By Kate Tortolini and Addison Mason 

Photo Credit: Samantha McCandless

“What measures have we taken over the years? Things that were invisible to you,” the President of Roger Williams University, Ioannis Miaoulis, explains. He told the students about the cuts in recent years that affected the non-unionized employees, including losing out on salary raises and reduced retirement benefits. Miaoulis emphasized, “This year we implemented a lot of things that would affect the non-unionized employees, but we decided it’s time now to have everybody share the pay.”

On March 2, Miaoulis visited the Student Senate, where the topic of discussion involved the faculty furlough announced last semester. Miaoulis shared why the furlough was implemented and the thought process behind it before opening the floor to questions from the students in attendance.

The President presented some facts regarding the furlough, informing the room on how other universities are also struggling financially, but RWU has less flexibility.  “We depend primarily on tuition, money that we get from you and your support…So any decline in enrollment significantly affects our income.” Miaoulis continued, “We don’t have the luxury that big universities have to draw some more of the endowment or apply more for research grants.” He also explained the reasoning behind why enrollment is low, highlighting barriers such as the growth of international universities, having fewer students in our region, and how fewer high school graduates go to college.

Miaoulis and his senior administration spent a lot of time figuring out how to handle the budget gap and, to “demonstrate to the board that we are running a solvent operation.” He also mentioned that the furlough was the last step needed to balance the budget. 

“The only solution is to have everybody kind of share the cost of balancing the budget,” he said. “It was to furlough everybody, including me and the administration. Everybody for one week, which is less than 2% of the salary.” He also remarked that faculty members had recently gotten a raise above 2%, “So no one is running out of money this year because of that.”

The cabinet obeyed union rules and alerted them one day before the policy was implemented, after which Miaoulis and his administration received a letter from the unions saying it was unfair and illegal to proceed with this. He informed the audience that he offered to set up a meeting for the following two days and heard nothing in response. “The next thing we knew… the lawyer of the union, the National Educational Association, sent a pretty aggressive message to our lawyer, not to me, to our lawyer, who happened to be traveling.”

The President explained that he was waiting to have a meeting with the union, but they went ahead to say “nasty remarks, lies…about me and the university.” He added that even before the meeting, the faculty and a few staff members organized a protest, and someone sent a letter to The Boston Globe, “embarrassing the university and me, when we hadn’t even talked at all.”

Opening the room to questions, RWU Sophomore Ryan Robertson shared that some professors have been talking about the furlough in their classes and informing their students that his leadership has been called into question. Mialouis touched on how he disapproved of professors using class time to discuss the furlough with their students. “It’s inappropriate for faculty to use classroom time to replace teaching you what they’re supposed to teach you to resolve their personal issues with the administration.” He explained that it was unfortunate that this happened, and that it did not serve anyone any good because he was open to discussion and following the process with the unions. “These are the facts, this is what happened.”

When asked after the meeting, he said that the pay decrease would not cause drastic financial burdens for the employees, as it is not a “dramatic decrease that people would starve or anything.” The President highlighted that he started as an assistant professor, making $36,000 a year, so he understands the economic struggles that come with the job. “I understand that now, for people that really are in financial problems, there is a chance for some faculty because they have personal situations… These things happen.” 

In addition, when asked if he would take a longer furlough, the President sympathized with faculty struggles stating, “if you look at the financial burden on me, it’s proportionate hugely more than 2%. But it’s between me and the board.”
He added that any employee who has a financial need was instructed to get in touch with their superiors and human resources to figure things out. “And we have a lot of ways we could do that. We alleviate the sudden shock, you know, this week you’re not getting money,” said Miaoulis. “I reassure you that for all the faculty or most of the faculty, that’s not an issue.” 

In aid of financial troubles, he stated they have also let a few employees go. “We have reduced the number of employees over the years, but it’s completely proportional instantly to reduce the number of employees,” the President said. The university has the struggle of union obligations and inflexibility to shut down parts of the university where other companies “do that instantly,” according to Miaoulis.

He highlighted that RWU is in good standing and that the university has been fortunate in comparison to other institutions, they are not in a crisis. “We’re not shutting down, we’re not merging with any institutions, we’re still pretty financially […] healthy,” he said. In addition, Miaoulis explained that the reason the university is stable is due to the measures that have been taken over the years.

In terms of next steps, the faculty and the President’s Cabinet planned a mediation, where they will negotiate. “Now part of that mediation that we are doing tomorrow is to open the door to talk to them about these possibilities,” said Miaoulis. “…Which will have an outside mediator…that’s going to hear our sides and help us resolve the issue: that’s happening on Wednesday.”

Editor’s Note: The mediation occurred on Wednesday, March 4th. The Capsized Tribune is aware of the meeting but does not have the details, as it was a closed meeting.