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Shhh... BGSU faculty stage silent sit-in

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Written by HAROLD BROWN Sentinel City Editor

Saturday, 29 September 2012 08:35

BGSU_Faculty_Union.0811_rotator

BGSU faculty members make their feelings known over their lack of a contract during a BGSU board of trustees meeting Friday afternoon. (Photo: J.D. Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune)

Faculty members staged a mostly silent protest in their quest for a collective bargaining contract during Bowling Green State University's Board of Trustees meeting Friday afternoon.
The group of more than 100 walked into the room about 15 minutes before the meeting started, carrying signs of various sizes. Most the signs stayed in the air the entire 45 minutes the group remained. Earlier the group held a "grade-in" outside the Bowen-Thompson Student Union.
The only exceptions to quiet were once when 1972 Olympic Gold Medalist Dave Wottle and his wife Jan were introduced, and when he spoke briefly.
"Fame is fleeting," Wottle said. "There were signs noting that Bowling Green was the Olympic home of Dave Wottle. They disappeared after about two years. One is in the back of my garage. One thing that is not fleeting is the education I got at Bowling Green."
At the end of the meeting the board went into executive session, with one of its topics being negotiations. The board later adjourned without taking action.
No board member commented on the faculty protest, sticking with the university's policy of not commenting until the contract is finished.
Dr. Dave Jackson, president of the Bowling Green Faculty Union Association, said he was happy with the turnout.
"We wanted to send a strong message that the university's main interest is education. The president (Mary Ellen Mazey) mentioned the U.S. News and World Report ranking but failed to mention that the university has slipped out of the top 100. A large portion of that (rating) is based on faculty investment. We don't think that has gone unnoticed," Jackson said.
"We love BGSU. Many of those at the grade-in raised their hands at the grade-in when I asked how many had their undergraduate or graduate degree from the university. Even I got my master's at BG. We're not a bunch of outside agitators. We have committed ourselves to BGSU and we want it to thrive and it can."
Jackson said the reaction to Wottle was totally spontaneous. "These are BG people and he's a BG guy."

Comments

# 2012-09-29 10:17

Classified employees need this also, especially the food service people since Chartwells has taken over, unfair hiring process, workers hired, promised full time & benefits don't end up getting them, since Chartwells have come to BGSU, there is a great turn over do to this.

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# 2012-09-29 10:44

What is keeping BGSU?

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# 2012-09-29 15:23

Welcome to the real world. The average family income has dropped in the country, everything costs more, but these people are all still going to vote for Obama.

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# 2012-09-30 07:53

The causes of these things are economic forces and structures that pre-date Obama's election. He's not the cause.

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# 2012-09-29 17:52

Anybody important noticing that the US economy is probably falling back into recession again, right now? CNBC is one source for that....WSJ is another. And is anyone noticing that Ohio is getting slightly better only because we have a relatively fiscally-responsible governor in Columbus right now? So hey, Faculty, back off for awhile, will ya? Most of the people paying your checks are hurting!! So back off. Be patient, and be responsible. Your timing is just horrible.

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# 2012-09-30 07:55

BGSU has the lowest average salary scale of any university in Ohio. The faculty are working WITHOUT A CONTRACT (did you miss that fact in the article?) The unwillingness of the administration to deal with faculty as partners, not just on financial matters, is accelerating a brain drain. If you are going to make people work for less than what they can get elsewhere, the least you can do is build a sense of teamwork and shared mission.

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# 2012-09-29 22:01

Some of the signs say that BGSU employees did not get a wage increase. I worked at the University as a Compass Group employee and made at least $5 less in pay than a university employee. A lot of the dining hall employees are Compass Group employees and make a lot less money. If they need to pay for insurance for themselves or kids too, that cuts into their wages greatly. Not fair to complain about their wages when a lot are making a lot lot less and surviving on that.

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# 2012-09-30 13:19

honestly most of these people are former students who just moved right into working for the university. They have no concept of the real world outside of the university. So no, I doubt they even realize how good they have it.

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# 2012-10-01 07:06

honestly, this is a completely false statement. Most new faculty hires come from elsewhere.

As to "real world" vs. the university: anyone who has struggled to make it financially through grad school, making less money than their college classmates, cobbling together part-time work from multiple sources, all with the goal of teaching at a university, often for salaries LOWER than what public K-12 teachers their own age receive, knows how hard people have it in the real world.

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# 2012-10-01 11:41

Compass taking over the Dining services is a good example, they pay MUCH less than the old DIning Service, promise full time, and benefits, but DO NOT hold to that. Thus, they have a GREAT turn around of help. And may I add that there has been many people with 5-10# years food service employees from outside of BGSU that have worked for them and left. Compass does not use many students like the BGSU Food Service used to do.

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# 2012-10-01 11:43

BG Voter: Good one!
Don't most colleges pretty much require you to move around a bit? What's with getting a bachelor's, a master's and a phd all in one place, and then staying there? Very unique if true, that. I have seen some of this over there though.Then once ensconced, they put their own kids through there too, for free!! True! And then pontificate to one and all. And so they don't have a contract?? BooHoo, join the real world with the rest of us. Get back in line, teachers! It's tough out here.

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# 2012-10-01 13:17

You seem so warm and kind-hearted!

