Wesleyan’s contracted endowment prompted the Board of Trustees not only to vote to freeze faculty and staff salaries for this year, but to consider extending the salary freeze for a second year.
Since faculty were angered by the original decision of a salary freeze, we are pleased to hear that they, for the most part, have been more accepting of the decision to extend the salary freeze for a second year. In fact, senior faculty have stressed that they are willing to sacrifice their wealth in order to protect colleagues with lower salaries while helping Wesleyan reduce its debt. Michael Roth has also been cooperative. Last year, he did not get a pay increase or receive a bonus, and his salary has also been frozen.
As encouraging as it is that faculty have been so cooperative, the salary freeze is merely a long-term solution for solving Wesleyan’s financial troubles. The Board of Trustees will have its November meeting in two weeks, and it is likely that they will discuss whether Wesleyan should remain need-blind. This is not a time for students to be apathetic—it would not be far-fetched for them to vote in favor of abolishing our need-blind status at some point, since this is not the first time the Board of Trustees has considered cutting financial aid in the past.
In the 1980s, the Board of Trustees anticipated a recession and considered eliminating our need-blind status, but they decided not to. In the 1990s, however, they cut financial aid in response to a financial crisis much less dire than Wesleyan’s current troubles. Not only are we facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, but Wesleyan has never had a large endowment—the Board proposed a plan for a five year budget cut before the Stock Market crashed.
In light of this troubling situation, uproar over Roth’s salary is the least of our problems. Vilifying Roth and the administration is not only unjust, since they are graciously accepting salary freezes, but also unproductive: of all the possible results of Wesleyan’s budget cuts, a financial aid reduction would have the largest impact on the student body.
Therefore, let’s direct our energies not on petty arguments about salaries, but on proving to the Board how important Wesleyan’s diverse culture is to its students. Let’s fight to preserve the diversity that has been so crucial to Wesleyan’s identity.
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