Deborah McAllister has questioned the use of brackets in the draft of the
Faculty Minutes posted last Wednesday. The Handbook of Style in Websters
gives this definition of their use: to set off extraneous data such as
editorial interpolations especially within quoted material. I regret any
discomfort experienced by Provost Friedl if  UTC readers thought the
information (new salary commitments for six Sim Center faculty represents a
lost opportunity to raise all faculty salaries next year by almost 4 per
cent) reflected his own words or thinking, but the comment does reflect the
actual budget plan he presented.  If my facts are wrong, I will certainly
add a correction for the final minutes.

I include occasional brackets as editorial aids to give a deeper context by
juxtaposition of facts...call it interpretation if you like...or
information that has come to light since the meeting if it is relevant to
the issues discussed. These are my words as Faculty Secretary, not the
speakers. I hope this clarifies the use of brackets. However, Prof.
McAllister's concern invites further discussion.

Although I disagree with some of Provost Friedl's decisions and certainly
his style, I think we all should applaud his sharing with us the academic
budget plan (note that he stressed this is not the actual budget), which
suggests a 5 per cent raise for faculty next year as a possible option. I
hope his example will be followed by the Vice Chancellors, but the overall
budget is determined by Chancellor Stacy in setting priorities for the
entire university. Yes, we as faculty can fight over the academic side of
the budget, but it is clear that next year's overall budget is already
determined as usual. Provost Friedl should know by now why UTC is so hard
on Provosts: they have to explain to faculty how difficult it is to set
priorities on a beer budget while champagne projects are announced almost
every year by this and previous Chancellors. And we all pay the price in
lost opportunities.

For example, in Friday's Echo article about continued expansion and
construction (all presumably "off-budget" and "revenue neutral" ), Richard
Brown tells us "the number one goal of campus planning is to first take
care of academic and instructional facilities because at the end of the
day, what we do here is teach." Brown has been a good student of the Stacy
style of rhetoric: tell us over and over again what a great faculty we are
and how important education is at UTC, but in reality spending our scant
resources on athletics (the sky is the limit coaching salaries) and
"transformational" projects, and so on...and on. I would ask Brown and
others in the administration to think about academics at the beginning of
the day, every day, not the end.

To that end, a group of six of us sent a letter on October 30 requesting,
as concerned faculty, a meeting to discuss salary issues that we know many
faculty are concerned about. Nowhere in that letter did we refer to
ourselves as a federation or any other group, but as you might know from
Saturday's newspaper, Stacy has shown us a fortress-like mentality by
refusing to meet with anyone who is not "recognized." Never mind that the
six requesting a discussion based on his call for greater campus
communication include a sitting and former Faculty Secretary, an Acting
Department Head and former Senate President, a member of the Senate Budget
Committee, and others, all former members of the Faculty Senate. We hoped a
small group discussion would lead to an improvement in the leadership crisis.

Stacy also said that our request for a 11 per cent raise is "inconsistent
with the messages we get out of the Legislature these days." Well,
certainly administrative high jinks at the very top of the UT system have
created a difficult situation for us at the bottom of the feeding chain,
but our point is that even within our poor budget, priority decisions must
be changed to reward faculty and staff for their contributions to the
success of this institution. We notice that huge increases in
administrative salaries ARE consistent with messages from the legislature.

Oddly enough, juxtaposed on the same page as the article on UTC salaries
was a report on how fast state revenues are rising, in fact an increase of
8.34 per cent the first quarter of 2003. In our region Tennessee is doing
much better than surrounding states due to the volatility of the sales tax
revenue. The Federation has been following this in the hope that next year
we will see the usual THEC formula increase plus a recapture of this year's
budget, hence our goal of a 11 per cent raise to address past inequities.
Gov. Bredesen is still looking at a 5 per cent reduction of his budget, but
that may not be needed if the economy turns around. State budget hearings
begin today, and maybe higher education will be considered. Maybe.

But the real issue is not how much we get each year at UTC, but how it is
spent. Faculty have seen steady loss of buying power for several decades.
In the recent newspaper article, only one year in five had "raises" above
the inflation rate, while there have also been substantial increases in our
insurance costs; evidentially, according to Chancellor Brown, the state has
already saved on the lower Blue Cross premiums, so we will have another big
increase in premiums in December. That and increased deductibles will more
than erode the 2 per cent we will get  in 2003 (January 2004?) according to
the figures released by the university.

We would still be silent if there wasn't so much evidence of money to
commit to non-salary spending. Administrative compensation in the last
decade has increased at rates from 67% to 100%. I am sure that our
hard-working administrators deserve every penny of their compensation. Some
of us think that we too deserve a share, and If we had been granted an
audience with the Chancellor part of our message would be one of
juxtaposition: administrative increases compared to faculty. Yes, we are
indeed "non-recognized."

Chancellor Stacy has made our point.

Richard Rice
Faculty Secretary (recognized)
Chair of Federation Salary Committee (unrecognized)