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Mass. State College Association members picket Board of Higher

About 50 members of the Massachusetts State College Association picketed the Board of Higher Education meeting at Framingham State College, June 15, to protest stalled contract talks.

In a statement to the Board, MSCA President Patricia Markunas called the BHE offer of 3 percent over four years "insulting."

"Your economic offer demonstrates, once again, your failure to advocate on behalf of our work with the students of the Commonwealth," she said.

A contingent from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy was also present to urge the BHE not to approve a plan to make the Academy a special mission college. An MMA faculty vote, June 8, had unanimously opposed the plan.

MSCA/MMA Chapter President C.J. O'Donnell told the BHE that the plan, revised from an earlier draft, was presented to him less than two weeks before, and "there was no time to prepare a comprehensive, detailed response, eliciting our concerns and objections."

"It is the faculty's belief," O'Donnell added, "that the release of the final proposal was timed in order to limit the ability of the faculty, staff and student body to either comment on or raise objections to it."

O'Donnell cited several objections to the plan: student costs projected to rise 20 percent over five years; student access limited by increased admissions standards; a reduction in administrative accountability with the removal of BHE oversight; and concerns that the school would be removed from the state college system and, thus, the faculty would be removed from their collective bargaining unit.
O'Donnell also rejected the "Mass. Art model" for the Academy.

"Mass. Maritime … is nothing like Mass. Art," he said. "Neither resembles the other. Mass. Art's peer institutions are private institutions with large endowments, whereas Mass. Maritime's peer institutions are state or federally funded institutions."

O'Donnell further noted that Mass. Art received its special designation only after its faculty and college community were fully included in the decision-making process. "This was not the case at Mass. Maritime," he said.

Despite O'Donnell's plea, the BHE voted in favor of the plan and will now ask the Legislature to authorize tuition retention at the school to help pay for provisions of the plan.