Letter to the Editor: Open letter regarding furloughs, in response to message from Nellis
Bernhard Debatin, an Ohio University professor, sent this open letter to The New Political and other local publications on June 10 in response to Duane Nellis’s final message to the Ohio U community published the same day.
Please note that the views of this letter do not reflect those of The New Political.
Dear President Nellis,
Your final message to the Ohio University community lets us know that the furlough money will be refunded because, miraculously, we suddenly have a surplus. Indeed, not just a surplus, but a "substantial surplus," as you emphasize in your chirpy message (online at https://www.ohio.edu/news/2021/06/message-president-m-duane-nellis).
I am sure this message will sit particularly well with those 350 plus employees who were laid off last year because of the supposed financial crisis. It is yet another slap in the face of the many long-term employees who lost their jobs only four weeks after you had promised solemnly that nobody would get fired during COVID.
You may remember that OU's AAUP developed and submitted to you and the VP of Finance a detailed furlough plan that would have enabled you to entirely avoid laying off any employees. However, you and the OU leadership chose to ignore this plan and instead decided to fire a large number of employees, thus breaking your promise and bringing unnecessary hardship into the lives of those who lost their jobs -- not to mention how it has created additional dysfunctionality on many levels. It's hard to keep a place running properly if you fire custodians, maintenance staff, and instructors; i.e. those who do the drudgery. The long-term effect of this will likely be a reduced value of the two main assets of our campus: Its beauty and its personal approach.
Given the dysfunction caused by deep and panic-driven personnel cuts, it's unconscionable to allocate the new surplus, as you announced, to "fund innovations" instead of restoring staffing where cuts have hobbled departments that can't offer needed classes. The best investment in Ohio University's future would be to rehire instructors, custodians, groundskeepers, and department-level administrators, as well as to fill vacant and urgently needed tenure track lines.
What all this tells the university community and the public at large, once again, is how much budget numbers are massaged to attain certain goals, such as "rightsizing" the institution -- newspeak for firing as many people as possible in the lower ranks to keep everybody in fear and preemptive obedience, while leaving the highest ranks completely untouched and adorning them with bonuses for their henchman work.
You may believe that you're giving the OU community a nice, generous farewell gift with this refund as you are renouncing your presidential throne. Be assured that instead, this will be just another reminder of the dysfunctional and misguided corporate leadership we have been enduring at OU for too long.
I love teaching and mentoring students, I love my work. Yet, never in my 21 years as an OU employee have I been as disappointed in this institution and its leadership as throughout this past year. Today just added another painful wrinkle to it.
Sincerely,
Bernhard Debatin, Professor of Journalism
Note: This letter was lightly edited for spelling, grammar and the correct link to Duane Nellis’s message.
