Karen Thompson kgt@rci.rutgers.edu

I’m for free public higher education. I support the campaign for Free Higher Education, individually and as a member of the AAUP, an original endorsing organization. So it goes without saying that I’m opposed to tuition increases – Rutgers tuition needs to be reduced. But the way to do this is by shifting priorities, not by exploiting teachers. The way things work now, one of the major revenue generating devices at RU is the overuse and abuse of part-time faculty, part-time lecturers, PTLs.

1000 PTLs, 20% of the teaching personnel, teach 30% of the courses. The % of students they encounter would be even higher. These substantial percentages, paired with poverty level salaries and no health insurance, add up to big cost savings for Rutgers. But is it really long term savings? If our students are future donors, as Richard Miller chair of the English Department effectively argues in the last issue of College English, are they future donors well served by teachers who can’t afford to see doctors when ill? Are they well served by teachers whose financial need for other employment distracts them from the work they do at RU? Are they well served by a revolving door rather than a stable teaching force?

Our current negotiations make modest proposals to address these concerns, and while I know this is not the time for reconciling these negotiations, we ask you to pay attention to the priorities reflected in University positions. Consider how these priorities influence top students to stay in NJ or leave, how these priorities recruit and retain the best teachers or rebuff them, how these priorities promote quality teaching or thwart it.

What set of priorities would put today’s savings at the expense of teachers,in front of the future generations’ endowment? What kind of priorities requires the Program in American Language Studies (PALS) to be self-sufficient economically, but not the football program? What priorities increase tuition and top administrators’ salaries, while those on the front lines of the educational process are in constant turnover or restraint, so that what we call excellence comes only at the expense of academic integrity, student access to education, and teachers livelihoods.