With up to 125 personnel cuts looming over the heads of University of Wyoming employees, it is easy to forget that faculty and staff have been fighting a three-year long battle with the UW administration.
Specifically, university employees have applied and been denied raises in wages over the last few years.
UW President Tom Buchanan and the university administration have not been able to give these raises to employees because of the budget cuts the university has been experiencing, both this year as well as in 2009. In fact, Buchanan requested an additional $9.7 million dollars in January to be allocated to fellow university employees. The state Joint Appropriation Committee stated that it does see the logic in salary raises, because by giving out additional pay raises it would lead to the unemployment of others at the university to make up for the difference.
However, patience among university employees has been wearing thin over the last four years and the budget cuts only worsen the already negative morale around campus.
Employees deserve pay raises for their dedication and hard-work at the university. By denying the staff deserved compensation for the labor they do, the school finds that it is only hurting itself. The wage differences that professors see between UW and another university will deter academic research leaders and innovators from this campus – deteriorating the high level of excellence that our school can still pride itself with. With the many faculty members, who share and educate students in classes and labs, the risk of losing them is something the university and its students cannot afford.
Some general grief felt by employees even translated into proposals for walk-outs among the staff.
During the 2012 spring semester, an email calling for such measures was circulated among staff members. One staff member in the email was Office Associate at the Gender and Women’s Studies Department Wendy Perkins.
“How far are we willing to go to express our discontent?” said Perkins. “I have a faculty acquaintance who has suggested a two-hour walk-out. A walk-out by staff and faculty at the UW campus and other state offices. A show of force by state employees to make a statement of how important we are to the functionality of government entities and our value.”
However, employees were warned that such a walk-out would only be seen as a denial to fulfill their workload, essentially suppressing any notions of protest.
As the student voice on campus, the Branding Iron staff puts into question the logic behind the disadvantageous wages employees at the university are forced to suffer as state revenues severely fluctuate throughout the years.
This dissatisfaction also comes in light of the recently increased salary for Cowboys Football Head Coach Dave Christensen, who is now paid approximately $1.2 million per year – more than any other state official in Wyoming and certainly more than many university employees’ combined salaries.
From a student perspective, investing $1.2 million into a single person for a sports team that has an average winning record at best is not worth the budget allocation. Rather, the university should invest more money into the hiring of top professors and employees for the university to raise the academic bar of our institution to even higher standards.
