The college community was thus left with the painful problem of making sizable cuts to the budget while keeping Amherst a thriving long-term educational enterprise. Many members of the community felt that an inclusive all-campus committee should be formed to make specific recommendations on budget cuts for the College. After discussions between faculty committees, administration officials, students, staff and trustees, the Advisory Budgetary Committee (ABC) was formed. Further consultation with the College treasurer put down the stipulation that the ABC should recommend budget cuts of $37 million for the next three years.
The ABC was a revolutionary construction in many ways. Its members were not only students, faculty members and administration representatives, but members of the Board of Trustees, staff and alumni who, for the first time in the College’s history, would play an active role in creating recommendations for budget cuts. For its first three months, the ABC went through an exhaustive phase of hearings and presentations. They held open hearings and meetings with student organizations, sectors of the staff, financial advisors to the College and various faculty committees.
The ABC met on campus for a retreat after the academic semester ended and submitted 13 recommendations after a few weeks of discussions.
The recommendations to the Board of Trustees, added together, left the College with a savings of $37 million. Recommendations of note included a reduction (but not cessation) of salary increase for faculty, administration and staff and an increase in the number of tenured faculty to one over the previous cap limit, which will off-setting a decrease in visiting faculty. They also recommended that faculty sabbatical pay should be kept at 100 percent regular pay, a reduction of the rising projection in the percentage of students receiving financial aid (instead of a rising percentage an assumption was that the current percentage of students receiving aid would hold) and a $1.5 million adjustment in financial aid that would not threaten the current policies of the College.
The report did note specifically the dissension of some committee members who had wanted the financial aid budget to be more fully examined for possible short-term and long-term savings.
In late June this final report was officially posted on the Amherst Web site. Two days later a hearing was held in Johnson Chapel, attended primarily by staff, at the conclusion of which several professors began an informal discussion which turned into a faculty meeting, where 27 professors gathered back at Amherst to discuss their issue with the ABC recommendations.
According to Professor Stephen George, the discussion mostly concerned their perception that despite the “assumptions of the ABC report,” which insinuated that “all parts [of the budget] should have been cut, one part of the budget, that was 25 percent of our expenditures (financial aid) seemed sacrosanct.”
After this meeting, these faculty members helped draft a letter to the Trustees before their July meeting. This letter outlined the faculty’s concern regarding the fiscal health of the College and proposed measures to reduce spending on financial aid.
The three central proposals of the letter were that need-blind admission to international students should be reduced, that the College should reinstitute loans for students who could afford it and that the College should modestly reduce their recruitment targeting of poor areas of the United States.
The letter, according to its original drafter George, was originally put on a public Web site but was then password protected a few days later. After the letter was signed by over 60 faculty members and sent to the Trustees, a number of faculty members, who were opposed to the ideas put for the in the letter, sent a copy to a student member of the International Students Association (ISA). The ISA sent the e-mail out to its listserv and soon this faculty letter had become viral.
Two student letters were drafted: the first by Elias Aba-Milki ’10, Amanda Bass ’11E and Emmanuel Bett ’11 and the second by Nicol Zhou ’10, a member of the ABC. The tones of the letters were markedly different. The first student letter claimed that the arguments in the faculty letter had xenophobic tendencies because of the marked focus on reducing international need-blind aid.
The second letter dwelt only lightly on the issue of xenophobia and concentrated more on how the faculty was making false claims about the actual financial situation and underestimating the benefits of a diverse campus.
Both letters, however, agreed on their view that the faculty was being underhanded in their approach to this issue and that they were acting, at least partly, out of self-interest. The letters also recognize the dire financial circumstances under which the faculty letter was written, but advocate that budget cuts should be made through an inclusive campus process. These student letters garnered roughly 250 and 400 signers.
Past these letters, the heated controversy between the students and faculty continues, as a faculty motion, highlighting statements from the faculty handbook that the faculty has responsibility for financial aid and admissions policy, has been brought to students’ attention. The student body’s response to this motion, which according to some faculty, has been dropped, will be submitted after this article is printed.
This tension between the faculty and the students has surprised many who have grown accustomed to an Amherst community where all sectors of the campus get along. However, this debate has not ended all of the raw feelings between the faculty who signed the letter and the members of the student body who opposed it.
The faculty members who drafted their letter continue to defend their right to question the ABC’s report and to discuss financial aid. According to George, the faculty wants “to be need-blind for international students, but the commitment to that was a part of the progression outlined in the Committee of Academic Priorities (CAP) … Do need blind, but do it right.”
This progression is a reference to the Committee on Academic Priorities’ recommendations to increase need-blind admission for international students, eliminate loans and increase recruitment in poor areas of the United States. Faculty members point to the fact that the CAP is a faculty committee. Thus, since they proposed the increase in financial aid to begin with, they are not acting out of xenophobia or lack of concern for students, but are responding to financial concerns.
