Student Influence Declines as University Wealth Balloons
Nelson Wagner '04
Since the early 1990s, many of today’s best private universities have acquired a degree of financial independence and wealth that allows them to expand facilities and faculty at an extremely high rate. So-called “corporate universities,” however, have also shown an increasing propensity to neglect student and faculty concerns when making decisions, a trend that has been well exhibited here at Princeton. The dramatic conclusion of Yale’s labor dispute last month, which held striking similarities to the Princeton workers’ movement in 2001, shows that the price students must pay to influence their university administrations is at an all-time high.
On August 27th, the first day of Yale’s classes this semester, the unions representing the university’s clerical and service workers began a 22-day strike to protest the Yale’s overall compensation plan. One major concern for the workers was the pension system, which would have given a custodian with 30 years of service just $183.99 per month after retirement. The university claimed that its wages were at the “market rate” for the New Haven area. However, unions countered that the university, which accounts for 25 percent of all jobs in the area, all but controls the local market wage. Workers and their supporters also pointed to Yale’s $200 million endowment surplus and recent increases in faculty salaries.
It eventually took the help of a massive coalition of students, faculty, local politicians, and national leaders to successfully pressure the university into an agreement. Two days into the strike, a march in support of the workers attracted 1,500 participants. Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Rev. Jesse Jackson, dozens of Yale professors, and hundreds of students participated. Rev. Jackson was the first of 36 protesters to be arrested for blocking traffic.
Due in a large part to heavy media attention, the unions and Yale reached an agreement last month that provided clerical and technical workers with an immediate 9.2 percent raise and service workers an immediate 6.6 percent raise. Pensions increased considerably, especially for the lowest-paid employees.
The size and intensity of Yale’s pro-labor movement was reminiscent of Princeton’s own labor dispute, which reached its peak during the 2000-2001 school year. During this period, the Worker’s Right to Organize Committee (WROC) spoke out against the university’s labor policies regarding wages, health benefits, and the use of casual workers (casual workers are workers hired for a finite period of time and usually given no benefits). During their campaign, which had its most widespread support during the spring of 2001, the WROC widely publicized the university’s use of outsourcing, ever-increasing endowment surplus, and failure to adjust wages adequately for cost of living increases.
Like the Yale campaign, the WROC required a huge coalition to accomplish its mission. At its apex, the organization could count 90 faculty members, 359 students, 23 student organizations, five state-level politicians, and much of the USG among its ranks. The WROC’s campaign put pressure on the university administration through campus media, mass emails, and several large protests. By the fall of 2002, the campaign had achieved many of its initial goals. As one of his final acts as president, President Shapiro spent the remainder of his discretionary fund (about $450,000) on pay increases for Princeton’s lowest-paid employees. President Tilghman continued the reforms by curtailing the use of casual workers and increasing the wages of all Princeton employees to the market wage or higher.
Due to the initial intransigence of the administration, the WROC’s campaign caused considerable harm to the relationship between the administration and students. So although initial demands were eventually met, the WROC’s campaign was extremely costly. Current WROC leader Bright Limm ’03 told the Idealistic Nation this week that the level of publicity required for the WROC campaign to succeed placed a huge strain on the student-administration relationship: “In order to get the university to address the WROC’s concerns, it was necessary that the WROC embarrass the university in articles and protests; this contributed to the breakdown in dialogue that we saw during and after the campaign.” When a huge, public campaign is needed to successfully voice student concerns, strains on the student-administration relationship are inevitable.
The breakdown in dialogue caused by such an adversarial student-administration relationship continue to harm the atmosphere of learning at Princeton. The resistance of university administration to student concerns was highlighted last spring in the debate over the athletic moratorium (a new Ivy-League rule that effectively forces all athletes to take a 7-week break from their sport each year). The rule was opposed by the Ivy League Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, the USG, and a large percentage of both athletes and non-athletes on campus. The administration gave only token attention the students’ concerns, consistently supporting the rule as proposed and refusing to push for relaxed or even better-tailored regulation. The absence of real dialogue between students and administration during the debate over the moratorium was a sad reminder that Princeton has come a long way from our tradition of student autonomy.
The Princeton honor code, focus on academic independent work, and collection of student agencies serve as constant reminders of the student autonomy that previous administrations helped maintain. This tradition is partly why Princeton is such a great University today. Although administrators and students often had competing goals, an ongoing dialogue between the student body and the administration has traditionally given students a significant role in making decisions that will affect the future of the university.
What is the root cause of the increased administrative resistance towards student concerns? One possible factor leading to administrative unresponsiveness is the increasing financial independence of the university. Princeton’s endowment now totals over $8 billion– which amounts to over $500,000 per student – and the administration relies on tuition for just 27 percent of the University’s annual operating budget. This enormous self-supporting wealth has no doubt contributed to the university’s lack of accountability to students, faculty, and community leaders. Due to the endowment and a huge number of applicants per year, administrative decisions almost never threaten the financial position of the university. Although students form the basis of intellectual life at Princeton, they no longer contribute significantly to the financial stability of the institution; thus, it is much easier to neglect their concerns.
There are, however, many reasons to continue pursuing financial autonomy (while simultaneously increasing the administration’s responsiveness to student concerns). Princeton’s “enviable” financial position (to quote President Tilghman) has created untold opportunities for many undergraduates. Princeton undergrads have access to world-class facilities, faculty, and summer funding opportunities. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that this incredible financial windfall has helped erode Princeton’s tradition of student autonomy and the dialogue between the students and administration.
A lack of student activism on college campuses is often blamed on a general political indifference within the student body. However, this diagnosis should not conceal the fact that a lack of student activism is also a symptom of larger structural problems in universities. If student autonomy and activism is a goal, administrations need to be more accountable to the student body. If students increase the efficiency of their representative bodies, perhaps some of Princeton’s great tradition of student autonomy and self-governance can be restored. The USG should work to increase its genuine influence over the administration so that student concerns will be given real attention by the faculty, instead of token concern. The avenue for doing so may be through the alumni, who have benefited from Princeton’s tradition of student independence and currently hold considerable leverage over the administration. They may be the best resource available for restoring dialogue between students and administration. Without change, Princeton’s student-administration relationship may end up like that of Yale—where it requires a 1,500-person protest, 22-day strike, and appearance by Jesse Jackson to draw a 6.6 percent raise for janitors out of a $200 million budget surplus.
Issues that affect the university will be much better debated in an environment that does not require campus issues to gain national-level media attention before they receive attention from the administration. When students are genuinely represented in administrative decisions, Princetonians will be able to enjoy the benefits of the university’s remarkable financial position without sacrificing the tradition of student autonomy that helped make Princeton a world-class university.