FAC at 40
November 2019
Angelo Bonadonna, Chair of FAC, 2018-2020
Five years ago, FAC distributed a brief history of the Faculty Affairs Committee in a document entitled “FAC at 35.” The document presented some facts about five founding members of FAC before concluding as follows:
Other unnamed faculty have contributed to FAC—both at the time of the union’s formation and throughout its history. These faculty have demonstrated the value of pursuing shared governance, protecting academic freedom, and collaborating to craft pragmatic, balanced solutions that serve the needs and interests of all constituents of the institution.
We all owe these faculty a great debt. It was their courageous leadership that changed the landscape in the faculty/administration relationship. It was through their commitment and dedication to the faculty that significant improvements in the life of faculty at SXU were eventually made possible. They truly opened the door for all of us.
In 2014 when this document was distributed, FAC was engaged in a CBA negotiation that was focused on “turning the ship around” and giving faculty hope after several years of no raises and cut benefits that followed the financial crisis of 2008. The four-year CBA (2015-2019) that resulted from that negotiation was one of compromises that left both sides somewhat dissatisfied: from the faculty side, the raises and improvements in benefits were too modest to offset the years of no salary increases and other sacrifices; and from the Administration’s perspective the financial health of the institution was too precarious to justify greater investment in faculty and improved working conditions. Both sides had hopes in new initiatives, in particular, the Gilbert project and recruitment of international students, that the Administration predicted would bring profit to the institution.
This year, 2019, marks the fortieth year of FAC, and the committee finds itself at a crossroads. The intervening five years have brought additional crises beyond the self-inflicted wounds of Gilbert, the failed international student project—and before that, the buying of neighborhood churches, the crimes of a former CFO, the mismanagement of graduate education through administrative neglect, and other missteps. The budget impasse/MAP threat of the Rauner Administration, plus changing demographics affecting enrollment, added to a perfect storm of genuine crisis. In 2015 FAC and Administration collaborated to find cost savings that would help preserve the institution. Through “Memos of Understanding” (MOUs) premised on shared sacrifice and transparent sharing of information, both sides worked together to develop procedures for improving the institution’s bottom line, but also with some guarantees to restore some of the sacrificed wages and benefits if conditions improved.
In January 2017, Dr. Laurie Joyner became president. With the Gilbert problem solved prior to her arrival, and the bulk of the payouts associated with the project’s severance already largely paid off, the university was on the rebound in its financial crisis in early 2017 (as evidenced in the $5 million surplus discovered just after the signing of the last MOU in July 2017). As well, the institution changed its enrollment and budgeting projections by swinging to extremely conservative models, as a reaction to the unrealistic enrollment and other budget projections of prior administrations.
Dr. Joyner took the helm after the difficult work of cutting and administrative improvements had been implemented. To this scene Dr. Joyner brought a resolve, in the opinion of many faculty leaders, to double down on austerity measures, despite the fact that the growing revenues in the university’s coffers were largely the result of the university’s profit from cuts in salary that (previously) had been negotiated and promised.
On top of the unflinching refusal to restore faculty to 2015 levels of compensation, Dr. Joyner changed the way that the administration collaborated with FAC to craft a deal that worked for both sides. Unlike past presidents, Dr. Joyner never met with FAC to build a partnership. When FAC leadership attempted to meet with the president, they were directed to the university’s lawyer. Negotiations, which were once an ongoing conversation with the provost and CFO and other leaders of the institution, became legalistic, contentious, and often acrimonious. The tenor of difficult, adversarial negotiations between labor and management is common in industry and non-academic environments—but for the bulk of its 40 years, such fraught relations were not characteristic of the way FAC and the SXC/SXU Administration conducted business.
Throughout the most difficult years since Dr. Joyner’s arrival, FAC has played by the old rules of conducting negotiations behind the scenes, protecting confidentialities, and respecting the process that might lead to proper compromises for the welfare of all. The approach has not been productive. As more and more of the faculty who sacrificed in 2015 have left the institution and as more and more tenure lines have eroded through replacements without tenure possibility—and often at better wages—the faculty have been threatened with division and confusion and uncertainty on why conditions are what they are and what should be done about it.
FAC, or whatever successor group to FAC represents faculty interests, must change, and must find ways to effect better communication and education of the faculty about what is going on. Faculty leaders must elucidate how our collective interests are being damaged by what many feel is—at best, shortsighted and questionable—and—at worst, hostile—leadership. A unified faculty asserting its roles as the stewards of curriculum and the front line of the institution’s mission is enough to reclaim SXU. A unified faculty can save the institution from what many believe is an unsustainable trajectory. But FAC must change—and every conscientious faculty member must change to pursue and build that new unity.