Topic: UMKC cuts the Institute for Labor Studies
- Jun 23, 2007 06:53pm by phism
[quote:4fd552e9bd]UMKC cancels Institute for Labor Studies
The program was cut as part of a 1-percent budget reduction aimed at increasing salaries.
By MARÃ ROSE WILLIAMS
The Kansas City Star
The Institute for Labor Studies will be the first University of Missouri-Kansas City program eliminated in budget cuts ordered earlier this month by curators of the four-campus system.
“This is going to hurt every labor union in Kansas City,†said Jim Stoufer, president of the Greater Kansas City Community Action Program Council, the political action arm of the United Auto Workers local representing about 40,000 people here.
The institute has offered a six-course certificate in labor studies for people who want to be union leaders or organizers, or run for a union office.
“We will lose a valuable resource we have for training and education, and I imagine there will be a backlash against UMKC from labor if this happens,†Stoufer said.
But UMKC Chancellor Guy Bailey said Tuesday that the university has already decided it will not help fund the institute another year.
University of Missouri curators at their May 31 meeting in Columbia asked the chancellors of each of the four campuses — Kansas City, Columbia, St. Louis and Rolla — to cut spending by 1 percent each year for the next three years to help fund salary increases for faculty.
Bailey said then that cutting nearly $2 million from his budget would mean eliminating some university centers and institutes and perhaps some staff jobs.
With the elimination of the institute, the only labor-education and worker-training program of its kind in the Kansas City area, Judith Ancel could be out of a job.
“I feel enormously disappointed,†said Ancel, who has run the institute since 1985 and is its only full-time staff member. “To destroy this labor education program is really depriving our citizens, most of whom are working people, of a dialogue that is not biased.â€
Ancel said she learned the institute was being cut when she received a copy of a letter sent last month to the president of Longview Community College. The letter was sent to inform Longview that UMKC would no longer continue the program, which the two campuses help pay for.
UMKC and Longview each contribute about $15,000 to the institute’s $107,000 budget, Ancel said. The UM System puts in $42,900; the rest, about $34,000, comes from tuition and fees.
Bailey said he thought the certificate program “should be offered without the administrative structure of the institute†through the university’s continued education program. And he suggested that perhaps the UMKC Department of Economics would hire Ancel as a member of it faculty.
“But that would be up to them,†Bailey said.
The institute offers some credit and noncredit courses to students on all four system campuses, using video hookups. About 400 students across the state have enrolled in courses over the last five years. And at 6 p.m. every Thursday, the institute produces the Heartland Labor Forum radio broadcast on KKFI radio.
“We teach the nuts and bolts of labor law, collective bargaining and labor history,†Ancel said.
Stoufer said if the program is eliminated “it will leave a big vacancy. It is just frustrating.â€
Bailey said other university centers and institutes may be eliminated in the near future. Members of the Faculty Senate and the university budget committee will review the programs and help university administrators decide which will go. Bailey told them not to touch any degree-granting programs.
To reach Mará Rose Williams, call 816-234-4419 or send e-mail to [email protected].
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