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# 2012-10-02 13:25

With what college teachers are paid, they would be unable to afford to put their own children through without the tuition waiver. Please do your homework before you cast judgment.

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# 2012-10-01 11:45

Classified Staff of BGSU have tried for many years to unionize, and have been intimidated by higher up people that they would lose their jobs! I know, I was one that was intimidated, and actually had to transfer out to keep my job. A union is badly need for these Service employees on BGSU campus.

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# 2012-09-30 17:24

I agree welcome to the real world people. You might want to look at the unemployment numbers and how most private sector companies have trimmed their work force by up to 30% and significantly trimmed benefits . Be thankfull you have a secure job. When the economy improves maybe that would be a better time to ask for more.

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# 2012-10-01 07:07

YOU might like to look at unemployment numbers and the role that having a college degree plays in those numbers.

Separately, if you think these people have "secure" jobs, you do not know anything about academia.

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# 2012-10-01 13:06

Wow, just lovely to see all the community support in these comments! I have degrees from Yale and Berkeley, have held two Fulbright scholarships, taught at Vassar, in Austria and Germany . . . I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect to earn more than your average truck driver (with all due respect to transportation services). Those who think academia is "not the real world" have never received student evaluations, been through tenure review, or any of the other myriad competitive evaluations faculty go through.

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# 2012-10-01 13:44

Where did the idea that all the faculty got all of their degrees from BGSU come from? I know of no one for whom that's the case. I have my M.A. from BGSU, but my B.A. and Ph.D. from other institutions.

Anyone interested in an explanation of what we're fighting for besides just salaries may wish to read the op-ed we published in yesterday's (Sunday's) Blade.

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# 2012-10-01 23:13

oh boy...here come those comments, lol! Hot issue....

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# 2012-10-02 13:48

I am SO PROUD of the BGSU faculty for standing up to the administration! They absolutely need a collective bargaining contract, as do other staff members mentioned in the above comments. Sentinel readers should think about how scary it is to stand up for your rights in the face of your employer. BGSU admin is intimidating, and you can be sure there are insinuations of firing and punishment (which would be illegal). The notion that they should be happy and accept shoddy treatment just because they "have a job at all" is CRAZY. These people owe 6 figures in loans for the education BGSU requires them to have. They are NOT rich. They are gutsy, and most importantly, they're RIGHT. I hope they've started a social media campaign. That really helped the inspiring, albeit doomed, cause of saving the beautiful POPC House. Falcon screech!

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# 2012-10-02 16:24

I never stated they all came from bgsu. I am stating they are people who have never left the college life. My interactions with many lead me to believe they have little understanding of what life it's like outside academia.

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# 2012-10-03 07:47

If you think "the college life" as you call it is easier, you do not have a clue about it.

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# 2012-10-02 21:53

Interesting that over 100 faculty members (not including those holding titles of Dean, Associate Dean, or Assistant Dean) made over $100,000 in 2010. Not too bad for people teaching a 4/4 course load. How many profs at Lourdes, Tiffin, or Heidelberg make that much?

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# 2012-10-03 07:46

You missed the part where David Jackson pointed to his op ed that outlines where this is not about money primarily.

People outside of education seem to think a 4/4 load is cushy. It isn't. It isn't just the time in the classroom. It is meeting with students, advising, and doing the research and publication required to keep the job. There is not a person making 100K or more who is without long service to the university.

Unlike Lourdes, Tiffin, or Heidelberg, BGSU is a research university, and the proper comparison is to Kent, OU, Miami, Toledo, OSU, etc...

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# 2012-10-03 10:09

The average full-time faculty member at BGSU makes $62,000. Here is a link to the BGSU-FA's salary analysis. This ranks us dead last among our peers. We must do better. Oh, and we do much more than teach: we do research, advise students, attend myriad meetings to create and revise university policies and so on...

http://bgsu-fa.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/BGSU-FA-Salary-Presentation.pdf

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# 2012-10-03 22:34

Geeeez in academia you actually have to meet with students go to meetings and continue to enhance your skills to keep your job. Oh I appologize that does sound like too much. I guess non-academia is much easier my appologies. I will take my 60-70 hour work week with zero job security and take more loans out to pay for my education as well as my childrens rather then have to be subject to such unreasonable requests by BGSU. Point made some but not all from academia are out of touch.

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# 2012-10-04 07:06

The point is that people in academia work just as much as anyone outside of academia does. Add up the time and for most faculty 50-60 hours is normal. The bogus point that somehow the only time they are working are when they are actually in the classroom keeps being repeated over and over by people who are clueless about what college professors do. David's point here is that faculty are by no means overpaid, and by comparison to PEER institutions, are paid less well. This makes retention of good faculty difficult. The point he made in the Blade, however, had less to do with pay than with the need for partnership and control over the matters that faculty--not outside consultants and administrators--are trained to deal with.

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# 2012-10-04 08:18

Also "continue to enhance your skills to keep your job" trivializes one of the fundamental and time-consuming things academics must do not only to "keep your job" but to perform it on a regular basis and to be eligible to have the job in the first place. The ability of professors actually to do this has been severely pinched at BGSU and is one of the biggest reasons cited for top faculty leaving for other institutions.

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