I would like to associate myself with  Professor Metzger e-mail that
addressed issues related to the destruction of university community by the
new policy to transfer telephone costs from Communications Services budget
to the other departments.  I furthermore decry the cynical way in which
this policy appears to have been implemented --without warning or
discussion and in the summer just two weeks before the end of the fiscal
year.

The damage to department budgets, should this policy be implemented as
currently presented, will in most cases be worse than the budget recisions
enacted last spring to cover shortfalls in Athletics' Department and
utilities budgets.

Less than a week before the end of the fiscal year we must re-determine
priorities for our departments. Do all faculty need telephones? Can we
afford a fax machine? Or should cuts be made in our instructional program.
This is "taxation without representation" and one is tempted to dump some
"tea" into the harbor --a potentially self destructive act that should not
be done on such short notice.

I concede that to place the responsibility for such choices on individual
departments carries with it a certain amount of logic.  I understand over
thirty lines that had been installed for no longer used modems have been
eliminated in this process (panicked though it may be.)  We have had to
eliminate an "orphaned" courtesy phone in the lobby of the Fine Arts Center
charged to us that could find no one to pick up the cost.

I understand that Communications Services needs new PBX equipment that
might be purchased with this budget windfall.  Perhaps this equipment is a
priority for the University --perhaps not.  In any case the decision to put
this at the head of the budget queue should not be done so cavalierly and
without input from those affected by this change of policy.

I look forward to this issue being addressed in a honest, fair and rational
mannner instead of the way that it has come to us.

Robert Duffy
Theatre & Speech




>X-Sender: [log in to unmask]
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Approved-By:  Richard Metzger <[log in to unmask]>
>Date:         Wed, 23 Jun 1999 10:08:46 -0400
>Reply-To: Richard Metzger <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: UTC Staff E-Mail List <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Richard Metzger <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      [UTCSTAFF] The loss of community - phone charges as destructive
>              act
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Status:
>
>        The decision to transfer the cost of phone service from a central
>billing to Departments continues the transition away from any form of
>institutional community.  George Ross's memo made it clear that a) the plan
>is for the Department's to pay a fee previously included in the University
>budget, and b) someone else will keep the money that had been used to do
>this.  If you haven't seen the memo, departments would have to pay $25 per
>line per month.  In our Department that would mean $475 per month; our
>telecommunications budget is $2400.  We would be required to take about
>$4000 from our supplies to make the cost.  Or return to the old days with a
>very few phones in the office and no way for students to reach us.   Ross
>points out that the cost is less than Bell South.  That would be an
>excellent arguement if we were in the process of negotiating a contract.
>We are not.  He is trying to convince us that the pain we are feeling from
>the elephant falling on us is less than if he dropped a house.  SO?
>        Phone service on campus has always been a monopoly of the Business
>side of the house.  They control the cost with no opportunity for
>Department's to determine "true costs" versus "billed costs".  Over a year
>ago, I complained about the continuing high costs of long distance.  As a
>Department we we are paying 25 cents per minute.  The response was a call
>from Richard Brown offering to lower our costs to 20 cents per minute.  I
>know what that means.  The cost we pay bears no relationship to the actual
>cost, but is a way for the Business folks to keep money in their cofers.
>He did indeed lower our price.  I have no idea what others pay or what our
>real costs would be.  I still think we could do better.  It also pointed
>out that the Business group is not working to lower my costs but are
>maximizing their cash.
>        Wait a second, I thought we were all wortking together.  That is
>not true.  Everything we do is billed to Departments as if we were free to
>raise our own money, but we are not.  Indeed, departments are the only ones
>with no mechanisim to transfer costs to others.   Further, we don't have
>our money to spend.  If the plan is to continue to transfer the costs, then
>give us revenue budgets and bill us for everything.  I think  we could
>manage better than now.
>        Any sense of us working together is eroded when their is no attempt
>to maximize the money available for the classroom.  Our students are our
>life.  Making sure there are new trucks in the motor pool or new paint on
>administrative offices walls while the academic department watch the walls
>decay belies the lack of a sense of common purpose.
>        More important, however, is the continuing indication that we have
>become a set of independent businesses, with academic departments relying
>on a paternalistic administrative decision process to give us money.
>"Daddy can I have some money for a computer?"  It isn't like we don't raise
>the money, who teaches all those credit hours.  Psychology students pay
>roughly $80,000 per year in technology fees,as best I can figure since this
>number is not given to us.  Departments have no idea what they raise, only
>what they have been allocated by the administration.  We get costs with no
>choice.  Open the bidding, let us pick the service we want.  Either stop
>the monopoly or at least let us search for a better deal.
>        This is merely the lastest in what has become an increasingly
>adversarial environment.  As we work hard to reduce the town-gown split be
>increasing our commitment to the community, we find ourselves with a rising
>tide of us-them with ourselves.  This form of disease is the worst - you
>finally destroy your self.
>        We do have a choice.  We can become a community of people commited
>to the same purpose.  I'm sure that each of the individuals involved feels
>they are doing the best for the university from their point of view.  Since
>we have no common view, no discussion of a common view, and no
>encouragement to develop a vision, it is impeerative that those of us
>communitted to the core mission, education, move ourselves in that
>direction.  Bond together and oppose imperious cost transfers!  Students
>first.
>
>Rich Metzger
>Professor of Psychology and
>Head of the Department
>423-755-4262
>