Takeaway: Come hear President Holloway at the online University Senate meeting this Friday at 1:10 p.m. (click here for the link)—and help us get our questions answered. Change your Zoom profile picture for the meeting to our “Pay Equity Now!” graphic. For resources and articles to read before the meeting, see below.
Dear colleague,
President Holloway is scheduled to give his State of the University address at the University Senate meeting on Friday, September 24, at 1:10 p.m. (click here to join the Zoom meeting). At our union’s Retiree Assembly meeting this week, he promised that his speech would be about resetting the relationship between labor and management at Rutgers.
We would like nothing better than a relationship based on trust, transparency, and a commitment to shared governance, and we would welcome the administration taking the steps needed for such a relationship to exist. President Holloway is new to his office, but most of his administration isn’t. They are left over from the Barchi days and set in their opaque and unaccountable ways. They have a lot to unlearn.
We hope President Holloway will answer some of our questions at the University Senate:
- Why did the administration sit on the bulk of the $365 million in COVID relief funds it got from the federal and state governments when peer institutions such as Ohio State and Penn State have already spent almost all of these funds?
- Why won’t management send the initial batch of decisions from the faculty pay equity program, so everyone can judge for themselves whether the decisions achieve genuine equity?
- Now that there are confirmed COVID cases at Rutgers, will the administration offer free testing to all, so vaccinated people with asymptomatic breakthrough infections don’t spread the Delta variant to their families and communities?
- Will President Holloway insist on transparency and accountability from those responsible for the Rutgers Athletics financial disaster? Will he initiate an honest discussion with students, faculty, and staff about the price we’ve had to pay for an athletics program that owes a quarter of a billion dollars?
We know you have questions, too. We hope you’ll attend the University Senate meeting and ask them. Here’s what you can do to make sure our message gets through to the administration:
- Attend the University Senate meeting this Friday, September 24, at 1:10 p.m. Click on this link to get into the meeting.
- Sign up to ask a question, even if you aren’t a senator. These meetings don’t always have time for questions that aren’t from senators, but let’s let President Holloway know how many of us are hoping for answers.
- Change your Zoom profile picture to our “Pay Equity Now!” graphic and turn off your camera so President Holloway can see them. Click here to download a graphic. Click here for instructions on changing your profile picture.
- Save the date for our outdoors, in-person speakout at the Board of Governors meeting in Camden on Wednesday, October 6, at 11:30 a.m. Click here to tell us you’re attending.
Here are some resources and articles to read before the meeting:
- Our union published a two-page fact sheet, titled “How They Robbed Academics for Rutgers Athletics,” with information that faculty, students, and staff ought to know about the financial mess at Rutgers Athletics.
- The Daily Targum’s first article in a four-part investigative series, “Rutgers Yet to Spend Most of $365 Million in Pandemic Aid,” has the facts about what the administration did (and didn’t do) with COVID relief funds from the federal and state governments.
- NorthJersey.com published a non-paywalled article, “Rutgers Athletics Debt: Here Are the Key Takeaways,” summarizing the highlights of its investigation into Rutgers Athletics.
See you on Friday!
In solidarity,
Becky and Todd
Rebecca Givan, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Todd Wolfson, General Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
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