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Wright State faculty strike ends after 4 weeks

Last updated on 02/11/2019

Their administration had been trying to eliminate jobs, freeze salaries, and cut benefits.

Strikes by tenure track faculty are very rare, and typically only last a day or two. This was the longest I know of, at ~4 weeks. About half the faculty walked out, and their classes were being taught by deans and “interested community members”. The university faculty and their administration have now come to a tentative agreement, and classes will resume Monday.

According to this news report, Wright State’s poor financial situation was the result of the usual administrative blunders – including an insipid, expensive, and abandoned branding campaign, expensive consulting contracts that led nowhere, lawsuits, and more:

2. Presidential debate fail

Wright State spent $1.7 million preparing to host a presidential debate in the 2016 election that never happened, and spent another $2.6 million more in upgrades to the Nutter Center in preparation for the cancelled debate. …

RELATED: Kasich’s office: WSU leadership was ‘cultivating a regime of secrecy’

WSU administrators say they have taken steps to address these issues.

7. Millions for president’s pay

Former WSU president David Hopkins quietly resigned from the university last month after a tumultuous tenure.

Hopkins’ compensation itself was at times controversial. In 2014, contract provisions put his pay over $1 million, eclipsing other public university presidents, our I-Team reported.

So far I don’t see any details on the settlement, if you see anything please post a link.

 

2 Comments

    • uomatters Post author | 02/11/2019

      Thanks, this seems like a pretty balanced take on the admin mistakes that led to the financial problems, and on the strike’s potential consequences for enrollment. If only there was some way to prevent presidents and provosts from making these sorts of bad decisions in the first place. Like shared governance. I wonder where their Senate and union were when these bad decisions were being made in the first place?

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