| CBC Leaders' Financial Analysis Work Changing Game for Faculty |
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Among the AAUP’s guiding principles is the importance of protecting and strengthening faculty’s role in shared governance—through information, grassroots advocacy, and collective will. A recent Inside Higher Ed article shined a spotlight on two long-time AAUP leaders whose institutional financial analysis work is helping faculty across the country do just that by providing another tool with which to challenge university administrations’ budgeting priorities and sometimes overblown claims of fiscal distress. For several years, Howard Bunsis, professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan University, as well as national AAUP treasurer and CBC chair, and Rudy Fichtenbaum, professor of economics at Wright State University, as well as CBC treasurer and former Ohio conference president, have analyzed institutions’ audited financial statements in order to help prepare AAUP collective bargaining chapters for contract negotiations. Since the 2008 financial meltdown, however, faculty interest in understanding the real financial operations of their institutions has taken on a new urgency. As administrations crying exigency have sought to push through draconian measures ranging from salary freezes to furloughs to unprecedented layoffs and “reconfiguration” processes, often with little or no faculty input, requests for Bunsis’s and Fichtenbaum’s assistance have surged. As a result, what began as a service to our unionized chapters is evolving into a more widely-used tactic for demanding administrative accountability and real shared governance. The dramatic increase in requests from chapters and faculty senates for financial consulting has led to the creation of a new, multi-session financial analysis workshop that will be offered for the first time at the 2010 Summer Institute when it convenes July 29-August 1 at San Diego State University. Participants will conduct a step-by-step analysis of their own institutions' audited financial statements. The workshop is premised on the idea that when faculty members—unionized or not—have access to detailed information about their institutions’ actual revenue streams and spending priorities, they stand a fighting chance to resist short-sighted budget decisions that can erode the institution’s core mission of quality higher education. For details about the AAUP-CBC’s financial analysis consulting, please contact Jenn Nichols at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Save the Date: Summer Institute Convenes July 29-August 1 at San Diego State University Mark your calendars! Plans are well under way for the 2010 Summer Institute at San Diego State University, July 29 to August 1. Our popular multi-session workshops on negotiations, grievance and contract administration, higher ed. data and research, and shared governance workshops are all on the schedule. So are sessions on contract campaigns, organizing, communications, contingent faculty conversion policies, legal and legislative round-ups, and more. There are several new offerings, too: in addition to the new financial analysis workshop, this year’s line-up includes new sessions on the privatization of higher education, academic speech rights under threat, using accreditation as an organizing tool, the ins and outs of managing a CB chapter, and confronting “interest-based bargaining.” More information on registration, the workshop schedule, social activities, and SI scholarships will be posted to our Web site as details are finalized. Registration will open in late March. Questions? Comments? Email Jenn Nichols at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . |