Original pdf document HERE.

 

 

LET’S GET REAL!

 

On Wednesday, April 22, Espi Sanjana, Chief Operating Office and Chief Financial Officer of SFAI circulated a letter to the SFAI community that contained many statements that we know to be misrepresentations of the facts.

As Dean Enwezor said upon his appointment at SFAI in 2004, …”good education proceeds from an assumption that the quest to learn is the quest for truth.”   source:  www.sfai.edu/news

 

Similarly, because the Faculty  agrees that the supreme professional ethic in academia is TRUTH,  let’s review some facts.

 

1.  CONCESSIONS BY THE FACULTY

Mr. Sanjana states “that the faculty union refused to accept temporary across-the-board pay cuts that were initially proposed by SFAI as a way to fairly accommodate the effects of the financial crisis.”

This statement contradicts his own memo of April 17 to which he attached the last Faculty proposal.  That March 23rd  proposal reveals that the Faculty offered pay cuts of between 3% and 9% to the salaries of faculty earning $53,000 and more. These voluntary reductions and others  offered by the Faculty Union in that proposal would achieve savings for SFAI totaling more than

                 $485,000.

 

The Administration offered  the Faculty  N O T H I N G   in return—and rejected the Union’s request to rescind the layoffs or to extend the contract three years beyond 2010. 

 

•    THERE HAS BEEN NO AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE FACULTY UNION AND THE ADMINISTRATION TO DATE.

At best these shortsighted actions  could be ascribed to those  “budget balancers with blinders” that  AAUP General Secretary, Gary Rhoades has  identified in academia.  However, the Administration’s unwillingness to bargain in good faith leads the Faculty to conclude that the Administration is primarily interested in expelling faculty whom the Administration has selected according to criteria not yet revealed to the Faculty, the students, or the public. 

 

2.  MEDICAL BENEFITS

As most tenured or tenure-track faculty know too well, Mr. Sanjana is mistaken when he states that SFAI covers “the total [medical insurance] cost of each tenured or tenure-track faculty member.”  In fact, SFAI pays the total medical insurance costs for only the (3) three faculty members who have selected the Kaiser Plan with the lowest benefits.  Twenty-six (26)  faculty contribute from  $ 336   to $ 8,433   annually for their medical insurance, depending on their choice of plan and dependent’s coverage. Nine faculty do not carry  medical insurance  through SFAI and cost the school nothing.

Mr. Sanjana also neglected to mention that the Administration planned  to suddenly eliminate medical benefits on February 1  for all faculty teaching fewer than 4.5 contract units (classes).  The Faculty Union fought back against these cuts that would have unexpectedly left (3)  three tenured faculty members without medical insurance, and the administration ultimately backed down under this pressure.

 

3.  CONTRIBUTIONS [OR LACK THEREOF] TO RETIREMENT

    The picture of SFAI’S contributions to its faculty’s retirement accounts has not been as pretty as Mr. Sanjana paints it.  While he boasts that SFAI increased its contributions from 0%  to 8% since 2003 ,the language of the Union contracts states otherwise.

Before 2003, SFAI contributed 5% to Faculty Retirement Accounts but in 2003 the Administration reduced their contributions to 2%.     In 2005 the Institute eliminated its contributions to Faculty Retirement Accounts entirely unless the Faculty also contributed.

According to the American Association of University Professors 2008 Survey, the average institutional contribution to Faculty Retirement Accounts at independent  private colleges was 9.1%.

 

Mr. Sanjana’s brief time at the Institute does not afford him the  historical perspective  of the tenured faculty.   Long-serving faculty’s retirement accounts have languished below their targets for years before the global financial downturn in part, because the Administration raided The MacMillan Faculty Retirement Endowment in 1986 and directed monies intended for faculty retirement to pay the operating expenses for the school at that time. 

Now, the freeze on the Institute’s contributions into Faculty Retirement Accounts since October will have more dire effects than normal,  because today’s incoming investment dollars have their greatest purchasing power in a depressed stock and bond market.  Contributions made now would have greater-than-normal capacity for growth and future increases to Faculty Retirement Accounts.  So these losses are irretrievable.

The Institute’s matching contributions to Faculty Retirement Accounts add up to $130,000 annually according to the Institute’s own figures.   Given the Institute’s projected  $1.4 million dollar surplus this year, why doesn’t the Institute demonstrate the “ongoing investment in its faculty” cited by Mr. Sanjana by contributing to Faculty Retirement Accounts at the rate required by the current Faculty Union contract? [ According to the CBA, SFAI will contribute 2% more than the faculty contribution up to 8% of salary]

 

4.  FACULTY COMPENSATION

•    Based on information available to the Faculty Union, the average SFAI tenured faculty earned a paltry $49,626 at the start of this fiscal year. 

