The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/6/09 Section: News

MACE [Click to enlarge]

ALLEN [Click to enlarge]

SHEWFELT [Click to enlarge]

BERNSTEIN [Click to enlarge]

Unpaid vacation? That's not a furlough - it's a pay cut, as far as some faculty are concerned.

"I would probably work anyway on a furlough day, so I don't see [furloughs] affecting my classes that much," said Robert Shewfelt, food science and technology professor, who experienced furloughs at UGA's Griffin campus in the early '90s. "I would just be giving Georgia a free day of my labor."

The administration has asked the Board of Regents to implement a furlough clause in faculty contracts, which if approved, would enable administrators to temporarily lay off teachers.

Scott Graffin, an assistant management professor in the Terry College of Business, said he couldn't distinguish between vacation days and workdays.

"It's hard to tell when I'm working and when I'm not working. I grade at home at night after the kids go to bed and I do research on the weekends," he said in a phone interview Thursday.

Furloughing faculty on research grants doesn't delay the deadline their research is due, said Jeffrey Mullen, associate professor of agricultural and applied economics.

"If there is a furlough and people have an external grant they need to complete, they will do that work anyway," he said in a phone interview Thursday.

Irwin Bernstein, a psychology research professor, said, "What [furloughs] will probably mean for dedicated faculty is they will work as many hours as usual."

Arnett Mace, senior vice president of academic affairs and Provost, said he recognizes that furloughs would essentially be pay cuts for faculty, but those cuts would only be temporary.

"Well it would be a pay cut in fiscal year 2010, but it's not a permanent pay cut," he said, emphasizing that furloughs would be a last resort for the administration.

"Let's say that that a faculty member makes $80,000 a year and there is a furlough. And hypothetically, let's say that [the furlough] is two days during the fall semester. That faculty member's salary would be reduced by those two days. But going into the next year it would be back to $80,000," Mace said in a phone interview Thursday.

The Red & Black interviewed 10 professors from eight different departments across campus, to gauge a sample of faculty opinions from on the possibility of furloughs.

A majority of those interviewed said they were concerned about the effects furloughs could have on the University's academic quality.

"Disgruntled professors are less effective professors," Bernstein said. "Even if you love your students and you love teaching, it's hard to maintain the same enthusiasm."

"Teaching would take a hit," Mullen said. "The teaching would be hurt more than the research."

Mullen said research deadlines could take precedence over schoolwork if furloughs are implemented.

"Schoolwork would not get done on a furloughed basis. We make our own hours, but if we get furloughed, priorities will get thrown out of balance," he said.

He said the University can't regulate research schedules because teachers usually complete research outside the classroom.

"So when the University says 'don't work,' it means don't work on teaching," he said.

Oscar Chamosa, assistant professor of history, said staff members and teachers alike are important to the quality of the University.

"Workers and teachers, we need everybody," he said in a phone interview Thursday. "[Furloughs] are always going to be detrimental to the quality of education. No matter how they are implemented, he said, "the impact is going to be felt by students."

Mark Cooney, associate professor of sociology, said, "We as faculty regard ourselves as professionals in our commitment to students. We are also employees who require paychecks, like anybody else. But we are going to have to balance our professional obligation to students and our financial needs."

Furloughs could encourage the University's top professors to start looking elsewhere for jobs, two faculty members said.

"If you feel the state of Georgia isn't supporting you, you won't feel any loyalty to the state," Bernstein said in a phone interview Thursday. "There's no reason to stay here if they aren't appreciated. Anytime you aren't appreciated you start saying, 'I don't have to tolerate these kinds of working conditions.' And one of the ways to make someone feel appreciated is competitive wage, but if [the University] can't offer you that, and they don't treat you well in other ways, then that is the last straw for most people."

Mullen said furloughs would have an "adverse effect" on the University's ability to recruit and retain high quality teachers, but "the duration of the furlough would be critical to determine how substantive that effect would be."

But Mace said the University's competitive advantage next to peer institutions would not be affected by furloughs.

"Given what is occurring around the country and in most institutions, I don't think [furloughs] would affect the University of Georgia's standing," he said

One professor said he had not "given much thought" to the possibility of furloughs because he had more immediate concerns for his department.

Wesley Allen, associate professor of chemistry, said, "I can't imagine anyone in my near circle - my immediate colleagues - being furloughed … I think the greater concern is that University budget cuts are making the lives of everyone much more stressed and overworked in order to maintain the current quality."

The University's chemistry department has eight fewer professors than it did 10 years ago, he said in a phone interview Thursday.

"Senior faculty have to run the ship with fewer bodies," he said, which means "lower division classes are being taught by teaching professionals, not tenured professors" and "when faculty retire, they aren't replaced, so we have to take on more."

Shewfelt said taking on more work is an inevitable result of furloughs, based on his experience at the University's Griffin campus in the early '90s.

"When other people were on furlough, you had to take care of their job," he said in a phone interview Thursday.

But every professor interviewed said they preferred pay cuts over layoffs.

"As for taking a pay cut over having one of my colleagues fired, I would like to be altruistic and take the pay cut," Bernstein said.

Shewfelt said, "If furloughs are going to protect other people from getting laid off, I'm willing to make my contribution."

He said furloughing teachers could have a positive influence in highlighting the importance of professors' research and services for the state of Georgia.

"I don't mind us paying our share. But I think it's important that people in the state who are getting services from us - who rely on us - to realize what [budget cuts are] costing us."

Mullen said he wanted to know more details of how furloughs would be implemented, should they occur.

"What happens on a furlough?" Mullen asked. "Do they lock the University down? Are lab scientists allowed to go into their labs and maintain their experiments?"

Others wondered how long furloughs would last, how they would be distributed among faculty and staff, and whether administrators would take furloughs.

In response to these concerns, Mace said, "We have not discussed any plan in terms of implementation … We do accept implementation would be challenging should [furloughs] occur. We hope it doesn't, but we will not know this until we know our budget."

In the meantime, Bernstein said, "All of us are kind of holding our breath, waiting to see what will happen."

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