On Tuesday, December 16, at least 80 members of the RPI community were informed that they were being laid off, effective immediately. Many of these people had a direct impact on the student experience here at RPI. Some of them taught your professional development classes. Some of them helped you prepare your résumé or ace that interview. Some of them helped out with your financial aid questions. These people were thrown into a barren job market, just in time for the holiday season, with only a few days notice that layoffs would even occur.
At the same time, in a recent report from the Chronicle of Higher Education and repeated in The Polytechnic, it was revealed that President Shirley Ann Jackson is the fifth highest-paid president of any private university in the country, with a compensation package of approximately $1.3 million dollars. RPI’s endowment, on the other hand, was ranked 92nd in 2007. The Institute continues to maintain such non-necessities as a $450,000 vacation home in the Adirondacks. After the release of the Chronicle of Higher Education report on presidential compensation for 2008, several highly paid presidents of other schools reduced their compensation, either by publicly renouncing parts of it or reinvesting it in their respective universities. Jackson was not among them.
We, as stakeholders in the health of the Institute, need to take a critical eye to its current fiscal situation. How did we go from having a weekend of lavish parties in celebration of the opening of a new building to throwing 80 people out in the cold? Was this truly the only way to protect the Institute from harm? Why do we not see the highest-compensated members of the Institute agreeing to take cuts, such that in reducing their luxuries they may maintain the livelihood of others? As a community, we need to see to it that all members are treated fairly. As paying customers, we need to realize that every action impacts our education, and to do anything less than demand the best would be a disservice to ourselves and to our investment in our future.
Furthermore, we as students need to realize that we are placed in a special situation. We are not only stakeholders here and present on the campus, but we are afforded a certain level of protection. We have the freedom to question the Institute. Other members of our community directly affected by the situation, notably the staff and to some extent the faculty, do not have that freedom. Rather, they fear that speaking out will put them at the top of the list for another round of layoffs. As members of the larger community that makes up this Institute, we are given a responsibility. We need to use our privilege to ask the questions others fear to ask. Therefore, I call on all students here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to stand up and ask the administration to show its cards. We want answers, and we deserve them.
Brian Donlan
ESCE ’10
