Remarks for the Board of Higher Education Meeting
April 9, 2003
One Ashburton Place, Boston

Patricia V. Markunas
President, Massachusetts State College Association

Chairman Tocco, Chancellor Gill, members of the Board, I appreciate the opportunity to address you this morning. I believe that I have some very important things to say to you.

Two years ago this month, I addressed the Board after the long-awaited settlement of our contentious contract negotiations. It was a beautiful spring day at Roxbury Community College, before September 11th, before the Iraqi war. In those remarks, I noted how many people, on both sides of the table, had urged me to "bring the sides together," to heal the divisions that had ruptured during those awful three years. At that meeting, I pledged to all of you and to the college presidents and to the MSCA Board of Directors and to the MSCA membership, that I would play that role; that I would devote my time and energies to restoring good working relationships within the state colleges and with the Board and the Chancellor.

I thought I had achieved, in large part, what so many people on both sides had asked me to do two years ago. I have discovered since the November election that I was wrong. The new administration's reorganization proposals represent nothing less than a comprehensive plan to dismantle the oldest, most historic segment of the public higher education system in Massachusetts, the state colleges, whose faculty and librarians I represent as union president.

The new administration and the Bain consultants excluded the unions, faculty and librarians, and nearly everyone else in higher education from the research conducted to generate the Bain Report on Cheapest Demonstrated Practices. I found out the details about reorganization from an article in the Boston Herald. I heard Peter Nessen insist on February 27th that the system is not broken but a mere three weeks later, I read in the Boston Globe that the system is badly, badly broken and, indeed, out of control.

When the Bain Reports were finally made public, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, my colleagues and I were shocked to discover that, despite denials from the Chancellor and others, there was a list of four colleges slated to be closed. Four state colleges. And only state colleges.

The two state colleges that are most successful by the very performance measures that the Board of Higher Education proposes to make the basis for the allocation of state appropriations Mass Art and Mass Maritime are slated to have their state support withdrawn and must become self-supporting. Privatized, in the words of the Lt. Governor. Niche schools, not important to the economy of Massachusetts, in the words of the Governor. Four more years of state support and then they become free-standing, in the words of Peter Nessen at the last BHE meeting. I have yet to hear a public retraction from either the Lt. Governor or the Governor about their intent to remove these institutions from public support.

On March 20th, a friend called to say that he heard that the governor's reorganization legislation would include a provision to remove the Board of Higher Education as the employer for all unionized employees at Mass Maritime and Mass Art, and that local boards of trustees would be substituted as the employer. For these faculty and librarians, this could mean a disruption in their relationship with the MSCA and their rights under the collective bargaining agreement.

On April 1st, I acquired a copy of an excerpt of the Governor's proposed legislation. My friend was correct, the employment relationship of Mass Art and Mass Maritime with the Board of Higher Education is to be severed. In a conversation with the Chancellor this past Sunday, she told me that the six colleges to be consolidated will also have their employment relationship with the BHE terminated. The result: four state colleges, four community colleges and UMass-Amherst could lose affiliation with their statewide unions and their collective bargaining rights. The Bain Report's recommendations to close or privatize these institutions will be so, so much easier to accomplish, and the plan to destroy the state college system and break its union will be well underway.

As I have throughout my presidency, I will work with anyone, regardless of politics or what side they are on, to prevent the Governor and his allies from destroying the state colleges. The MSCA leadership has worked over the past two years to strengthen our union and the state colleges, and we will work much, much harder to defeat any proposal or legislation that removes even a single MSCA member from union membership. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind about the seriousness with which the MSCA will take the task of preserving and enhancing our system and the students we so proudly educate.