EDITORIAL: Students lose most during faculty, CMU battle
With less than a week remaining before classes are scheduled to begin, the university administration and faculty association have yet to find an agreement that would result in the FA signing a new contract.
While we are sympathetic to the demands of the faculty in some ways, the nature of the dispute has become dominated with divisive rhetoric and talking points amounting to little more than name calling.
The most important question is whether or not this fight has left students any better off. What will happen if the FA bargaining committee decides to pursue a job action? Students have not been told whether classes would be condensed, replaced, or canceled entirely in the event of a work stoppage.
Although we're aware teachers could stop showing up in the event of the most dramatic "job action", we are left with many questions. If this happens, will the class material be crammed into the remaining weeks? Will students be reimbursed for the classes that were canceled? Will classes taught by UTF members continue as scheduled?
The consequences of the debate seem to offer few, if any, positive results for students. It's not as if the university has promised tuition breaks or new facilities to students in return for refusing to increase faculty's pay.
Students have been left in the middle of an argument fought out in tightly-worded press releases. The level of discourse, though familiar to those who watched the fight between the NFL and the NFLPA players union this summer, isn't appropriate or healthy for a public institution dedicated to higher learning.
There are also troubling parallels to the debt ceiling debacle that just played out (and continues to smolder) on Capitol Hill. Here in Mount Pleasant, both sides are using the same set of facts to suit their heated arguments while approaching a deadline that, if passed, will hurt the parties' constituents more than anyone else, mirroring the politicking that continues on a federal level.
Even if the FA and university strike an agreement in time for classes to start as scheduled, it seems extremely unlikely the relationship between the two parties will improve in the near future. The fact that 97 percent of FA members voted in favor of allowing the bargaining committee to approve job actions shows how toxic things have become between the two parties. What this current stand-off will mean for future contract talks, and ultimately for the students who pay both sides' salaries, is unknown.
