Few New Jersey residents probably know that Rutgers University and the American Association of University Professors are involved in a nasty fight with uncertain outcomes for the university.

The immediate backdrop is the economic crisis and the state’s deepening financial difficulties. Rutgers is a state school, and the state’s economic woes have also affected the university.

On July 22, Rutgers’ president, Richard McCormick, and its executive vice president for academic affairs, Philip Furmanski, informed the university that “the Rutgers Board of Governors approved … an austerity budget predicated on drastic cuts in our state appropriation. … One action we took to help bring our budget into balance, minimize damage to our critical programs and services and save jobs, was to freeze all salaries.”

What probably riled the AAUP more than the salary freeze was that McCormick and Furmanski also said that “some of the unions are issuing public statements that are simply not factually correct,” effectively accusing the AAUP of lying.

AAUP President Adrienne Eaton and four of her colleagues fired off a strongly worded response on July 27, in which they accused the university administration of violating memoranda of agreement signed with the AAUP in 2009.

To McCormick and Furmanski’s claim that “the unions are charging us with hiding our great ‘wealth,’ ” Eaton retorted: “Then show us the books.”

Who’s right and who’s wrong?

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter, since the administration has lost the trust of its own professors, who routinely perceive it as incompetent, venal and corrupt.

Read the full article at http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2010/08/rutgers_universitys_administra.html
Published: Wednesday, August 11, 2010, 6:27 AM
Star-Ledger Guest Columnist
By Alexander J. Motyl