In the Spirit of Neruda (translation of Tina's post)

We are living in a time of profound financial crisis, the causes of which are subject to the climate of panic that encourages executives and the like to proceed with massive layoffs, cuts in humanitarian programs, generalized price increases, and reduction of services. The objective is clear: to reorganize any product that allows capitalist gluttony to maintain its machinery and the astronomical salaries of an executive leadership that must receive its annual bonus for work carried out with surgical precision (despite the crisis or precisely because of it?). It doesn't matter if such leadership is the cause of this gigantic mess, which those below, in a feudal reconfiguration, end up not only suffering, but also literally paying. In 2002, the number of vice presidents at the University of Vermont (UVM), where I have been working as a Spanish professor for almost two decades, was 3, and the disposable funds exceeded $100 million. In 6 years, the corporate frenzy led by the President multiplied the number of vice presidents from 3 to 26 and the salaries of the administrative leadership increased, not counting bonuses and benefits, by over $7 million, an increase of 152% (including new positions and salary increases). In contrast, the professors' union has hardly managed to get a raise in progressive increments of 4%, 3%, and 2% in future years, which doesn't change the fact that my salary is very much below the national average and that I have to continue funding conferences and lectures out of my own pocket.

But we are in a crisis, we are told, a multi-million-dollar hole that requires immediate action, such as layoffs (16 instructors were already notified during the "first phase" of action); not renewing contracts (a camouflaged form of sacking); raising enrollment again (it's already risen by 30% since 2002); increasing the number of students (where and by whom will these classes by given?); cutting two sports teams, etc. In my "unit," in the corporate terminology that is used, it has been proposed to unite all the languages (Asian languages, Romance languages, German, Russian, and Arabic) with the linguistics sector and the faculty of sociology (this at a time when Spanish is being recognized as the second language of the U.S., when there is a national debate that questions the foreign nature of Neruda's language and its consequent academic relocation). The one who would use this structure would be a business manager that would be able with the massive rearticulation to save per year...$100,000. That is, half of the salary of many new executives in the administrative leadership. (Incidentally, the consolidation idea seems to have formed part of the President's plan or vision before the crisis; that is to say, many of the resolutions correspond to a personal agenda that takes advantage of the current situation).

Who are they trying to fool? Will this business manager be satisfied with the meager salary of a professor and rotating department head? Or will it be necessary to hire a consulting company to solve the financial equation, as happened with the disaster of the People Soft program? ($18 million of additional unapproved expenditure, aside from the initial cost of $23 million, all for an electronic program that had already been denounced for its faults at the national level; the extra expenditure includes payment to consultants that charged $190-$350 per hour). Obviously, those responsible for this whole disaster, which has brought us to where we are today, have barely been questioned about their terrible management. In times of crisis, when we are told that we have to “tighten the belt,” our dean has received $8,000 as an incentive or bonus (perhaps for having arrived at such a brilliant proposal). In fact, she is one of the least paid in terms of incentives that award the contradictory “productivity” of those above (needless to say, we professors and the like don’t have the option of any bonus, despite the many varied and unpaid tasks that we continue to perform). Since the fiscal year 2006, the quantity of bonuses paid to the leadership independently of their enormous salaries has been almost $1 million ($896,594). How many job positions can be saved with this “extra” money? One single part-time professor, without even minimal benefits, annually earns half of the bonus of a rotating executive. 16 professors have already been fired, while the leadership maintains its positions, rapacity, and excesses, without showing any responsibility for the grave management errors that have brought about this financial catastrophe. Something very similar is happening at the national level, such as the accumulation of multi-million-dollar bonuses on the part of bank executives that received federal assistance so quickly, a situation that has infuriated citizens obligated to suffer restrictions in times “of crisis.” Without a doubt, these examples of profound social and economic inequality barely reveal the tip of the iceberg.

Where can the heart and essence of the university be found? Isn’t it based on universal concepts of knowledge and education? If the university’s essence has become corporate, an enterprise in which students are considered “clients” and the professors “knowledge providers,” we have completely broken the spirit and very notion of this institution, whose approach is defined at UVM as non-profit and is cemented to a large extent in social justice values. Knowledge, empathy, education, investigation—not oligarchy, money, and economic gain—should form the foundation of university values, in tune with the inexhaustible and supportive spirit of the best Pablo Neruda.