OtherWise Philosophy

Three Western Michigan University unions issue historic joint No Confidence Resolution

In a dramatic expression of long-term dissatisfaction and concern, all three of Western Michigan University’s academic labor unions—WMU-TAU (teaching assistants), WMU-PIO (part-time instructors), and WMU-AAUP (Board-appointed faculty)—all members of the AFT—have voted No Confidence in WMU President Montgomery. The resolution cites numerous failures to responsibly steward the university, including “insufficient investment in teaching assistants, professors, and instructors,” “anti-union” tactics, and indifference to long standing employee concerns. “Western needs to turn things around quickly to become a great place to learn and work, and we’re trying to focus attention on that,” said PIO President Tim Bober. It’s a point echoed by TAU President Thomas Fisher: “The university is at a crossroads. It has to decide if it’s going to keep chasing away instructors and students or start investing in them again.” 

While the violations identified in the resolution are longstanding, the timing of this vote, amid protracted, controversial salary negotiations between WMU and the faculty is not an accident. “The University is going through the motions of negotiating raises right now, but it’s clear they’re trying to force us into accepting a low offer,” explained WMU-AAUP President Cathryn Bailey. Although the Administration is contractually obligated to continue to negotiate past the lapsed August 30 deadline, they are “stonewalling and foot dragging,” she said, adding that “the low compensation offer is symptomatic of the Administration’s ongoing, long term disinvestment in academics.” The No Confidence resolution comes amid numerous other WMU-AAUP labor actions, including various demonstrations and ongoing consideration of a faculty strike. That the Administration is “bending over backwards” to try to force the faculty to accept “the lowest raise it thinks it can get away with” at the same time it “crows about” enrollment increases shows the value it places on faculty, Bailey said. 

There is another interesting aspect of the timing surrounding the No Confidence resolution, according to WMU’s three academic labor presidents. When these three labor leaders agreed to ask their members to participate in a Vote of No Confidence in the university’s president, they did so, they said, fully expecting the Administration to try to minimize the action. So, when WMU President Montgomery announced last week— on the same morning the vote was to be sent to many members—his plan to retire next June, “we laughed,” says Fisher. He added that “they [the Administration] knew this vote was coming and, rather than just actually acknowledge and address the problems, once again they’re looking for a way to avoid them.” 

Bober agreed, explaining that “the Administration would love nothing more than to distract people from the really serious problems the resolution identifies by pretending that this is all about one guy [President Montgomery].” And while these three labor presidents agree that President Montgomery has been instrumental in developing and implementing the university’s failed practices and policies, he is merely a symbol of the leadership’s failure as a whole, according to Bailey, Bober, and Fisher. To underscore the point, Bailey noted that a number of her colleagues suggested that the No Confidence resolution focus on WMU’s Board of Trustees rather than President Montgomery since they are responsible for overseeing the WMU president. 

And, in fact, the role of the Board of Trustees is a sore spot for many of WMU’s academic employees, given that they have consistently continued to authorize compensation increases for Montgomery during the past seven years and also to publicly praise his performance. In fact, just one day after Western’s faculty overwhelmingly voted No Confidence in Montgomery in 2021, the Board approved a $75,000 bonus for him. “If the Board has been paying any attention at all to our concerns, we have no evidence for it,” says Bober. He added that “All we ever hear from them is what a great job the Administration is doing.” Fisher agreed, noting that [this No Confidence Resolution] should “serve as a road map” for any future WMU administrators the Board chooses to hire and empower. “Regardless of the fact that he’s retiring, we expect the Board to make sure Montgomery spends every single day of his nine remaining months fixing the problems identified in this resolution and to use it [No Confidence Resolution] as a standard for future presidents to uphold,” Fisher says. 

Below is the full text of the No Confidence Resolution, officially issued today, September 20, 2024

Be it resolved that Western Michigan University’s three academic unions stand united in expressing that our memberships—separately and combined—have No Confidence in President Edward Montgomery. The WMU-Professional Instructors Organization, the WMU-Teaching Assistants Union, and the WMU-American Association of University Professors issue this resolution for reasons including but not limited to the following:

  • a failure to responsibly steward WMU’s core academic mission, as evidenced, in part, by chronically insufficient investment in teaching assistants, professors, and instructors 
  • a failure to responsibly administer academic labor relations, as evidenced, in part, by the president’s use of an aggressively anti-union law firm, his failure to appoint an appropriate Director of Academic Labor Relations Director, and an unacceptable number of contractual and labor law violations by WMU which have lead to grievances, arbitrations and unfair labor practices complaints
  • a chronic failure to be responsive to reasonable employee concerns that have long suggested a crisis of morale at WMU, resulting in premature resignations and retirements, job dissatisfaction, and an inability to attract and retain new employees

Action update: All WMU-AAUP members and allies are urged to attend next week’s Board of Trustees meeting (Thurs., Sept 26) scheduled to begin at noon in the Student Center. Please wear your WMU-AAUP t-shirt if you’ve got one or a black shirt if you don’t. 

