Yes, their cost goes up by 10%; however, that is still a really good insurance policy and going by their financial figures they can afford it. I would not consider that deal as creating “astronomical prices” and neither should you. As for taking away the negotiates, what they really mean is they no longer have the right to negotiate health care as a faculty union; however, they do have the right to negotiate as part of those employed by the university. This means they would have to work with staff. What you do not know is last year staff transitioned to this 80%-20% health care plan. Staff makes significantly less money than faculty and that 10% is a much bigger difference to them. They asked for faculty help and support and the faculty told them to go away and get a union. (They now ask these same staff members to strike with them- jerks) It’s no wonder they do not want to transition to have to work with the people they treated like peasants and consider inferior. They are so much more important than the staff who operate the university they should not have anything similar or be forced to work together more often than they must, or so they seem to believe.
When your professor said, “They can make me teach a dozen classes a semester and your class sizes will go crazy. You will not get the one on one attention you have now. It slows down your graduation time” What they really mean is the administration wants them to teach 4 classes in the fall and 3 in the summer. Class size is a scare tactic they can use because most do not know the actual numbers. Realistically, enrollment has gone down, making class sizes of 25 go to 15 or 20, so even if class sizes do increase they will just go back to their original numbers. And let’s be real, rather you are in a class of 300 or 5 nobody is getting a one-on-one education unless you seek it out. I would also like to say as an upper level student struggling to fill my semester with classes that meet my degree needs it would be really nice if I had more class options available to me that would be produced by a 4-3 instructing schedule. I would also like to note that graduate rates average 5 years because students tend to switch majors and there are a ton of non-major requirements. I love my language class but let’s be honest, I am wasting a class slot for four semesters because the last CoLA dean was buddies with the language department and that language will in no way make me better at my future job or improve my life considering I’ve already forgotten half of it over break. Stopping with the ridiculous extra requirements and offering more class sounds like it might speed up graduation rather than slow it down. Oh wait that means fewer tuition dollars and $.17 for professors. This whole idea is a scare tactic made by the same professors who complain nobody visits their offices hours and obviously have the extra time on their hands to take on another class.
When your professor said, “We aren’t asking for a raise and they want to take away tenure which produces the best professors” They are right, they do not want a raise this year, but for the next two years they want an automatic 4% raise and the third year they want an 8% raise to make up for the lost year. In no other profession to you automatically receive a raise for merely doing your job. I would also like to note my least impressive and worst professors have been tenure. They stop trying and stop leaning while they grow complacent. Ohio is a hire and fire by will state and they should not have a guaranteed job simply because they took a certain tract. They need to earn it and they currently are not. (Pure opinion at the end here, sorry.)
When your professor said, “I would really like you to come to strike with us but they are going to take away your financial aid if you do not come to class. They are taking away your right to participate and your right to choose! I do not think they can enforce your attendance anyway.” What they really mean is the administration will be forced to continue using a Title IV policy that has been around and in use at WSU for years. That policy is an unofficial withdraw. It is enacted when students do not attend class or participate in “academic activity.” When you withdraw from classes it affects your credit hours and enrollment which affects your financial aid, which is run through the government. This is usually done by professor during the first 2 weeks of classes. The university must legally comply and it is not them manipulating you go to their substitute run classes. You know, the ones being covered by qualified instructors. My classes have been covered by quality instructors and the classes that haven’t been are cases in which the instructor did not notify them they were striking and the administration did not know would need a replacement. There will be an instructor soon and your quality education is being preserved. I would also like to note that the university does have power over grades and your transcript. If the strike last a long time, your current substitute professors will have the power to give grades and your professors striking cannot keep you from receiving credit for the course, no matter how much they want to talk about being the “professor of record.”
When your professor said, “They expect me to have furlough days. They have to be days I usually work and I can’t choose what day I am furloughed and I cannot teach or work at all. I cannot miss that pay.” What they really mean is they are asking them to have 2 furlough days. This means no work, no pay, and no penalty. This is for all faculty and staff (Staff will have more days). This helps to keep the budget under control by not paying employees or using and having to pay for building utilities for a whole day, this does not work if faculty chooses their own (different) days to be furloughed. Its two days they are told about ahead of time. (No surprise days making it easy to plan and adjust classes and budgets.) Among staff, they seem to be considering summer Fridays giving staff, professors, and students a three-day weekend while saving the university money. (Sounds like a win-win to me and a similar arrangement could probably be reached during fall and spring semesters.) When a professor has at least two sports cars and they do their regular grocery shopping at Dorothy Lane Market, I have little sympathy for missing two days of pay. Go shop at Aldi and Kroger for a month and you will make up the money you lost in those two days.
When your professor said, “There was a surplus of $10 million last year and professors only cost $.17 on the tuition dollar. Save more money by dropping to division II or cut all athletics,” What they mean is there was a surplus of money and we managed not to need to the state’s help, barely. This is great and we can start saving up a leaky roof fund again and stop cutting services! Athletics draws in a lot of students simply by offering the imagery of the college experience and the university would lose a great deal of money by changing divisions. What faculty seems to think is they deserve the extra money. Well, I hate to break it to you bud but we are still kind of in debt and need to be saving money because of poor management by the, now gone, administrators and faculty which led to our debt. Any surplus is going towards the debt and rebuilding the rainy-day fund we lost. It should not be going to entitled professors who already have more money than they know what to do with. Maybe they should stop asking for more money and start campaign to bring back some more student services, like raider connect workers. (I can’t be the only one tired of waiting 45 minutes for my two minute question because there’s 2 workers.) That’s what fighting for students looks like to me. I would also like to note a lot of people go to Wright State and that $.17 adds up. You can look up a professor’s income by title. (I used https://www.mydaytondailynews.com/data/news/payroll-project/ and *spoiler alert* it ranges from about $52,000- $128,000 with the majority of professors making about $76,000) So next time they tell you they make nothing feel free to go look up their actual salary and compare it to the American average household income of $73,000 a year.
Turns out “what your professor said” wasn’t always the whole truth and was only a tactic to manipulate the student body onto their side and help pressure the university administration into conceding to their demands. This strike is them throwing a tantrum until they get their way and they are only using students as projectiles. This strike is not about maintaining quality education or fighting for students, it’s about the greed of overpaid and under-worked faculty who have had lofty jobs until President Schrader righted the path of the university.
I became a raider as a CC+ student in 2015 and I have no regrets choosing this school for my undergraduate degree. Yes, the administration has made mistakes, but those people are gone and President Schrader is doing her best to get WSU back on track. She cannot control the governor appointed Board of Trustees and is not to be blamed for their actions. Yes, she has stopped negotiating, probably because faculty was never willing to compromise in the first place, and she needs to open up talks again. But I am glad she has called their bluff and I will be even gladder when everybody goes to the table with the intentions to compromise. Until that time, stop being rude to our substitutes, they are doing their best to keep you on track for graduation and they are qualified. Stop being rude to students who did not give in to the manipulation of instructors. Start going back to class and try to learn something new. Stop complaining about being a raider and start having pride in it again. You haven’t heard this side of the story from other students because we are afraid of faculty retribution, but the bottom line is: Stop supporting a faculty that does not care about you. Their strike dies without the support of students and they only garnered that support through manipulation. It’s time our instructors get back into the classrooms and work for and with students, rather than against them. So go back to class and stop supporting this infuriating strike.
As always, Raider Up!
Sincerely,
An Exasperated Student
P.S I am glad it has been cold and rainy and hope the weather continues as such until this foolish and selfish strike ends.
