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May Board of Regents Meeting Recap
May Board of Regents Meeting Recap
The May Regents’ meeting was business as usual in many ways, but the coronavirus pandemic dominated much of the discussion.
What is “business as usual?” you ask? First of all, here’s the agenda.
Most of them look more or the less the same, but the devil, as they say, is in the details. Look, I’ve sat through a number of Regents’ meetings in person, and the overriding emotion I often feel is utter boredom, mixed with a nice dose of confusion. I get it.
But they do some monumentally important stuff at these meetings, and we’re here to highlight some of that.
One of the things they do every month is to vote on new investments for the endowment. When it comes to numbers, my eyes tend to glaze over, but take a look at this monthly investment report. Wowza! Those are some huge numbers!
Big numbers in monthly investment report
They also approved new rules for firing tenured professors, among other things.
Pubic Comments
After all the seemingly-boring-but-actually-very-important voting is over, the action starts: the public comment section. People come speak to the Regents on all sorts of topics, and this is where we can get a sense of what’s important to the broader community, as well as where the Regents stand on particular issues. If you’re watching the video, they start around the 43 minute mark.
A few themes emerged in May that are of particular interest to LEO members: economic issues (e.g. transparency in budgeting, spending the endowment), 1U, the new Physician Assistants’ Union, and climate change.
Apologies in advance for misspelled names.
Economic issues and Covid-19
Of the 14 speakers, several enjoined the Regents to open the books and be transparent about the budgeting process.
Margaret Smith (43:45 - 46:33) , 6th year general surgery resident and president of the House Officers Association (HOA), called from outside her Operating Room to ask the Regents to offer the HOA a fair contract (note: they signed a tentative agreement recently). Regarding the lack of contract for HOA she said, “we feel insulted by the administration's refusal to make a fair salary offer and resolve other basic issues…”
Referring to the current administration's penchant for cutting jobs and benefits from workers, she asked them to use the enormous endowment to pay people. In making her argument, she laid this zinger on them: “Michigan Medicine is not traded on the stock exchange. Its purpose is not to make money for shareholders.”
The Regents aren’t known for speaking up during public comments, nor are they expected to, so it’s notable that both Regents Brown and Diggs spoke up in favor of offering HOA a strong contract. When Regents speak during public comments, it goes into the minutes of the meeting (even though the public comments do not). You can review the Regents responses HERE starting on page 33.
Other speakers: Jared Eno, Simeon Newman, Timothy Jugovic, Youngkyun Choi (“shared sacrifice requires shared governance”) and Mitch Dean all exhorted the Regents to open the books.
1U
Kelly Quinlan (51:50 - 54:38), a UM-Dearborn first year student, argued that study-abroad opportunities should be extended to Dearborn and Flint in a more equitable way.
Mitchell Dobson-Green, UM-Dearborn Student Body President, spoke eloquently about extending the benefits that Ann Arbor students enjoy to Dearborn and Flint.
Elena Sobrino, a UM-Flint graduate, praised UM-Flint and spoke favorably of her time there, but lamented the fact that for too many Flint students, the lack of institutional support raises obstacles to timely graduation.
Briana Cruga (48:35 - 51:45) , a UM-Dearborn student, called on the Regents to extend the Go Blue Guarantee, DEI initiatives and legal services that already exist in Ann Arbor to the Dearborn and Flint campuses.
UPAMM
Brian Lint and others spoke on behalf of the Union of Physicians Assistants of Michigan Medicine (UPAMM), hoping the Regents would recognize them. At different times during public comments, Regents Brown, Bernstein and Acker congratulated UPAMM.
Climate Change
Sam Stoffer, Todd Allen and Douglas Fire asked the Regents to make sure building care constructed in sustainable fashion and that the University commits to carbon neutrality.