Many professors who signed the faculty letter have been candid about their wish to make the College campus as diverse as possible. Professor Ronald Rosbottom, a member of the ABC, did not sign the letter since he had signed the ABC report, though he agreed with some of the letter’s premises. He believes that most faculty want sincerely to see socio-economic and ethnic diversity in the student body. He said, “If all I had to teach was blonde blue-eyed rich kids (not that that’s a bad thing), I’d be bored out of my mind. We want diversity!”
However all members of the faculty interviewed for this article emphasized that they do not bear a grudge towards the students who attacked them. George, for example, called the student letters “eloquent and passionate.” Many professors also concede that the faculty, forced to act quickly after the ABC report because of the Trustees meeting on July 14, may have made mistakes in presenting their argument. Professor Elizabeth Aries commented, “If the Board of Trustee meeting was on Sept. 1, we wouldn’t have moved this quickly.” Also, when asked if perhaps the faculty who drafted the letter should have sent it as an e-mail to student listservs, in order to dispel the notion that this was an underhanded maneuver, George said that “we should have” sent out e-mails because the faculty wasn’t “trying to hide this. We were not trying to keep this secret.”
For the most part, the faculty blames this war of words on accidental student misconceptions. They point to the fact that their faculty handbook cites the Trustee-approved by-law that gives them the responsibility over financial aid and admissions. The Faculty Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid in the past has played the leading role in recommending changes to admissions and financial aid policy, with little disagreement from the Trustees, who has the final oversight.
The faculty signers also draw attention to the extent of the current financial crisis, which they say the students had no opportunity to fully process. They point to presentations shown to them earlier this year as well as a letter by Jide Zeitlin, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, which both asserted that the ABC’s projected cuts of $37 million would not reduce percentage spending of the endowment to the amount necessary for a healthy educational institution. These faculty members claim that if the students understood these particular details, which provide the context to their letter, then the reaction would not have been so openly hostile.
The students who drafted these letters, Aba-Milki, Bass and Bett, have, for the most part, stuck to their original arguments. They have continued with their claim that the arguments in the faculty letter had xenophobic and classist tendencies. Bass and Aba-Milki both claim in an issued statement that the way the faculty letter was written “makes it clear that these faculty support a very specific type of diversity which does not include class diversity” and that “they have picked upon the non-privileged student body to sacrifice upon the altar of self-interest.”
The two also feel that this issue reflects a deeper concern that goes to the heart of this institution’s purpose. They stated, “The integrity of Amherst’s mission statement hangs in the balance,” and that the recommendations from the first faculty letter “would veritably alter Amherst’s mission by bringing together only those gifted students who can afford to attend.”
Zhou has also stuck to the message of his letter. While acknowledging that the faculty signers perhaps “had the best intentions” with their letter, he stated that “the way [their letter] came out was very problematic.” Zhou claims that these professors are overemphasizing the financial crisis, saying, “we’ve come out of this crisis in relatively good shape” and adding, “if we are in fact in financial crisis, why are we not looking towards faculty privileges for cuts?” At the end of the day, Zhou frames the faculty response as an act of conflicting self-interest.
The statements of these students and the continued efforts by the faculty to reduce financial aid have raised fears of further intra-college tension as the year continues. Many members of the student body, worried about the possibility of more tension, are trying to turn this debate into a more constructive dialogue between the interested parties. AAS President and ABC member Peter Tang ’10, for instance, stated, “I understood where [the faculty] were coming from … When you say ‘need-blind for everyone’ that’s a big thing.” He went on to make clear that he, and the AAS, are open to more hearings and debate upon financial aid, if it is done openly and with transparency.
Members of the administration are also struggling to get this debate under control. Administration officials have emphasized that not all of the faculty is behind reducing financial aid and that characterizing all faculty as supporting the letter is a dangerous endeavor.
President Tony Marx in particular has, in the place of this vehement debate, called for a more calm and respectful dialogue. “We have to find a way to have these discussions on campus ... where it doesn’t feel like personal attacks,” he said. “Students were concerned this summer that some faculty didn’t want them here … I know that is not the case. All the faculty here respect and value all the students here. We have to have these debates without seeming like we’re insulting each other.” Instead, Marx emphasized that “real progress [has been made] on budget reductions without the major layoffs or aid cuts we feared, and while still having salary increases and hiring more faculty.”
With the recent faculty motion released and a student response pending, the chance of any discussion on financial aid going away any time soon seems unlikely. The administration has stated that they are interested in using faculty committees, where students have representation, to conduct further talks on future budget cuts. Only time will tell if this controversy is an erroneous miscommunication, or a sign of things to come.
All of the faculty and student letters, the ABC report itself and responses to these letters by President Marx and the Board of Trustees can be viewed online at www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/economy/campus.