Category Archives: State Government

Help “Protect our Jobs” and collective bargaining in Michigan

Posted on May 4, 2012 by | 1 Comment

EMU-AAUP sent around the following email to faculty, but I’m assuming these are petitions that can be signed by any legal voter in the state:

We really need your help.  It is important that we support the Protect Our Jobs campaign.  Protect our Jobs is the campaign run by the AFLCIO with all the other unions in the State to get the right to have collective bargaining in the State’s constitution.

The MIAAUP has a seat at the Labor Table which is running the campaign.  The campaign needs to gather 500,000 signatures from Michigan citizens.  Without collective bargaining at EMU, you would not have the benefits you have.  Many of you have been helped by the union – please give back.

The EMU-AAUP has promised to collect 700 signatures – one signature per member.  The MIAAUP has hired a student to intern for us and help organize this campaign at the local level.  His name is Daniel Routley and he is an Economics major at EMU.

We have a goal of 12 signatures per faculty member – which is getting one petition completed.  Daniel will be at the following locations and would like you to come get a petition on Monday, May 7th, and then return the petition on Wednesday,May 9th.  We only have until July 1 to complete this campaign.

For next Monday, May 7th, Daniel will be at the following locations:

8:45-9:45 Pray Harrold
9:45-10:45 Porter-Marshall
10:45-11:45 Library
5:00-6:00 COB

He will return to the same places and same times Wednesday, May 9th to collect the petitions.

I think I signed this earlier, but I’ll definitely try to take a look at it again.  Of course, the timing is kinda bad since lots of people who would be around at these times a couple weeks ago aren’t around now.  Anyway, if you see this petition and you believe in the right for workers to organize, take a few minutes to read it and sign it– faculty-type or not.

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Posted in EMU-AAUP, State Government

“This time it’s different– vote ‘yes’ on the Ypsilanti tax proposals”

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | 4 Comments

I have a Save Ypsi Yes sign in my front yard, and the other day, while I was out there doing some gardening, somebody walking their dog stopped and asked me to explain why I was in favor of a city income tax and a water street mileage.  This op-ed piece by Ypsi City Council Member Pete Murdoch sums up the reasons why I think the only logical vote is yes.

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Posted in In the media..., State Government, Ypsilanti

I guess this means I have to stop complaining about Dominos

Posted on April 27, 2012 by | 2 Comments

The Michigan AAUP sent around an email this afternoon with this interesting tidbit:

The Michigan Legislature is in the process of finalizing the 2012-13 budget. The House version of this bill contains language that would prevent universities that receive public funds from collaborating with any nonprofit organization that publicly criticizes any Michigan business.
Specifically: ”It is the intent of the legislature that a public university that receives funds in section 236 shall not collaborate in any manner with a nonprofit worker center whose documented activities include coercion through protest, demonstration, or organization against a Michigan business.”
The proposed language is so broad that it could potentially prevent public universities from forming partnerships or placing students with virtually any civic, religious, or other nonprofit organization that engages in public outreach. This is clearly interference in the curriculum that is offered at our universities and therefor an infringement on the academic freedom of the students, faculty and universities.
Take Action - tell your legislature to reject Sec 273a of the 2012-13 House version of the higher education budget bill.
It’s always hard to tell how these things will actually play out/get rewritten before they actually become law, and then even harder how these kinds of laws get enforced.  Still, this seems like an unnecessary and potentially dangerous provision to the budget.

 

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Posted in Budgets, EMU-AAUP, State Government

“Lt. Governor Calley explains how Michigan is still strong”

Posted on April 26, 2012 by | 3 Comments

This article from The Eastern Echo answered two questions I didn’t really know I had:  first, who is the Lieutenant Governor of Michigan?  Second, who is at least one of the commencement speakers?  The answer to the first question is right there in the headline– that’d be Brian Calley.  The answer to the second question (which is buried a bit a couple paragraphs down) is also Brian Calley, at least for the second session in the afternoon.

No offense to Calley, but that’s kind of a boring choice.  Who is speaking in the morning commencement?

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Posted in Academics, College Fun, In the media..., State Government, Student Life

“Graduate student unionization bill heads to Snyder”

Posted on March 8, 2012 by | 1 Comment

From annarbor.com comes ”Graduate student unionization bill heads to Snyder.”   It’s an AP wire story about how bill designed to block unionization of graduate assistants at U of M has made its way to Governor Snyder’s desk, and he’s likely to sign it.

Two things that occur to me about this.  First, this is the climate in which the faculty are about to start negotiating a new contract.  I have no idea how that process is going to go, but it seems pretty clear to me that striking faculty will not be looked on kindly by the legislature or the governor.  And second, why in the heck does annarbor.com need a wire service to do a story that is this local?

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Posted in EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life, In the media..., State Government, University of Michigan

More budget follies in the email from President Martin

Posted on February 18, 2012 by | 5 Comments

I’ve been kind of busy with the day-job and/or life lately, so this is kind of old news by now.  But President Martin sent around an email the other day with the subject line “Campus Update:  Governor’s Budget/Organizational Changes.”  The second part is more about some shifting around of who reports to who; the first part basically reiterates what EMU-AAUP President Susan Moeller’s email said, which is there continue to be some budget problems.