Resources
Here’s the Regents Roundup from The University Record: https://record.umich.edu/articles/regents-roundup-may-2020/
Notable Quotes
“It is wrong to maintain investments for the institution’s future projects while cutting the retirement contributions of employees— their investment for their future. Now is the time to reward the work, commitment, and courage that healthcare workers have shown and will continue to show every day.”
We understand deeply that the university will suffer economic hardship in forthcoming months during the COVID-19 crisis; however this crisis has exacerbated the inequity and lack of support that students faculty and staff based on Dearborn and Flint campuses. Enrollment and retention will undoubtedly suffer and students in the state of Michigan will be in an even greater need of financial stability and support. Students of color and first gen students face additional systemic barriers that require a dedicated and consistent effort to support and retain underrepresented students.— Briana Cruga
“We had to ask to be heard because the university has not included its own community in its decision-making process…”
“My number one reason for getting involved with 1U at U of M Dearborn was because I believe that the idea of the Go Blue Guarantee is a huge step for our university but I found it to be problematic that it was only offered on one of our three campuses. Generally speaking our students at Dearborn and Flint come from lower income families from the beginning and they would greatly benefit from having this type of scholarship available to them as well. A student should still be offered the same scholarship opportunity should they choose to go to Flint or Dearborn over Ann Arbor.” — Kelly Quinlan
“If the board acts to increase costs to students in this moment of crisis it is an admission that the University of Michigan is more interested in the pecuniary than the pedagogical.”
I know firsthand that an education at U of M-Flint can be transformative. But I also know that I couldn't have gone on to a highly competitive Ph.D program at MIT if I had to deal with the financial pressures of debt accumulation. And my academic transcripts were strong because I didn't face the same stress and delays but I found many of my friends face and they had to balance work with study. we all know that there's a lot of work to do to make sure the resources that made such a difference for me are available to every single student without exception. — Elena Sobrino
“On top of the transparency of information, I ask a transparent governance shared with all workers in the university. We the workers of the university are asked to share some degree of sacrifice. I argue that shared sacrifice requires shared governance. ”
Michigan Medicine announced a raft of layoffs and furloughs, slashed retirement matching, and has refused to bargain in good faith with its physicians in residency. They claim we might be facing a budget shortfall millions of dollars, but Michigan medicine recorded 178 million dollar surplus last year.
Does the alleged shortfall take the surplus into account? Does it take the stimulus into account? President Schlissel said UM as a whole faces a budget shortfall of anywhere from 400 million to 1 billion dollars. Why is the estimate so broad? What is included and what is not? Why haven't top earners reduced their salaries beyond the symbolic pay reductions announced several weeks ago? Why hasn’t UM taken the bold measures that the crisis calls for, to dip into its 12.4 billion dollars endowment? UM administrators have given empty lies about how the endowment simply cannot be used when much of it is actually unrestricted and donors can be asked to waive conditions even on restricted funds. Why hasn’t UM tapped into the 1 billion dollar credit line unanimously approved at the last Regents’ meeting, a line which was supposed to be used “in the events of a financial emergency?” With UM administrators telling us we are 1 billion dollars in the hole, this seems to be an emergency -- or, have UM administrators been misleading us about UM finances? It is time to open the books. Presidential Schlissel stated that UM will “share information with as much transparency and as quickly as we can,” but UM administrators have yet to share any meaningful information about the university's real financial situation. — Simeon Newman
“[We’ve] come to work as frontline providers and have done our duty and more than ever followed an oath that we took so long ago. We have taken care of humans and provided humanity in this incredibly difficult and uncertain time. The health care system has made drastic decisions to cut 401k matches, continuing medical education funds, potential Cost of Living Adjustment and, worst of all, the humans that have showed up to help our patients.”
“Mahatma Gandhi is quoted as saying ‘the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members’ among the most vulnerable beyond those already mentioned are students of color and the LGBTQ+ community at U of M Dearborn's who have not had the support of multicultural or LGBTQ+ coordinators for over a year at this moment the students who need these programs most are those most vulnerable members of society...” — Mitchell Dobson Green