How University of Missouri faculty members will weigh in on salary cuts, shared governance
University of Missouri faculty members will soon receive a petition in their inboxes objecting to cutting salaries of tenured faculty to potentially sign and a resolution on shared governance on which they can vote.
The MU Faculty Council voted on Thursday to share both with all faculty.
"Now it's just a matter of giving our colleagues even more of a voice in the mix," said faculty council member Chuck Munter.
The petition begins: "If you are a University of Missouri System faculty member and object to the new, secretive, system-wide policy that could reduce tenured faculty salaries by 25%, please read and sign the petition."
It calls for UM System President Mun Choi to rescind the section of the system's "Collected Rules and Regulations" that he added on May 4, 2020, related to "criteria-based salary reductions for tenured faculty."
From December 2021: Faculty salary cuts, workload policy front and center at University of Missouri faculty meeting
The petition argues the measure undermined faculty authority and shared governance, violated faculty rights, and ignored existing policy for post-tenure review.
Choi has defended the salary cuts at previous meetings, saying job performance was the reason why some faculty salaries were cut.
"Each faculty member must contribute to the university," Choi said at a December faculty meeting. "The salary reductions are only temporary, and there are opportunities to change the status moving forward."
The vote on disseminating the petition was taken after the faculty council defeated an amendment by Chairwoman Kathleen Trauth to replace the petition with a statement that a task force was looking at the issue.
Trauth said she was seeking to negotiate and was trying to take a strategic position, with no action until the task force presented its results.
"The authority to cut salaries exists in the CRR (Collected Rules and Regulations)," Trauth said. "The authority is there. It's been there a long time. It's not going away."
Several members of the faculty council spoke against the amendment before voting it down.
The faculty council has been working on the issue for a long time and the amendment would sideline the work, said faculty council member Rabia Gregory.
From July 2021: MU Faculty Council approves resolution to request delay in salary cuts
"It's disrespectful, especially for the faculty who already have had their salaries cut," Gregory said.
The resolution on shared governance calls on Choi and Provost Latha Ramchand to commit to practicing shared governance as detailed in faculty bylaws.
It asks that proposed significant changes to policies, procedures and institutional priorities be published to websites accessible by the faculty in advance of their adoption and to schedule open forums that all faculty may attend.
It asks that all changes to the "Collected Rules and Regulations" be publicized.
"Press releases or mass emails announcing new university policies or initiatives as faits accomplis and unannounced or unpublicized changes to university policies and procedure discovered only after the fact fulfill the faculty's right to be kept informed possibly in letter but certainly not in spirit," a section of the resolution reads.
Faculty council member David Singh said he trusts his colleagues to make the correct decisions about the items.
"I feel very privileged to work at this university" with many valued friends and colleagues, he said. "I have great confidence in the faculty judgment and their ability to discern."
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This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: MU faculty to have their say on salary cuts, shared governance
