As a new academic and fiscal year begins, it seems like a good time for members of the Ohio University community to reflect on the last academic year and the McDavis administration's misplaced budget priorities. Many will recall the informational picketing conducted at various locations on campus by maintenance and custodial union AFSCME Local 1699. They were picketing because of a $770,000 budget reallocation that resulted in the cutting of more than 20 within the Facilities Management division. Despite the union's picketing and protests raised by students and faculty, administrators refused to reconsider the budget reallocation even as Local 1699 continued to insist that it was both unnecessary and a violation of the contract made between the university and the union. At the time, both union picketers and student protesters noted that the obscene salaries made by senior administrators and newly hired, needless white-collar employees would perhaps be better targets for budget reallocations.
The new school year brings us news indicating that administrators' misplaced priorities have only gotten worse. Over the summer, The Post reported on a decision by the OU Board of Trustees to raise President Roderick McDavis' salary by $85,000, bringing him to a whopping grand total of $380,000 per year. This does not include the salary that the board has seen fit to provide for First Lady Deborah McDavis, who earns $28,144 per year. The board offered McDavis this hefty raise without permitting a comprehensive presidential evaluation in which all constituent bodies were consulted. That was probably wise if the board was set on increasing McDavis' salary, because reminders that over 3/4 of voting students and faculty members voted no confidence in McDavis in 2007 might have made his pay raise a bit more difficult to justify.
That's not the only fiscal news the administration had to offer over the summer. According to Executive Vice President and Provost Kathy Krendl, following President McDavis' recommendation to switch from a quarter system to a semester system will cost the university anywhere from $500,000 to $13 million. This contradicts a 2007 report by OU's Academic Calendar and System Committee, which estimated that the semester switch would cost anywhere from $8.2 million to $21 million. Leaving aside this discrepancy and the large gap between Krendl's minimum and maximum figures, we should ask ourselves if a switch to semesters is even worth the minimum $500,000. What is the ultimate goal of such a switch? Is it to conform to the calendar systems established by other Ohio universities, and if so, why? Is it to comply with the request of a mediocre governor in Columbus and his ill-advised, big government University System of Ohio and again, if so, what's the justification? The university community should demand answers to these questions from the administration.
But perhaps the most disturbing summer news is the university's announcement that it will scrap plans for a new health center. Why? Silly reader, don't you already know? Why, it's because the cost is too high! Yes, because a new health center would range anywhere from $26.6 to $30 million, a new health center will not be built. You see, the health of low-income students without adequate insurance coverage is not nearly as important to the university as President McDavis' salary or complying with Gov. Ted Strickland's ambitions for turning Ohio's university system into one giant bureaucratic mess. At Ohio University, just as in Columbus and Washington, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer ' and the desires of the wealthy few are always placed above the needs of the many. You shouldn't get too upset about the never-to-be health center, though. Those same bureaucrats getting the premium salaries decided that the best location for the new health center would be next to O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, almost a mile and a half from College Green. Try making that trek the next time you're sick! Is this what we're paying them for?
Ladies and gents, I'm angry. Scratch that: I'm fed up. At various times during the previous academic year, I wrote about OU administrators' inept performance and bad decisions. Most of those decisions were budgetary in nature, which may make for boring reading material to some people. But the proverb that one can see an institution's priorities by looking at its budget is true, and we can see by looking at Ohio University's budget last year that students, faculty, and staff were the last priorities on the administration's list. The news from this summer is even more disheartening. It demonstrates in even starker terms that the Board of Trustees and the McDavis administration are more interested in corporate profiteering than higher education. If the fact that our administration is motivated more by corporate greed than by our educational interests doesn't make you angry, I don't know what will. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. What about you?
Nate Nelson is a junior studying political science. Send him an e-mail at nn318806@ohio.edu.
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Nathan Nelson
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