Resolution on Paying Salary Increments

Background

The first two paragraphs of the By Laws of the New Brunswick Faculty Council put in place a very clear and critically important blueprint for shared governance at Rutgers New Brunswick. They state that:

The New Brunswick Faculty Council will be the principal faculty body from which the administration will seek advice and to which the administration will be accountable on campus-wide academic policy issues. In its focus on campus-wide issues, the Faculty Council recognizes the role and appropriate responsibilities of a variety of other avenues for faculty advice and consultation in New Brunswick/Piscataway, including departmental, unit and school faculties and other standing and ad hoc committees.

The campus-wide issues on which the Council will advise and the administration will be accountable encompass such matters as academic regulations, admissions and academic standards, budgetary priorities, curricula and programs, academic support programs, class schedules, graduation requirements, academic integrity policies, libraries, academic personnel policies, physical plant and services, student affairs, academic computing, and research.

But during these very difficult times for the University, when shared governance is essential, the administration has chosen to give the New Brunswick Faculty Council virtually no role in helping to advise about and formulate responses to the many difficult issues that we face.

It is indisputable that the quality of a university and the quality of its faculty are directly linked. Universities that seek to become or remain among the best give particular attention to the recruitment and retention of the best faculty. Absolutely essential for the success of these processes are mechanisms to recognize and reward faculty for their achievements, an environment that provides the best possible support for the activities of the faculty, and high faculty morale, which is directly related to recognition, compensation, and the academic environment.

Unfortunately the Rutgers administration has recently put in place, with no consultation whatsoever with the NBFC or any faculty group, a policy that especially targets the best faculty and will likely do great and potentially irreversible harm to the quality of the faculty by canceling the compensation that rewards faculty for their achievements and by introducing serious impediments to the ability of the faculty to function at the highest level, thereby significantly reducing the morale of our best faculty.

All of those faculty who were promised salary increases as the result of promotion and all of those faculty who were judged to be deserving of promised salary increases by virtue of their accomplishments are quite unhappy to learn that those salary increases will not be forthcoming at this time. Those faculty who are carrying out research supported by external funds now find that they are unable to reward and therefore possibly retain their best research personnel, even when such increases would cost the university nothing. All faculty depend heavily on the staff at Rutgers to support their teaching and research activities. Many faculty members have already found that the discontent of the staff caused by the salary freeze is making it more difficult for the faculty to discharge their responsibilities.

Action is required before it is too late.

Resolution

Be it resolved that the New Brunswick Faculty Council strongly urges the Administration to cancel the current salary freeze and to implement all previously agreed upon salary increases now, retroactive to the date on which they were originally to have been implemented, or provide, before the November 12 New Brunswick Faculty Council Executive Committee meeting, data that would allow the Faculty Council to propose possible alternatives.