 

•    After factoring in the 8.3% pay reduction because of the unpaid furlough in December/January, that figure dropped to $45,507.

 

•     Let’s place SFAI faculty salaries in a local perspective. According to the Mayor’s Office of Housing, the median income of an individual in San Francisco is $66,000.  About 76% of tenured faculty at SFAI earn less than the SF median income. This condition qualifies most faculty for housing subsidies and for below-market housing in San Francisco; in other words, for public assistance. 

 

•    In 2004, the last year for which we have figures for CCA, the average of all faculty salaries at CCA was $58,129,50.

 

•    In 2004, the average faculty salary at SFAI was $48,640.

    Today, five years later, the average faculty salary at SFAI ($45,507) is  6.4% lower than it was in 2004 and 22% lower than the average of all faculty salaries at CCA in 2004.

 

    Furthermore, SFAI faculty work more for less pay than CCA faculty. The maximum and full-time teaching load at CCA is 5 classes per year compared to our 6, for which we are compensated at least $10,000 less on average.

 

•    Here’s another way to look at these figures:  President Bratton has described the families of SFAI students as being of “modest means”— with incomes about equal to the median income in San Francisco (in the mid-$60 thousands).   By comparison, the average tenured faculty member at SFAI now earns  31% less than the amount that the President described as the “modest” income of the family of the typical SFAI student.

 

•    Everyone knows that it costs more to live in the SF Bay Area than in places like Chicago -- home of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in Minneapolis-St. Paul -- home of Minneapolis College of Art and Design,  or in Providence, Rhode Island, home of the Rhode Island School of Design. 

 

 HOW MUCH MORE DOES IT COST TO LIVE IN THE BAY AREA?  

 

•    The cost of living in the San Francisco metro area is 35% higher than in the Chicago and Minneapolis metro areas and 28% higher than the Providence metro areas, homes to SAIC, MCAD, and RISD, respectively.  

 

•    Mr. Sanjana’s November 18 memo to Faculty and Staff described the President’s salary reduction as a “salary deferral plan.” That means that the President’s  salary is not lost but will be paid back at a later date—another detail that was omitted when he stated the President’s salary figures on April 22.  Also note that the President’s salary of $333,308 represented a 28% increase over the previous year.  It is more than misleading to suggest that a 25% pay deferral means the same thing to an administrator earning hundreds of thousands of dollars  as a 5% pay cut does to a teacher earning less than the median household in San Francisco.  

 

•    While we’re on the subject of Senior Staff Compensation, Mr. Sanjana’s April 22 memo contradicts SFAI’s latest audited report  of it’s financial condition.  Mr. Sanjana said “As to the claim that his home is in Piedmont, President Bratton lives and pays taxes in Oakland.”

 

•     The report of the independent auditors hired by SFAI states that SFAI’s $200,000 residential loan to the President “is secured by a deed of trust on the Piedmont, California property owned by the President of the Institute.”— Almich and Associates, CPAs

 

    Piedmont is a small affluent city in Alameda County, surrounded by the city of Oakland. Piedmont was one of the "25 Top-Earning Towns" in CNN Money Magazine's list of 'The Best Places to Live in 2007, and was also named the "Best Place To Live" in the United States in 2007 by Forbes.  LET’S GET REAL!

 

There remains a sizeable discrepancy between the low-income status of faculty and the dramatic and disproportionate  salary increases that have been given to high-level administrators at the SFAI. 

 

•    While the tenured faculty received between 1.5% and 4.5% salary increases over the past four years, the top 4 administrators received the following salary increases just between 2006 and 2007: (later figures are not available because SFAI didn’t file its Federal 990 forms on time with the IRS)

 

•    President Bratton :         +28%   + $77,475

•    Dean Enwezor:             +15%     + $28,750        

•    Chief Financial Officer:    +7.4%   + $14,163

•    Grad Dean Green:          +25%    + $28,994

•    Perspective:  During the past 5 years, the SF Bay Area cost- of-living increased 17% total—that’s an average of 3.4% per year.

