Dear Colleagues,
I’m writing to ask that you join me in signing a petition in support of the UO´s crucial Labor Education and Research Center. Many of you are longtime friends and supporters of LERC; others have collaborated with LERC faculty and know how the UO benefits from having a Labor Center among its departments. For those of you who don’t know LERC well, please see the attached fact sheet for more information about its vital contributions.
In the current round of proposed budget cuts, LERC has been targeted for a large and disproportionate cut. The UO is proposing a 68% cut in its funding for LERC – an amount that could eliminate half the department’s faculty.
It’s possible that cuts will be made across the campus. But I hope you´ll agree that LERC should not be cut more than other departments. That´s the essence of
this petition – asking the UO to guarantee that LERC´s sacrifice will be in proportion to that of other departments that make up the University´s core mission. As a longtime supporter of the labor center, I can attest that both the university and community benefit from its activities.
Please join me in voicing support for LERC by adding your name to the petition here: https://www.savelerc.com/faculty_staff_petition.
Thanks!
Dan Tichenor
Professor of Political Science
Thanks for doing this, Dan.
Behind closed doors, some top administrators have smiled at the opportunity to cut LERC in particular. It stems from an odd learned hatred of anything even associated with labor, and they see it as a chance to “dab on the unions” as the kids say nowadays.
Are you making this statement because it is probable or do you in fact have inside knowledge? If the latter, spill the beans.
If they were not willing to express those thoughts at a podium, I doubt they would want their name attached to those thoughts here.
Maybe I’m missing something, but they call themselves a research center, but hardly appear to produce any peer reviewed articles (at least if you go by the “research & publications” tab). Shouldn’t that be their goal? If not, what is their goal and how do they serve UO’s “core mission”?
wait
the UO has a “core mission”
where the hell is it?
can I visit it?
The core mission of all bureaucratic organizations (like all living things) is self-perpetuation. All other factors are secondary.
Heroic individuals may occasionally throw themselves on a grenade to save their comrades. Bureaucracies pretty much never do, as far as I know.
The bureaucracy is full of heroes. And feather-bedders. Just like the army, or so my father told me.
While peer reviewed articles are what predominate my field, do remember that in many other disciplines items such as books and published conference proceedings are just as important. That was something that she-who-must-not-be-named never really understood during her time as VPRI.