UW’s Board of Trustees met to discuss and vote on numerous matters last week from March 21-23 at the Gateway Center. They are receiving reports and making decisions on topics ranging from salary distributions to construction projects to increases of tuition for next year.
A significant matter the board moved on was that of raises for staff and faculty. This is a concern during faculty senate meetings and even the open meeting for public feedback with Dr. Steve Portch for President Laurie Nichols’s 18-month performance evaluation. At that meeting and again during an opportunity for public comment to the board, Dr. Sally Palmer, adjunct assistant lecturer, spoke out about what she saw as the problem of low employee morale at UW, affected by issues such as wages and the sweeping of funds from various departments.
“Faculty who have seen the handwriting on the wall, leave,” Palmer said. “We have lost good scientists, we have lost good people in the humanities, we have even lost good engineers. Good faculty are leaving this institution, I don’t think that’s what you want—this is a place that makes a difference in people’s lives.”
In his faculty senate report to the board, Faculty Senate Chair Michael Barker urged the board to make raises for staff and faculty a high priority in the coming year, following a separate report that presented data showing how UW’s pay rates lined up next to those of other institutions along with a general plan for salary distribution for the next fiscal year—which the board approved.
“Yesterday, during the reports we found just how ‘below-market’ our staff is—we also recognized the need to reward our faculty for a job well done,” Barker said. “I truly believe the president and board of trustees should have, as a top priority, finding funds for raises this year. The board accepted a plan that will certainly help in this matter.”
While that plan recognizes the need for salary adjustments and to catch up to the market, the question of the amounts and sources of those funds remains, Barker said, referring to the plan to establish an “Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship,” which was approved without a budget during the same meeting and the millions of dollars spent on systems such as WyoCloud and services from Huron, a management consulting company.
“The money we can find, we just need to make it a priority,” Barker said. “To do our staff and faculty justice, they need to be significant funds.”
The board of trustees approved the use of $15 million from UW reserves to continue the construction of the new science initiative building. This satisfies a requirement from the State Legislature to provide matching funding and requiring UW administration to provide a plan to replenish those funds at the September 2018 board of trustees meeting. Of the $15 million, 10 will be drawn from the general reserve and five from the capital construction reserve account. Previously, the ASUW government passed a resolution urging against the use of reserves for the project.
Another construction project, the renovation of the third floor of the Wyoming Union, had its budget of $600,000 approved by the trustees.
Next year’s tuition will be increased by four percent, keeping in line with the ongoing policy of recent years. This would raise UW’s estimated annual cost of attendance by about $80, based on the 15 credit hour-estimate given on the admissions page of UW’s website. The tuition increase also comes alongside an increase in student fees, coming to about $16 per student, per semester.
A closer-to-home matter for the board of trustees meeting was the zero waste Initiative. This examined waste generated by the meeting and looked at plans to reduce that amount, as well as to expand the initiative to a campus-wide level.
The waste report found that a full 18 pounds of food waste was generated by the end of the three-day session, highlighting an opportunity to reduce waste by adjusting portion sizes. Future plans include examining the possibility of institutional composting to cut down on food waste and reduce landfill and waste costs. Additionally, during next month’s board meeting, trustees will be provided with sets of non-perishable, reusable bamboo cutlery to reduce the use of single-use items and disposables.
