As the Carbondale Observer points out, Chancellor Cheng has demonstrated a political tin ear regarding furloughs at the university. Apparently, it takes a few days for the message to sink in as I heard on WSIU this morning she will take 6 days furlough along with President Poshard.
If your ship has sprung a leak and you're the captain, everyone expects you to do what your crew does. A leader goes above and beyond. So far, facing this crisis, her leadership has been a bit lacking.
Her tone-deafness has been apparent to me ever since I read in the DE that SIU is paying her husband Tom Cheng $25000 for his work as a consultant. I understand that in normal times one might expect him to be paid a nominal fee, but these are not normal times. (And even if they were normal times, his wife already makes $300,000; couldn't he just do it as a volunteer?)
ReplyDeleteAs for the Chancellor's initial refusal to take a pay cut, it wouldn't make any difference to SIU's finances, and percentagewise she was taking the same cut as other employees
However, many faculty are paid for nine months, so every day cut takes a bigger bite.
Anyway, even if it makes little difference financially, it makes her look greedy and selfish, especially after U of I administrators took a bigger cut and more recently Poshard has done the same.