OtherWise Philosophy

Commencement at WMU: Part celebration and part administrative performance

A message from WMU-AAUP President Dr. Cathryn Bailey

For university employees, graduation season can be one of the most meaningful times of the year. Many of us have worked closely with these students, sometimes for years, and so we often share directly in their relief, joy, and pride as they prepare to claim their degrees. But commencement day itself is also part of the big business of higher education, with meticulously choreographed and precisely scripted ceremonies aimed at portraying the institution in the best possible light. Commencement is not just a celebration; it is also meant to attract new students and to provide public reassurance that, in an increasingly cutthroat enrollment environment, Western Michigan University is well-led and well run, that it can be counted upon to fulfill the promises its administrators make to students and their families.

When pressure is put on faculty and staff to directly participate in the pomp and circumstances of commencement, it’s usually implied that this is a responsibility we owe to our students and institution. The suggestion is that, regardless of the problems we may be dealing with as employees, on this special day, we should enthusiastically line up behind the president, vice presidents, provost, vice provosts and other dignitaries. A failure to join in the pageantry may even be criticized by administrators as an act of disloyalty to Western. This is not surprising, as university administrations depend upon an enthusiastic show of campus support on commencement day to lend credibility to their own leadership. Regardless of how chronically overworked, disrespected, ignored or trivialized they may feel, then, the assumption often is that it is employees’ duty to shine their shoes and help fill out the performative tableau of the university as one big happy family.

It surely makes sense that for some employees and students, feelings about commencement may be especially complicated, especially when serious campus problems have gone unaddressed by the Administration for years, problems that ultimately impact our students and their families most of all. It can feel false and hypocritical to repeatedly participate in the ceremonial performance of responsive and effective leadership when the day-to-day reality often tells a different story. Certainly, some employees may feel as if their role in students’ academic success is recognized by the administration only from the commencement stage. When the president asks the faculty to stand to be acknowledged by the audience, for instance, it can feel genuinely moving. But as soon as the lights go down, it’s back to business as usual, a sobering reality in which some of the most frequent faculty inquiries to the WMU-AAUP these days are from faculty who want to resign their positions.

As someone who’s been attending commencement ceremonies off and on now for about 35 years, I can personally attest to my increasingly mixed feelings when I am invited to share the stage with university administrators, ostensibly to show support for our students and our university, but, evidently, also to serve as a tacit endorsement of their leadership. And, frankly, for the past several years in particular, my joy for successful students and colleagues has become increasingly tinged with sorrow for those who, due to chronic, preventable and predictable leadership failures, are not here.

At this joyful time, then, I grieve for the students who:

• transferred out after one semester or one year because precipitous and unnecessary staffing cuts to advising, financial aid, counseling and other key offices left them feeling underserved

• dropped out because increasingly overworked faculty, teaching assistants, and part-time instructors were challenged to provide these students with the close scholarly collaboration for which they had initially chosen our “student-centered research-intensive university” over competitors

• left because, as BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ individuals, they had begun to feel doubt about WMU’s ongoing commitment to their academic success and well-being

• never matriculated at Western in the first place because of ineffective top-down branding schemes, uncompetitive graduate student funding, or admissions delays due, again, to preventable staffing shortages

And I grieve for the faculty and staff colleagues who:

• have resigned or prematurely retired because shortsighted, unnecessary budget cuts have made it impossible for them to care for themselves and their own families while continuing to serve students to their full potential

• have resigned or prematurely retired because they have been on the receiving end of unskillful or unethical administrative interventions, including top-down program changes and inappropriate disciplinary actions

• have resigned or prematurely retired because they lost hope in the administration’s desire or ability to heal our university’s well-documented morale crisis, especially in the wake of the Vote of No Confidence

• feel so estranged and alienated as a result of some of the university’s priorities, policies, and practices — including some related to the “new” SRM budget model — that they feel less able to participate in our university’s public celebrations

These are just a few examples of students, faculty, and staff who will not be attending commencement. They will not tear up at the video montage of family tributes to our lovely students. They will not laugh at the president’s corny jokes or totter proudly across the stage in impossibly high heels to claim their diplomas. They will not mingle with joyful friends or colleagues before and after the ceremony on the sunny Miller plaza.

As our great, but troubled university publicly performs a celebration for those whose hard work and good fortune propelled them to the finish line, who will stand in solidarity with these ghosts and shadows of absent colleagues and students? And if this administration cannot be persuaded to take decisive and substantive action to heal and repair our university after the stage has emptied and the regalia has been stowed away, who will be left to fill the auditorium next year and the year after that?