 

5.  LAYOFFS

At the end of Mr. Sanjana’s letter, he implies that faculty become  inconsequential if they are on temporary leave from teaching or teach only one course.  The Faculty member who teaches only one course is the Emeritus Curator at the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts of the Museums of Fine Arts of San Francisco and holds Emeritus Faculty status at SFAI.  He offered unparalleled expertise to his History of Printmaking course for  29 years.  

Furthermore, there is no basis in fact for Mr. Sanjana’s implication that 5 of the 9 laid off faculty are not teaching now. None of the laid off faculty is on sabbatical leave although several have applied for sabbaticals multiple times without success. 

Mr. Sanjana contends that “although visiting faculty could be hired at a lower cost, SFAI has tried to utilize tenured faculty wherever possible.”  The facts again do not support this claim.   The number of Visiting Faculty hired to teach next  Fall at SFAI has not been reduced from the number currently teaching courses this Spring. In contrast, the names of 9 tenured faculty are missing from the Fall course schedule, a reduction of 25%.  

 

    LET’S GET REAL!

 

6.  ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

SFAI’s  administrators purport to endorse  progressive, humane values that condemn economic exploitation and global inequality resulting in further divisions between the rich and poor.  [evidenced in many Walter & McBean Gallery exhibitions such as World Factory and  Jens Haaning, The Diversity Project, etc.]    Consequently, we are baffled by the administration's choice of attorneys Littler, Mendelson for legal representation during contract negotiations.   Littler, Mendelson is a notoriously anti-labor, union-busting firm. 

 

NEED PROOF?

•    Ralph Nader and Wesley Smith write in their book No Contest that "A 1984 AFL-CIO publication states, "Ask any organizer on the West Coast who the biggest and most ruthless union busting law firm is and they'll tell you it is Littler, Mendelson . . .”

 

Take a look at how Littler, Mendelson applauds itself on its web-site:

“Over the last sixty-plus years, we have been business' strongest advocate, curbing union abuse when labor was at its height, and now, standing with employers as they face the onslaughts of governmental regulation, an aggressive plaintiffs' bar and a resurgent labor movement”.

This firm has based its reputation on carrying out negotiations at worksites that have led to management's closing plants and destroying lives at no cost to the corporation. source:   http://www.littler.com/AboutLittler/Pages/FirmHistory.aspx

 

Think Globally, Act Locally?

 

7.  INVESTMENT IN FACULTY

•    Mr. Sanjana contends that an examination of  faculty “tenure” and teaching loads proves SFAI’s investment in faculty. 

 Here’s an historical perspective that the Faculty believe illustrates “budgeting with blinders on:”

 

•    When President Bratton arrived at SFAI, his plan, as revealed in the 2005 negotiations with the Union, was to create a two-tiered faculty  system.  He first offered tenure tracks only to new hires while most of the rest of the faculty were to remain as “Resident Faculty” with NO JOB SECURITY.  Then when the union vigorously resisted this plan, he proposed to deny tenure to any faculty at steps 1 and 2 on the salary scale– without regard for the talents, accomplishments, and service of those dedicated faculty.

 

•     The current compromise “tenure” system, wherein only 16 faculty are guaranteed 6 courses per year was reached after protracted negotiations between the President and the Faculty Union that lasted most of the summer of 2005.   In the current system, SFAI guarantees 18 so-called “tenured” faculty a “variable guarantee” of only  1 to 4.5 courses per year (mostly 3 courses) . 

 

•    Providing an equitable guaranteed load would give true meaning to tenure  that would provide better job security (at least on paper),  protect academic freedom and provide a livable wage. Instead, Faculty work under “part-time” tenure which might be thought of as “unlivable for eternity,” especially in the very pricey Bay Area.   LET’S GET REAL!

 

As Cary Nelson, President of the American Association of University Professors states in the current issue of Academe,

“ As long as the worldwide recession continues, many institutions will face a fundamental choice—whether to exacerbate or ameliorate the problem of unfair pay schedules and working conditions.  Should campuses now reap the fruits of gradually enhanced exploitation or take this crisis as an opportunity to address them? 

  A first step might be to decide that no one earning less than $70,000 will suffer furloughs, payless work days or salary cuts…Some institutions might be able to survive with fewer administrators…Better deferred income than furloughs… [This] can be an opportunity to create a true community where none currently exists.”

 

 

---Faculty Union of the San Francisco Art Institute

May 6, 2009

 

 

<The above letter was drafted in response to COO Espi Sanjana's letter to the SFAI community.  No part has been altered or omitted.  Please feel free to contact the administrator of this page with any further questions or concerns regarding the contents.>