Editorial: Raises for MSU Administrators

The following editorial was among the several letters submitted by UNTF members in response to a Lansing State Journal Article reporting that MSU administrators are accepting big raises in years when the faculty and the many of the unions on campus are receiving very little or no adjustments.

Read the article at http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20102280561

Dear Editor:
I was astounded to read the State News editorial justifying raises for William Strampel, dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine (58%), Marsha Rappley, dean of the College of Human Medicine (26%), and Provost Kim Wilcox (20%)—all within a 3-year period.

This comes at a time when the University is demanding that non-tenured track teachers pay 50% of their health care and that ALL MSU unions agree to cancel post-retirement health care for new employees. This comes at a time when many people at MSU have lost jobs, when programs are being cut, and when many students have to take on crippling debt in order to pay tuition.
Yes, while some employees make enormous sums, the University is trying to take health care away from other employees. By what possible system of ethics, morality or social planning can this possibly make sense?

In truth, it doesn't make sense. We cannot have a healthy society when some people live like royalty and others cannot get health care.

The rational that both your editorial and that the administration give is shocking, frankly. Are we to believe that these deans have so little dedication to their work that they have to be bribed with great sums of money in order to stay at MSU? Are we to believe that in this great nation of ours there are no other people qualified for these jobs?

When our country was founded, we chose not to create a King and aristocracy. However, the exorbitant pay for corporate and academic administrators in this country convinces me that we have created a financial aristocracy, which rules with the same blindness and lack of compassion, as did aristocracies of yore.

RS