Numerous Boston University staff members are afraid of losing their jobs after recent announcements of salary freezes and budget problems and are afraid to speak out about their concerns, several Boston University employees said last night at a meeting in the Fenway Community Development Corporation building.
Job security, the cost of recent university building projects and the wave of negative press and publicity at BU were among the topics covered in the nearly two-hour round-table discussion.
Seven faculty and staff members were at the meeting, including several who claimed they or people they knew were going to lose their jobs. Faculty Council chairman Bill Skocpol was among those present, though he said he was not representing the council.
The group told stories about fellow university employees who have resigned or are planning to resign due to personal qualms with the way they were treated as employees, one such story moving one of the women present to tears.
‘I think BU has to hear what employees have to say,’ said Christian Snook, a senior staff coordinator for the BU Media Group. ‘I am here because my friend is being laid off.’
Marsh Chapel administrative assistant Julia Livingstone said her job will terminate as of July 1.
‘I am angry that there seems to be no moral compass for this institution in its public face,’ she said.
Recent announcements of salary freezes have made staff members feel less confident in the jobs they currently hold, several group members said. After Chancellor John Silber announced in September that BU would be cutting 450 jobs to save an estimated $25 million, BU officials last week said the university would instead rely on salary freezes to keep the school’s budget balanced and attrition to cut jobs.
Spokesman Colin Riley said last night before the meeting he had no knowledge of employees being laid off in the name of money-saving measures.
‘We have been hoping that we don’t have to lay off faculty or staff, and we are pleased that we have not as of yet,’ he said. ‘Any reduction will happen through attrition over the next eighteen months.’
But even as BU officials have said they would avoid job cuts in next year’s budget process and deny any cuts have been made, a BU staff member who refused to be identified said they are still a worry.
‘Even knowing that there are no raises in the employee salaries over the next two years, I am part of a team, and if it means that it will save people’s jobs, then we will have to get through this,’ the staff member said. ‘But then I see people fired and I feel betrayed.’
Members of the group said their eventual goal was to ‘sit down with the administration’ and get ‘straight answers’ on questions concerning staff layoffs.
‘Faculty, staff and administration have a common responsibility to see that resources are here to get our primary job done that of education and that includes people as well,’ Skocpol said.
Forming a larger group with which to express their concerns is the only way the groups members said they would feel confident enough to confront BU officials about the issues.
‘I feel like I have a lot to lose by speaking out,’ the staff member said. ‘The injustice is not something I can keep turning my face from.’
The employees present heard about the meeting through fliers distributed by employee volunteers throughout campus. The fliers were dropped in mailboxes, as well as handed out by hand. But some employees thought even the meeting was not to be trusted.
‘Everyone got this flyer and thought it was a trap,’ said Virginia Brissette, an academic advisor in the College of Communication. ‘They said this jokingly, but the message was that speaking out against Boston University will get you in trouble.’
Despite their exchange of ‘horror stories’ and tales of fear, the group cited their dedication to BU as their reason to holding the meeting in the first place.
‘We care about Boston University, or else we wouldn’t be here,’ Livingstone said.
Bad press over the past year has caused a decrease in BU employee morale, Brissette said.
‘I care too much about BU to look at The Daily Free Press, The Boston Globe, The [Boston] Herald everyday and see the things that they print,’ Brissette said. ‘Bad press and bad feelings have gotten to the point where you don’t feel good about your job.’
Student concerns were also discussed at the meeting, including Wednesday’s announcement of new policy that will prohibit students from transferring credits earned during the summer at Boston area colleges.
‘My everyday discretion is to help students, but my ability to do this is always being taken away,’ Brissette said, using the non-transferable credits as an example. ‘Students are being short-changed from what they were promised.’
In order to spread their message, the group agreed to launch a networking effort to connect faculty and staff in various departments across the university in order to form a support base strong enough to gain a voice in university decision-making that affects their jobs. They claimed knowledge of employees who have been laid off recently, and said they intend to incorporate these former employees into the network.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
