The question on the table is should you take the furlough? The senior administrators who are pushing the furlough earn 100% of their peers and recently spent $2.4 million remodeling their own offices. Our president who just got a $150,000 raise, has signed up his retiring VP’s for golden parachute retirements, and is trying to finagle OUS into giving him the same. They haven’t told you the truth about UO’s admin expenses, about Bend losses, etc. So, no, I don’t think you should. It’s pretty clear where your money will end up.
People are concerned about the classified staff they work with. Here’s how to help them out. Get together with other department faculty. Decide how much extra money the department wants to give staff. Divide that total up among the faculty, asking more from those with higher incomes. Then ask for donations. Tell people your goal, their share, and announce that if you do not meet the goal you will give the money back to the donors. This makes every person’s donation “pivotal” and substantially increases the incentive for each faculty to give. These donations are not tax deductible, but at least you will know who is getting the money!
UO does lots of good work, and we all know a lot of those programs are badly underfunded. So, you can also go to UO Foundation website and earmark a donation for those programs you particularly care about.
The highest paid faculty in my department wouldn’t give a plug nickel to classified staff.