Lunch with LEO: Community Town Hall

Lunch with LEO: Community Town Hall 

We had a great turnout at our Community Town Hall with over 130 LEOs and community members attending.

Alicia Schaeffer (Lecturer in Language, Culture, and Communication at UM-Dearborn) kicked off the event with an acknowledgment of the land and an acknowledgment of Black History Month. She reminded everyone that LEO is in the middle of Collective Bargaining and that we are advocating for Dignity Parity & Respect for our Lecturers as well long-term viability for the UM-Dearborn & UM-Flint campuses.

Bob King (Lecturer at the Residential College at UM-Ann Arbor and former president of the UAW) made some key points about the power UM has to address the structural inequalities built into the systems and lack of just funding models. The LEO platform calls on UM to address this in parity between LEO salaries across campuses and in multiple other ways. He pointed out that:

• The Board of Regents are publicly elected officials and they have the ultimate power at UM and we students, faculty, & staff need to engage with the Regents to educate them about our vision for a stronger UM.

• There are major campus disparities between Ann Arbor, Dearborn, & Flint campuses.

• UM is perpetuating structural racism & the state is complicit in their state appropriations which are lower for the Dearborn & Flint campuses vs. Ann Arbor campus.

• VP Amy Dittmar gave a presentation to LEO during Bargaining about the largesse of the University as specific to the Ann Arbor Campus. The lack of Central Funds going to Dearborn & Flint is hypocritical of UM’s purported DEI policies & position.

Kentaro Toyama (Professor of Community Information at UM-Ann Arbor) spoke about SACUA and the Vote of No Confidence in President Schlissel. And although he clearly stated that he doesn’t represent the faculty as a whole, he does have a good sense of the range of views of the tenure track faculty. He also made the points that:

• The September vote of no confidence really woke up a lot of TT faculty to their importance & potential power.

• LEO & GEO have proven their strength through their organizational skills & structure & TT faculty are learning how to harness similar organizing tools.

• DEI is a real issue of concern for TT Faculty & the disparity between the campuses is clearly a core concern.
  
  

Heather Laube (Associate Professor of Sociology at UM-Flint) said that LEO is really showing the ways that they are committed to the longevity & success of all three campuses, particularly through their bargaining campaign. And also that:

• Job security for Lecturer colleagues is a benefit for the institution and coworkers, for example in being able to maintain relationships with existing employees rather than having to onboard new Lecturers every semester. The Job Security piece also is building relationships across departments & campuses.

• In the Fall she had her students study the One University Campaign and even had some of her students speak truth to power at the Regents Mtg. She said that in learning about the goals of 1U, they deeply felt the inequities between funding and resources for students at the Flint campus vs Ann Arbor.

• Retention is really important to the viability of the institution, but it is first and foremost about THE STUDENTS. Students who are not facing economic precarity are able to stay focused on being the best students that they can be.

• On DEI, representation matters. Students that have more faculty that look like and are relatable to them feel like there is a future for them in academia & beyond.

• Students with less access to funding and financial support on the Dearborn & Flint campuses have to work 10 times harder to secure funding to attend & stay in school. That needs to change and sustained support to Dearborn and Flint for a Go Blue Guarantee is essential.
  

And Labiba Qazi (UM-Ann Arbor student and former UM-Dearborn student) spoke from her perspective as a student moving from DB to AA. Her full statement is included here but she highlighted:

• Lecturer working conditions are student learning conditions. She has already noticed disparities in her experience at Ann Arbor as compared to her time in Dearborn because the faculty and staff are not adequately supported. 

• LEO and One University had a major victory in securing the $20 million from central administration to go to Dearborn and Flint but we need more student, staff, and instructor involvement in the decision-making processes. 

• There is a great need for more support to Dearborn and Flint students. Sustainable funds to Dearborn and Flint will help in the achievement of the 1U goals like GBG, DEI, Legal & Medical services, etc. This breaking the silos and allowing funds to flow from central administration to the other campuses would be huge and a sustainable $30 million to Dearborn and Flint would be huge.  
  

In the Q&A, some of the following questions and comments were shared:

• Question: What are the next steps regarding state appropriations? 

  • Bob King shared that LEO leaders met with all Regents about the funding formula. When the Democrats take back the State House these appropriations can be redressed. He noted that this is a national issue of less and less taxpayer money going to education & higher ed specifically.

    • AFT-MI events focused on a New Deal for Higher Ed: https://www.aft.org/news/new-deal-higher-education-could-restore-public-colleges-and-universities 

• Comment/Question: 1U got $20M to be allocated for FL & DB campus. But did that money take money away from the Ann Arbor campus?

  • It came from the central administration funding. The Budget Model of each arm of the University being required to pay for itself is a fallacy. UM is a public institution with a public mission. The notion that FL & DB must fend for themselves with their own budgets & revenues divorced is ludicrous. 

• Question: I’ve been occupied with LEO Bargaining and not paying as much attention to 1U. How active is 1U? What are they working on & how can we get involved?

  • YES - 1U is very active and is having meetings with the Board of Regents concurrent to LEO’s engagements with Regents. You can join the 1U listserv, meet with the 1U groups in Flint or Dearborn, or join the 1U steering committee. Contact brianna@leounion.org for more information. 

• Response/Comment: Big questions are what is the value of the Arts & Sciences/Humanities? There are all these cuts and Flint faculty are being told that you need to be more like the Dearborn campus. Then I talk to folks in Dearborn CASL that they are told they need to learn how to make due like Flint Campus!

  • It is clear that there is a move towards Austerity on Flint & Dearborn campuses and making cuts to departments that don’t “pay for themselves.” The administration is using the pandemic as a convenient cover to make more aggressive cuts!

• On Solidarity: It’s great to have our allies join us for lunch! Breaking down silos is the main goal of 1U and a big part of the LEO platform. Also, a reminder that the Regents approved a new “Card Check Neutrality” policy last June that any workers who want to unionize can, and there should be no interference from the administration. Calling to other employees of the University to organize! Calling on members of the UM community to support and organize together.