University of Rhode Island - Renaissance / Grist Yearbook (Kingston, RI)

Page 19 text:

Faculty Strike Delays Start Of School Year Pencils and books remained idle as summer vaca- tion melted into the school year. But there were plenty of teachers’ dirty looks for students or anyone else who tried to get on campus for the scheduled first day of classes of the 79-80 school year. URI was in the midst of its first faculty strike. For about two weeks, professors walked the pavement, picket signs held high. They were fed up, they said with myopic management policies and intrangience” of negotiators for the state Board of Regents and the URI administration. They bemoaned fading state support for higher education as they demanded a larger pay raise and more benefits than they had been offered. The Regents, on the other side, shouted treason and called union negotiators unreasonable, stub- born and unwilling to compromise. Demanding an end to the illegal strike, they eventually got an injunction against the picketing professors from Superior Court. Reporters and photographers invaded the campus as the state ' s attention turned to Kingston. Front pages and nightly news broadcasts featured a seemingly endless parade of professors, adminis- trators, regents . . . . . . And, of course, students. They certainly weren ' t forgotten. Throughout the strike, it seemed all parties claimed to have the students’ best interests at heart. The regents claimed their contract offer was an attempt to keep tuition costs down, and faculty union chiefs said the strike was a protest against the ways the system had failed the students as well as themselves. Sometimes, though, it seemed the real students and their feelings and needs were lost to the combatants amid all the rhetoric and progaganda. The students weren’t lost, of course, They knew precisely where they were: In Kingston, in Sep- tember, with no lectures to sit through, no notes to take, no assignments to study. It was fun, for awhile, to have a few extra days of lazy summer. There was time to play softball, basketball, frisbee, football on the quad; lounge in the sun; watch TV; go to Boston, Newport, Block Island, local beaches; meet people in the Pub or at dorm and frat parties; see movies; go camping; sleep late; write home or maybe go home for a visit during the week. It was fun for a while, but then the strike didn’t end. More time passed and it still didn ' t end. Frustration and boredom descended on the cam- pus as the strike wore on, and anger, at the professors, the system, the school, where is this education we’re paying to get, anyway?” Days melted into one another, and after awhile nobody listened when someone said the end was in sight. Then one day negotiations moved to Providence, where the governor and other media- tors pushed both sides to an agreement very early one Thursday morning after a marathon session. Classes would start Monday. The strike was over. But the problems it caused would linger on for the rest of the year. The Faculty Senate stuck two weeks of school into the middle of intercession to make up for the time lost during the strike. Students were un- happy with that. The regents refused to pay faculty members for time lost during the strike. The professors were unhappy with that. They threatened to strike again and took the issue into arbitration. Despite publicity generated by the strike, security problems, a deteriorating library and unsafe labo- ratories, public officials in Providence didn ' t seem any more committed to solving these prob- lems than they had been previously. It was the kind of adversity that tests a communi- ty ' s ability to hold together, to endure. Some say the strike shattered the campus community into several small islands divided by uncrossable oceans. That may, in some cases, be true. But as the year comes to an end it seems the strike helped most people at URI grow, albeit painfully, to a fuller understanding of themselves, their neighbors and the issues that effect everyone on campus. by David Gregorio M m ; 1 J S jy qei 1 jf rSKrl n h H Jm JKti A ■■ It ISJ lV- i w , $ ▼ J Gir I it a i i M . j| aJfPETITION m 4® STOP JHthe strik