UA faculty need to find solutions soon

Gary Miller stepped up the warnings. The president of the University of Akron argued that if the faculty did not approve a proposed labor contract, “we will unfortunately exhaust our precious reserves as we take many, many months, time we do not have, to fight legal battles.” He added that rejecting the contract would “cause many more faculty to lose their jobs.”

In the end, the faculty voted against ratification, and now both sides wait as the arbitration process unfolds.

Yet there is something they could do that would serve well the university and the community. They could keep talking, working harder to find the compromises necessary to generate sufficient savings.

Recall that the faculty defeated the contract by a relatively narrow margin, 184 opposed to the deal and 159 giving their approval. That suggests room for adjustments, leading to a majority ultimately saying yes.

More, the pieces are there with which to work, including pay cuts and employees picking up a larger share of their health care coverage. If both sides have overreached in attempting to send messages, Miller in his threats, the Faculty Senate in calling for the UA trustees to resign, they also share an understanding: The university must take the difficult steps to shore up its troubled finances, made far worse by the fallout from the novel coronavirus.

True, the university contributed to its problem through the cost of constructing a more campus-like setting.

The oversized football stadium was a glaring error.

Yet much of the building made sense at the time as the university sought to become more appealing to potential students. What’s especially made things tough is the steady decline in state support for higher education, plus changing demographics, fewer young people now of college age.

Those explanations aren’t an invitation to take a pass. UA, crucial to the future of the city and region, must deal with its shortfall.

Already, the matter of how it does so has received national attention, other universities knowing they may face something similar.

Why not, then, show leadership worth emulating by sitting down to work through the impasse? The arbitration centers on whether the contract allows the university in this moment to cite extraordinary circumstances as permitting layoffs without regard to tenure or ranking.

Yet the way to an agreement involves those provisions covering pay, benefits and conditions.

Again, such items are available for the two sides to discuss.

Perhaps it is naïve to think the parties can put hard feelings aside, as each looks to prevail with the arbitrator.

Yet whatever way the ruling falls, the two still must contend with each other for the long term. That is the hard reality, and an additional argument for talking now.

Worth noting is that something else looms.

Remember Eric Fingerhut, the man in charge of higher education under then Gov. Ted Strickland? He brought an important measure of coherence to the university system in Ohio.

He also floated the concept of a University of Northeast Ohio, that is, Kent State, UA and Cleveland State operating essentially as one.

Not surprisingly, the idea met resistance and faded from the scene. Of late, similar speculation has started to surface. Might UA merge with Kent State? Or become part of Ohio State, as in Ohio State at Akron?

What group of UA trustees wants to see such an outcome during its tenure, becoming the answer to the question of who lost the university? That may seem far-fetched.

Yet the problems at the university are serious enough that UA trustees and officials have reason to see the speculation as an incentive to take the lead and get back to negotiation.

Read the Akron Beacon Journal editorial at bit. ly/3jbh7vK

They could keep talking, working harder to find the compromises necessary to generate sufficient savings.