Dear Christine,

      This is in response to your last note, that of November 24. As you well know, the conflict between us involves much more than the $2,573.89 I want in addition to the $9,999.91 you offered for my Fall 1997 teaching. Let me summarize our interchange, and then make a few explicit criticisms.

      1) On 8/18 we met. To my request to be paid the same as I had each of the last two academic years for the same work, you responded that a) state law did not permit it, and b) in any case, your pay scale was not based on state law but on the overall teaching responsibility, giving me to understand it would be less than the law allowed. You did not specify the dollar amount that you would offer. I said I would do the teaching, and would contest the pay.

      2) On 9/11 you signed an offer to pay me $9999.91 for the Science for Humane Survival II (SfHS II) course. About a week or so later, in the Dept of Human Resources Office, Betsy Boehne gave it to me to sign. I declined.

      3) On 9/22 I wrote you and Catz a note showing that state law would permit me to receive $12,573.80 for SfHS II that Fall and $6,286.90 for Thermodynamics next Spring, and that at those rates the university would be saving $15,170.85 compared to what it paid me each of the two prior academic years for equivalent work. I stated my rejection of your offer.

      4) On 9/24 you wrote saying the offer to me was based upon two policies that you had established, but providing no precise, detailed information about the policies.

      5) On 9/29 I wrote asking for a copy of each of the policies, and an explanation of the considerations that led to their formulation, and of the procedures that put them into effect. On 10/14 I wrote a note reiterating my request.

      6) In a note mailed 10/17 (dated 10/14) you enclosed a copy of your policy (Sciences Unit of CAS) for paying part-time faculty and said your policy viz a viz retired faculty is not written down. You said the offer to me was generous and expressed the hope that I would understand and accept your reasoning.

      7) On 11/13 I wrote you a somewhat lengthy letter that consisted essentially of two parts. The first part, up to the beginning of the penultimate paragraph on p.2, was an effort to make explicit my difficulty in trying to understand your 10/14 note. In the second part, about two additional pages beginning with "I believe I understand your reasoning on part-time salaries", I argued that my treatment in particular and more critically that of part-timers who are not privileged (as I am) is unethical, and reflects nothing but the institutionalized greed of the administration. I repeated there my question to you, "Don't you think it unconscionable that you get over $100,000 a year while part-timers have to struggle to make ends meet?"

      8) On 11/24 you wrote a brief note. I regard it as unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, which I first list summarily and then explain.
    a) It completely ignored my effort to press for a real dialogue.
    b) It significantly misrepresented what I said.
    c) It continued to withhold requested information.
    d) It simply brandished your hierarchical power.

      a) Instead of offering clarifications of the confusion generated by your 10/14 letter, your response to my 11/13 letter was to make light of it, claiming that my letter was "equally confusing", and that we each knew what the other meant to say. I think there is nothing confusing in the entire second part of my letter. Moreover, if you found the first part confusing, I would be glad to help you understand it, which would not take more than 10, or at most 15 minutes. Its "complexity" is simply a reflection of the difficulty I had trying to understand your 10/14 letter. More substantive to me is the general issue of how part-time faculty are, in my view, grossly mistreated by this supposedly liberal institution. That issue of course dominates the second part of my letter--to which you paid absolutely no attention.

      b) You wrote that you "believe that [you] too have sorted out what [I] meant to say. Which is, that [you are] not willing to pay [me] $18,860.71 for three section equivalents taught during AY98, an amount that [I] believe is [mine] by right since the State will allow [me] to earn that much." This ignores the part of my letter (page 3, paragraph 3) which reads, "Because the contract offered me was only for the Fall term, and because I have since decided not to teach Thermodynamics next Spring, let me focus just on the current term. The difference between what I want (and believe I should be paid, accepting for the moment the unjustly restrictive limit imposed by state law) and what your contract offers is $2,573.89." The amount at issue is not $18,860.71 (for three section equivalents) but $12,573.80 (for two section equivalents). Also, your assertion that I believe I should get it "by right" makes it sound as though I think I have a legal right. My phrase "believe I should be paid", means ought to be, i.e., as a matter of common decency.

      c) I requested a copy of a "policy" which you said you had established, but which was not written down. (see my 11/13 letter, page 1, last paragraph.) You ignored this request.

      d) I know of course that you do not like what I have written. I have done it because I believe that I am saying things that are true, and that ought to be said. It is deeply troubling that there isn't even a pretense of intellectual and ethical engagement on your part, or an effort to be accurate or self-consistent. If I am wrong in any of my assertions, you can make clear my mistakes. But you seem to feel no need to treat as "equals" those who are "inferior" in the hierarchical ladder, which is the essence of an undemocratic organization. Because of the hierarchical structure of the university, administrators such as you are able to--and regularly do--exploit part-time faculty. The anti-democratic nature of the university is manifested by the arrogance of your replies to my notes and letter: superficially polite, they are in fact brief, bald assertions of power in which you don't deign to respond to my questions and arguments. The reason, I'm sure, is that you don't want to, and you think you don't have to. That reflects a sense of power, not intellect.