To: All UTK Faculty From: Louis Gross, Faculty Senate President RE: UT Priorities and Encouraging Support from the Legislature Date: February 26, 2007 As part of President Petersen's efforts to encourage additional State support of University initiatives, a holistic approach has been developed to incorporate the assistance of numerous interested constituents. This includes connections with alumni and friends of UT, and for the first time in my almost 3 decades at UT, includes faculty and staff. As faculty, we are in a unique position to be able to point out the benefits of higher education in terms of providing the State with a more educated and skilled workforce, developing research as a major economic driver, and providing a more enlightened citizenry. This is to encourage you to assist the efforts of the Government Relations staff of UT in several ways, particularly over the next few months as the Tennessee Legislature decides on budgetary priorities. First, become familiar with the major initiatives included in UT's requests for additional funding. Many of these directly impact UTK including: 1. Increased operational funding - to increase the base operating budget without having to rely so heavily on tuition increases 2. Faculty and staff compensation - a requested 5% increase in the total salary pool for faculty and staff, in addition to any cost-of-living increase. 3. Funding for a new UTK Music Center and to initiate development of a research campus on the Cherokee Farm location across Ft. Loudon Lake from UTK. Second, encourage your friends and neighbors to support UT by pointing out the benefits to the State from a higher education system that incorporates opportunities at all levels, including the research and land-grant mission of UTK. Third, make sure your State representatives know how important continuing and increased State support for UT is to you and your families. Remember that the State is not obligated to support higher education (and indeed Tennessee provides a considerably higher fraction of UT's operating budget than many other states provide their higher education systems) so be gracious about prior support while encouraging additional support for the initiatives above. Contact information for legislators is at http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/ Now that the Governor's proposed budget has been issued, it is particularly important that we all do what we can to encourage legislative support of what we each consider best for UT and education in Tennessee. A summary of the Governor's budget request, which does not include funds for all the initiatives mentioned above, is included in a memo from Hank Dye, UT Vice President Public and Government Relations, posted at http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/facsenate/hank.dye.budget.txt Note in particular that the proposed budget does not come close to requesting the level of funding for faculty and staff salaries that President Petersen proposed. A variety of data and comparisons between UTK faculty compensation and that of various peer groups is available on the Faculty Senate page and I refer you specifically to the salary compression data available at http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/facsenate/compression.salaries.txt Thank you for all you do to enhance education in the State and build a more beneficial fUTure for all Tennesseans. Cheers, Louis J. Gross Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics Director, The Institute for Environmental Modeling President, UTK Faculty Senate http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/facpres.html