To the editor:

Thank you for your article “Regents OK policy giving CEOs more power over university jobs.”

KU is the only Regents’ institution considering adopting this policy. We are dismayed by this, given how much it could harm KU students and alumni.

The policy flouts national due process norms and employment rights at first rate universities. It therefore threatens KU’s rankings, accreditation and membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU). The policy also appears to conflict with accreditation standards for KU’s schools of Law, Business, Nursing and Medicine, among others. The possibility of losing accreditation at any of these schools should generate alarm well beyond just the immediately affected students and alumni. Such a dynamic runs the risk of setting off a downward spiral of declining prestige, enrollment, tuition revenues and alumni donations.

Faculty and staff didn’t cause the crisis, and cutting their jobs won’t solve it. While in 2009, 47 cents of every tuition dollar went towards faculty salaries, it’s now down to 25 cents. To solve the budget problem, administrators should just look in the mirror. They must consider the tens of millions they spend on “consultants,” luxury travel, debt service on their $1 billion overbuilding spree, their huge in-house law firm and their own payroll. Selling off luxury capital assets, reining in administrative budgets to 2009 levels and restructuring debt will help KU’s financial outlook.

If you would like to help KU’s students and alumni, please contact the Kansas Board of Regents and the KU administration and ask that this disastrous policy be withdrawn.

Ron Barrett-Gonzalez,

Lawrence