Last Thursday was a busy one. DU’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter took part in a national day of action, holding events from morning through afternoon to discuss topics ranging from DEI to the recent and ongoing abductions of international students. 

Meanwhile, in the Anderson Academic Commons, the monthly Dean’s Office check-in meeting was held where Provost Mary Clark and Chancellor Jeremy Haefner addressed a number of overlapping issues. 

The two events are timely, and more importantly, they expose a number of interesting — and at times troubling — contradictions that are worth highlighting.

Funding, resources and compensation were some of the most talked about issues between the two events. For the Provost and the Chancellor, this issue was most related to two things, both of which are focused on remaining competitive among larger “flagship” state schools in the midst of declining enrollment.

One way of remaining competitive requires increasing undergraduate research opportunities. As Provost Mary Clark put it, “How do we infuse more funding, more resources into that?” Another issue area relates to increasing compensation for faculty and staff, in particular, assistant professors. 

“We have seen [CU] Boulder make significant investments in faculty and staff, in particular assistant professors” Clark stated. “Our commitment is to address compensation as quickly as we can in this challenging budget-constrained time for faculty and staff, and the trustees have supported this.”

Later in the day, across the Campus inside the SIE Complex, an AAUP event took place that also discussed compensation and more broadly, the general finances of the school. The presentation on the matter was conducted by Dr. Howard Bunsis over Zoom. The Eastern Michigan University professor was hired last year by DU AAUP to investigate the university’s finances, and the presentation took the form of his initial findings. 

Dr. Bunsis is no stranger to higher-ed financial audits. From USC to Wesleyan University and a number of others, he has dealt with numerous cases of financial mismanagement. Despite this exposure, one thing in particular stood out to him concerning our university. 

“What is the deal with Vice Chancellors? I’m sure they’re really good people. But why are there so many VCs? That’s… that’s a lot. I don’t know what they do either. But there’s a lot of them,” he said.

This school has a dozen Vice Chancellors, all of whom make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. This is an area that takes up millions of this school’s budget.

As Dr. Bunsis put it, “I still believe by looking at all this data on this side, if there are cuts to be made, I still think the admin side is too high.” 

To better put this in perspective, Chancellor Haefner frequently mentioned CU Boulder as a leading competitor to DU — in the sense that many prospective students end up choosing to be a Buff instead. They are a massive state school with an endowment that is more than double DU’s, along with an undergraduate student population that is triple the size of DU’s. 

Meanwhile, our Chancellor’s base compensation is almost $100,000 more than that of CU Boulder’s Chancellor. Last year, Boulder’s chancellor made $829,800 while Chancellor Jeremy Haefner made $922,734 in the year of 2023 — the latest year available. 

Despite these disparities, the brunt of the budgetary burden is still being placed on those in more precarious positions at this school. A question answered by Provost Mary Clark that day sheds more light on this ongoing trend.

An unidentified student from the Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) noted that, “the students have heard over the past few weeks that some of the budget cuts to GSSW are resulting in assistant professors being essentially demoted to adjuncts.”

The student said how the professor of concern is a person of color, and that GSSW has worked hard in recent years to establish a diverse faculty body. 

“I just wanted to express that…we are really crushed,” she concluded. Provost Mary Clark’s response was as disheartening as it was brief.

“Thank you. I really appreciate you sharing that with me. I have heard about this from a number of students. It was a decision that resulted from budgetary constraints. It was the non-renewal of an individual. And yes, I am very sorry for that decision and I am very sorry for that step. I do understand the impact. So thank you,” she said. 

Without pause, she continued.

“Any other questions or concerns?” 

My question is how is this making us competitive? You talk about the need to invest in assistant professors, but what will that do for us as students, especially as it relates to research opportunities, when you are decreasing the number of full-time professors available for these raises? 

This was another issue brought up during Dr. Bunsis’ presentation. Over the past several years, we have seen an increase in part-time professors — such as adjunct positions — while seeing a simultaneous decline in tenure-track positions — such as assistant professors. In other words, the GSSW case is part of a larger trend, and this trend is not good for a university that wants to excel as a research institution. 

If we are to increase undergraduate research opportunities while investing in faculty in order to remain competitive with a school like CU Boulder, the solution is quite clear. We need to cut the wages of administrators and redirect those resources to more productive avenues, and we need to decrease the number of vice chancellors, rather than decrease the number of full-time professors. 

This solution is a no-brainer. Our Chancellor should absolutely not be making more than someone who is in charge of managing over 30,000 students and a $2.1 billion endowment. And the avoidance of this clear-cut solution is what has led to the sweeping and conclusive votes of no confidence across campus. 

AAUP members unanimously voted in favor of no confidence, with the same result taking place among the chairs and directors of CAHSS. A supermajority of faculty in CAHSS have also voted in favor of no confidence while the Morgridge College of Education voted overwhelmingly against our Chancellor along with over a thousand students at this school. 

The picture that was painted on Thursday is twofold. One is that our administration recognizes that we are desperately in need of a better strategy to remain competitive. On the other hand, many at this school understand that this strategy in practice takes the form of cutting salaries by decreasing our staff and tenure-track positions. 

These two visions, one of what needs to happen and a vision of what is already happening, cannot and will not coexist for long. If the vision of what is already happening continues to play out, we will never again compete with schools like CU Boulder, while our administrators continue their lifestyles of abundance. 

All in all, the marginal return on investment when it comes to administrators is almost non-existent when looking at our inability to persuade students to come here. But there is a consensus among faculty and administrators that there is a marginal return on investment when it comes to increasing the wages of faculty and staff.

The only problem is that the nature of the continuing budget cuts fails to reflect such a consensus.