It’s all kind of murky to me.  We were cut a ton last year and we might get back a little next year as a one-time deal, but that’s about it.  However, EMU is also $3 million in the hole right now, and Martin says it will be no big deal to come up with that money.  So it seems like we don’t have any money but we can come up with some easily enough when we want to or have to.  This will be interesting to watch as EMU-AAUP contract negotiations heat up this summer.

Oh, and there is apparently a bill before the State legislature which would allow community colleges to grant 4-year degrees.  Martin says that it’s passed the house and is “alive until the end of session in December 2012.”  I don’t know what that means in terms of likelihood of passing, but I do know that if students at Washtenaw CC or Henry Ford CC could finish 4 year degrees there, EMU might have a bit of a problem.

The whole thing after the jump.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Administrator Life, Budgets, EMU President, In the media..., State Government

Just how is this state funding increase going to work?

Posted on February 14, 2012 by | 19 Comments

The EMU-AAUP sent around an email about this the other day and I just now finally got a chance to read this in annarbor.com, “Rick Snyder wants 3% funding boost for public universities.” I suppose it’s too early to know for sure how this is going to work out, but I wonder if there’s anyone who can attempt to explain this.

Here’s a quote from annarbor.com:

The 3 percent increase is tied to a formula that state legislators have been working to establish for months, using input from universities who have offered assistance but expressed concern about formula funding.

The formula will be based on four metrics: The growth in the number of undergraduate degree completions, the number of undergraduate completions in critical skill areas, the number of undergraduate Pell Grant recipients and compliance with tuition restraint.

If state universities increase tuition more than 4 percent, their funding will be affected, said Lt. Gov. Brian Calley. The 4 percent benchmark is significantly lower than the current metric of 7 percent.

“If we’re going to be increasing state support, we’re going to ask that tuition restraint be lowered from that previous benchmark,” Calley said.
In 2011-2012 just two universities, Central Michigan University and Eastern Michigan University, kept tuition increases below 4 percent.

And then the union sent around a document about the Governor’s recommendations which suggested quite a range in funding increases, with Grand Valley getting a 7.6% increase while EMU would get a 2.3% increase.  So what is all this?  Anybody have a clue?

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Posted in Budgets, In the media..., State Government

Budget cut woes in Pennsylvania and Kentucky

Posted on February 8, 2012 by | 1 Comment

In the “it could be worse” department, Inside Higher Ed links to two budget cutting stories of note.  First, from philly.com comes “Under Pa. plan, state-system colleges could lose a third of their funding – after 2011′s 20 percent cut.”  Here’s a quote:

Gov. Corbett promised “a thorough, public, and candid conversation” about the rising cost of higher education in announcing a budget that slashes state support to colleges for the second straight year.

The proposed cuts of up to 30 percent, on top of a nearly 20 percent reduction last year, are leading observers in Harrisburg and elsewhere to question whether a major shift is at hand: an effort to defund what some Republican legislators see as wasteful public universities in an era of shrinking resources.

“Do we need all these campuses?” State Sen. Jake Corman (R., Centre) asked Tuesday, promising that the Senate would examine the proliferation of satellite campuses.

 Yikes!
And then, in Kentucky, students protested in the state capitol, rallying and going barefoot.  This story from from the TV station WDRB includes a video, but here’s a quote from the accompanying text:

300 college students bared it all below the ankle on Tuesday to prove a point — cuts to higher education play right into a stereotype.

The fresh faces of the next generation quickly learned the soles of their feet as they hit the cold concrete and then chilly Capitol marble floors can speak right to the ears of politicians. “If they’re going to keep cutting higher education, we’re going to fulfill our own stereotypes and we’re going to end up being the barefoot state everyone makes fun of,” says U of L student Olivia McMillen.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Budgets, In the media..., State Government

“Michigan’s public universities see 24% increase in ‘unrestricted’ net assets”

Posted on January 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

From the freep.com comes “Michigan’s public universities see 24% increase in ‘unrestricted’ net assets.”  Maybe it’s just me, but this seems to be a pretty muddled and confusing article to me.  It seems to be saying that public universities in Michigan have a lot of extra cash on hand, but then it points out that this extra “unrestricted” money is being used for one-time expenses.  In fact, the picture leading this story is of the renovated Pray-Harrold.

So maybe it’s my simplistic sense of money, but I am not completely seeing what the point is here.

I will say two things though.  First, remodeling/renovating Pray-Harrold has been in the work for years and years, certainly over more than one budget cycle.  And I also don’t think you’re going to find anyone on campus who thinks that the work that was done was somehow frivolous, as I think the article is implying.  Second, I suspect that this argument will come back this year in contract negotiations, as well it should.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Budgets, Buildings and Grounds, In the media..., Pray-Harrold Renovation Pool, State Government

“Michigan Democrats developing college grant plan”

Posted on January 13, 2012 by | Leave a comment

In “I’ll believe it when I see it” news, I heard on Michigan Radio this morning this story, “Michigan Democrats developing college grant plan.”  In the nutshell, the proposal would pay for college tuition at a public Michigan university for students who completed their K-12 schooling in Michigan, presumably at public schools.  I think this is obviously a great idea that will never happen.

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Posted in Academics, In the media..., State Government, Student Life