Remarks To The

Oregon University System Board of Directors

Bill Danley, President, Interinstitutional Faculty Senate

May 16, 2003

President Lussier, Chancellor Jarvis, Directors, University Presidents, Students, Staff, and Guests:

Spotting a trend is hard in this dynamic world. Things change so fast that by the time one adjusts to a new condition, it’s too late -- yet another new situation has already developed. When I was younger, new fashions and new language sort of seeped into our lives, and even though I was never on the cutting edge of new culture out in West Texas, at least I could eventually manage to join the crowd and let my hair grow a little longer or buy some bell bottoms or whatever.

Now, new stuff happens so fast I feel lost most of the time. I saw a kid yesterday whose fashion statement was his boxer shorts sticking out so far under pants so baggy I wondered how he could keep them on -- and even he was out of date. By the time I see a new trend noted in the New York Times or on CBS Sunday Morning, it’s way too late to join the crowd -- they’re on to something else.

Sometimes it’s not just embarrassing to miss an important trend -- it’s dangerous. Remember when the Shah of Iran in the 1970s thought his opponents were just a few “religious fanatics”? Remember when US automakers thought the Volkswagon Beetle and other foreign import cars were a passing fancy and they didn’t need to worry about them? Remember when General Electric and RCA made all of our television sets and the Japanese only made cheap imitations? Remember when we thought the stock market would support our PERS accounts until we retired?

Here’s a trend I’ve noticed in higher education. In my twenty years in Oregon higher education, my salary has barely kept pace with inflation. Year after year, higher education takes cuts in state support, cuts in programs, and cuts in salaries. Still I dreamed of retirement, and hoped for the day when I could be comfortable and enjoy life. Now the legislature and the Governor have suddenly punished my colleagues and me by simultaneously taking away promised salary increases and at the same time dramatically reducing the retirement I thought I had already earned, including cost of living increases after retirement. The public, spurred on by campaigns to malign public employees, think I am robbing them blind by earning my lowest-in-the-nation salary and qualifying for a retirement they think is exorbitant but which in fact is barely able to cover my modest mortgage. My colleagues who are younger are asking me why they should stay in this situation, and my colleagues who are older are leaving by the score.

The trend I notice is not just that salaries are terrible -- the trend is that my friends on Oregon university campuses are starting to leave, and students are starting to notice the higher tuition and program reductions. Morale is at an all-time low, and the situation is deteriorating even as we speak here today. If we don’t reverse this trend, it will very soon be too late. Our best and brightest will be gone from our new faculty and our senior faculty; our best and brightest students will be gone to other states; our best and brightest administrators will be recruited elsewhere. This trend is dangerous because it’s not just the numbers of students and faculty who are involved -- it’s that our most valuable, most mobile, and most wanted students and faculty will be leaving. We can’t afford to wait until this trend is noticed by others. We can’t afford to wait until the economy turns around. We can’t afford to wait until Oregon is surpassed by every other state in the nation in support to higher education. What business or industry is going to come to a state which strangles its university system, turns its back on its hungry and needy, and closes the doors to its schools to save money?

The good news is that by supporting education in general and higher education in particular, Oregon can get back on its feet economically. If we recruit new bright faculty and retain our experienced senior faculty and keep our promises to our retiring faculty, our schools and universities can help lead the way in bringing new industries to Oregon. Graduates of an invigorated university system will start new businesses and bring new skills to those already here. Instead of recognizing this trend too late, we can act now to keep the quality universities we know we deserve and are capable of preserving. There is no better way to assure Oregon’s future than to re-build our universities, support our students, and say to the world that Oregon is ready for new industry and open for business.

It is not too hard to see how to accomplish this task in a time of declining revenue. We need more revenue, and it won’t come from our current system. We can’t cut existing programs anymore. It’s counter-productive to further cut needed social services, K-12 education, or critical health care programs. We need a stable, broad-based, permanent tax structure that will fairly and predictably react to our changing needs without the constant crises in revenue forecasts and impossible-to-balance budgets. We need a legislature that has the backbone to pass the necessary legislation to implement it, and we need the political will to support those who risk their political lives to propose it, and we need for the Governor to provide the leadership to get it done quickly.