A presidential and administrative pay cut could save lower-paid jobs at UK
As foreshadowed by UK President Eli Capilouto in an institution-wide email on April 17, the University of Kentucky has begun to implement austerity measures to address the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Few would envy those in a leadership role during this time of tribulation, especially those who need to decide what (or whom) to cast aside as ballast to keep their institutions afloat. However, the “fiscal challenges” which the president referred to will have very different impacts across the university, depending on whether one belongs to his own comfortable professional-managerial class (the administrators who refuse to take pay cuts) or to the precarious working class consisting of many students, faculty, and staff who are “anxious about their economic standing.”
The president noted, “As we make budget reductions, we must position UK to thrive when we emerge from this crisis.” The question underlying the nature of our post-crisis re-emergence is: who exactly is UK? Who gets to remain a part of the university “community”? And, more importantly, who does not? Who will instead get cut loose to navigate the labor market amidst what is looking more and more like another Great Depression? Only the barest amount of cynicism is required to understand that “budget reductions” primarily refers to “layoffs,” which in turn really means depriving living human beings of their means of survival. (It is unfortunate that the president cannot be this straightforward, given that he has vowed to “communicate with the campus clearly and transparently”).
President Capilouto went on to lament: “Our income from investments – like your savings – has declined significantly as the markets continue a roller-coaster ride.” At best, this second-person aside deliberately excludes the thousands upon thousands of UK campus workers who don’t have even $400 in their savings account, let alone any investments (whatever their worth). And at worst, this statement compares the plight of these workers (who have likely already exhausted those meager savings on a few grocery runs) to that of an institution boasting a $1.5 billion endowment. While the financial well-being of all campus workers undoubtedly depends upon that of the university (especially because of how thoroughly capitalism has privatized higher education), it is obnoxious for a rich executive to equate these economic struggles.
Just two years ago, President Capilouto received $1.5 million from his role at UK, making him the “the fourth highest-paid college president in the country.” If the president would voluntarily cut his own income to even $500,000 (still an astronomical sum for most workers), our campus community could use the extra million dollars to save the jobs (excluding payroll taxes) of some of our most vulnerable members:
- 27 administrative assistants (working full-time for $37,000 per year), or
- 40 custodians (working full-time for $25,000 per year), or
- 50 cafeteria workers (working full-time for $20,000 per school year), or
- 62 graduate teaching assistants (working half-time for $16,000 per school year)
If the elites who govern the university refuse to self-sacrificially do their part to keep our university unified, then I suggest that they kindly stop using empty rhetoric purporting to care about the “health, safety and well-being of our campus community.” And if President Capilouto wants to enjoy a true feeling of community in the time of quarantine (which is economically impossible for him to share with the university’s working class), then perhaps he should contact other wealthy administrators to likewise unburden themselves of their embarrassing riches in a time of neighborly need. This is the moment for them to prove their worth to the rest of us.
Drew Van’t Land is a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of Kentucky.