The spring meeting of the AAUP Connecticut State Conference will feature nationally prominent scholar Robert M. O’Neil.  He is the founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

The Center recently announced their 2003 Jefferson Muzzles.  Awarded on or near each April 13 (the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birth) they call attention to egregious cases of censorship.  This year’s Muzzles went 
to national entities such as the 107th U.S. Congress as well as to local figures like Utica (Michigan) High School Principal Richard Machesky. 

Richard Machesky received his Muzzle for censoring an article from the school newspaper, written by a high school junior.  The article examined a lawsuit filed against the school system, which alleged that a local resident’s lung cancer was caused in part by exhaust fumes from school buses at the public school bus depot.  After being censored from the school newspaper, the student’s article went on to gain a much wider audience when it was printed in the local daily newspaper.  Additional stories behind each of the Jefferson Muzzle recipients are available at http://www.tjcenter.org/muzzles.html. 

This promises to be a splendid evening.  WCSU-AAUP’s Vijay Nair is finishing his term as President of the AAUP Connecticut State Conference, and we urge you to honor him with your attendance. 

The AAUP Connecticut State Conference meeting is Monday, May 19 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. in New Haven.  The deadline to register is Monday, May 12.  AAUP will pay the $29.00 registration fee for you and up to one guest.  Seating is limited, so if you register, do attend.  To register, contact Executive Director Flo Hatcher at 860-354-6249 or hatcherkl@southernct.edu. v

At the public university where I used to work, it was first-arrive, first-park.  (The later you came to work, the more likely you had to park in the satellite lot and ride the shuttle.)  Recently, just before I left, a number of closer spots were reserved for particular deans and vice presidents.  I then had fewer spots to choose from, even when I arrived before them.  Is it ethical for them to get preferred parking? ANDREW FELDMAN, LONG ISLAND

Sure, rank has its privileges.  I’ve even heard of cases in which some high-ranking people make more money than we hoi polloi—and talk about scarce resources. 

But while this policy is not unethical, it is unwise.  To elevate administrators to a privileged class is contrary to the American ideal of an egalitarian society.  Why bestow parking perks on a dean rather than a math professor or a grad student, or for that matter, a cafeteria worker?  What’s more—or perhaps less—it will not improve a dean’s ability to do his job if his experience of campus life has little in common with the people who work and study there. 

However, if your university is eager to create a petty aristocracy, it could instead force students with lower than a C average to carry administrators around the campus in sedan chairs, providing both an incentive to excel academically and a public display of the university’s values.v

Compared to other bargaining units who also negotiate with the state, we managed to have a very minimal salary freeze (with higher raises down the road), and concrete guarantees against layoffs. 

This is the salary picture for full-time and part-time faculty:  a wage freeze for 2003-04, followed by a 5% increase for 2004-05, a 5% increase for 2005-06, and a re-opener for 2006-07. 

All tenure-track faculty members who were non-renewed for economic reasons were rehired.  There will be no future layoffs for economic reasons through June 2007 unless management declares financial exigency pursuant to Article 17.  v