UH President M.R.C. Greenwood learned a lesson last week that’s familiar to any reporter–the lead sentence will often make or break your story.

In Greenwood’s case, the first sentence of the message she distributed following the faculty union’s rejection of the latest contract proposal has UH faculty steaming mad.

“The university”, Greenwood wrote, “is disappointed in the UHPA vote to reject our contract offer.”

The responses have come from many quarters.

Susan Webster Schultz quickly dissected Greenwood’s memo.

I was hardly alone in feeling a gut punch as I read this sentence. For what Pres. Greenwood has accomplished here is to create a neat (too neat) division between “the university” (here conceived as what? administrators? buildings?) and the faculty. If the faculty have rejected the proposal, they are no longer members of the institution. There’s violence in this sentence. As I will argue throughout this post, the violence is not directed only at the faculty.

I would encourage you to read Susan’s entry in its entirety on her Tinfish Editor’s Blog.

She clearly articulates that it is not primarily the size of the proposed salary cuts that led to the contract’s rejection.

What we are demanding is not a few percent more shekels, President Greenwood, but advocacy on behalf of the university as an important institution. We don’t mean lip service about its being the economic engine of the state, which we hear all the time, but real advocacy. What we are demanding from Gov. Lingle is a return to the social contract. We need to make it clear that public education is a moral right, not simply a convenience in good times, a line item, or liability, when times are bad.

Refusing the contract was one way to say this. That the vote is being interpreted as selfish intransigence is not a surprise, but “the university” (that’s UH faculty and students) must fight back. If the university is wrecked now, it won’t be rebuilt later, no matter how much the economy improves.

There’s a famous story about one of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s early experiences as president of Columbia University, a story which has been told and retold many times in academic circles but which is right on point.

According to one retelling:

At this first meeting with the faculty the new president told them about various plans to do good things for the “employees” of the university. At the end the Nobel Prizewinning physicist, I.I. Rabi, rose and said: “Mr. President there is just one point: we are not the employees of the university, we are the university.”

Criminologist and Professor of Women’s Studies, Meda Chesney-Lind, reminded faculty of this story and queried:

“Can some one explain this to Dr. Greenwood, please? “

More on faculty and student views can be gleaned from speeches made at last week’s rally on the Manoa campus, now available on YouTube. You’ll hear, in addition to reactions to the combined salary cuts, increased health insurance premiums, and payroll lag, concerns about administrative priorities, mismanagement, and the long-term impact on the state if short-term issues are allowed to cripple its primary source of higher education.

The question of priorities quickly gets to the issue of administrative bloat, which continues even after a the former UH president declared a fiscal emergency.

Here’s the latest: A “Dear Colleagues” email sent out by Joanne Clark, Associate Vice Chancellor at UH-Manoa. Here’s an excerpt:

Dear Colleagues,

We are in the process of kicking-off the search for a permanent assistant vice chancellor for international education, an existing executive position. Because international education touches so many areas of our campus, we want to be as inclusive as possible of all the stakeholders interested and involved in this important area. As one of the first steps in the search process, we ask your assistance in identifying the keys issues relating to international education on our campus and the type of individual needed to address those issues.

Recall the context here:

Since the 1990s, this university has seen an explosion in both the number of administrators and the salaries they receive. In 1994, there were 20,041 students at UHM, in 2008, 20,169, a percent increase of .6.

In 1994 there were 2,008 faculty and in ’08, 1,984, or a decease of .1%.

In 1994 the UH system and UHM administration had 62 positions, in 2008, it had 234 for an increase of 277%.

Clark’s email drew a visceral response from the chair of one Manoa program:

Are they out of their minds, hiring a “NEW” administrative position during this period of time? This is insane and an insult to everyone in the university community! Why isn’t there a freeze on admin positions like everywhere else?

And so it goes.