Last fall, administrators began work on the difficult task of responding to the economic crisis that uniformly took an unexpected hit on colleges and universities across the country. At Vassar, President of the College Catharine Bond Hill and the other ten senior officers raced throughout last year to develop creative ways to reconfigure budget allocations and cope with considerable endowment losses. Throughout the beginning of this year in particular, students have seen cutbacks made to many, if not nearly all, of the areas of the College—to the curriculum, to hourly staff size, to equipment and physical plant budgets—but we have not seen such a sacrifice made from the senior officers themselves.
While The Miscellany News applauds these senior administrators for their contributions to last year’s Annual Fund—gifts that transferred directly to the College’s operating budget—we strongly urge them to instead consider taking that money away from their salaries, a gesture that would not only alleviate the budget, but would also be symbolic and meaningful to community members, many of whom have asked for such a cuts to be made.
Since the Sept. 30 announcement that 13 staff positions would be eliminated this winter, a growing sense of discontent—and at times hostility—has mounted on campus; in the week preceding October Break, members of the Campus Solidarity Working Group—a select division of students, faculty and staff advocating among other things for the preservation of jobs—held a demonstration, at which many chanted, “Cappy needs a pay cut! Cappy needs a pay cut!”
It should be said, however, that President Hill’s salary is in fact not extraordinary in any sense, when compared across peer institutions or across the history of past Vassar presidents. Indeed, Hill’s salary is not problematic expense in the least, and the Miscellany finds no value in pinpointing only her salary and not that of the other officers.
As some explain in the article on page one (“Confusion surrounds recent exchange of data: faculty debate the financial health of the College”), administrative expenses are not what’s most hurting the fiscal well being of our institution. Nevertheless, we ask that administrators consider how a voluntary pay cut would help to—through primarily symbolic means—ameliorate the growing hostility between students and officers.
At the Oct. 6 open forum—which was hosted by Hill, Dean of the College Chris Roellke, Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger, Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette and Vice President for Finance and Administration Betsey Eismeier—several students asked why senior salaries had not been reduced. Responses discussed the importance of “competitive compensation” as a long-term means for maintaining a high-quality faculty, staff and College. “If this were something that we thought was going to last for a year or two,” said Hill in regards to the financial crisis, “then that would be one thing.” She continued to explain that to maintain the long-term health of the institution, the College had the “philosophy” that compensation levels must remain as competitive as possible with those of the College’s peer institutions. “If you underpay your workers across the spectrum, you lose people,” said Hill.
While we too want the College to remain as competitive as possible with its peers, we urge Hill to reconsider. Even if, say, a 10 percent voluntary cut to senior officer salaried would not significantly relieve budgetary pressures—and even if a reduction to a one-dollar salary, like New York University’s President John Sexton has done had no effect on the budget—these actions hold a symbolic value greater than the money they represent.
In another example at our peer colleges, Middlebury College President Ronald D. Liebowitz reduced vice president salaries by five percent and his own by 10 percent. Similarly, Bard College President Leon Botstein ordered a 10 percent across-the-board pay cut on senior administrators’ salaries—his own included.
A pay cut of any kind to the senior officers’ salaries would express solidarity with the community’s concerns—sacrifices can be made for Vassar, but will only be successful if all members of the College are involved. More so, such a sacrifice would show many students, faculty and staff that administrators are receptive suggestions from the wider community.
We do not intend assign blame or to accuse our senior officer’s of wrongdoing; we praise and appreciate the genuine and tireless work they do daily to maintain our community whilst preserving the economic health of the College in such difficult times. Our proposal is not a punishment, nor is it an accusation; rather, we endorse such a pay cut for the benefit of the entire community—including senior officers—as we believe it would be extremely meaningful and would do much to restore any goodwill—if any—that has been lost between administrators and other community members. Therefore we at The Miscellany News join with a number of others at the College in urging senior officers to make this specific sacrifice on behalf of the community which we all call home.
—The staff editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 19-member Editorial Board.
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