To: Robert Barchi, President, Dick Edwards, Karen Stubaus, Brian Strom, Chancellor, Michael Gower, Vivian Fernandez, Dorothy Cantor, Anthony DePtris, William M. Tambussi, Candace L. Straight, Richard W. Roper, Dudley H. Rivers, Jr., Martin P...

Reclaim Rutgers

It’s time for Rutgers management to refocus its priorities on our mission to provide high quality education, research, patient care and service in the interests of students, workers, and the community.

We call on you to lower spiraling tuition and fees that require our students to undertake heavy debt. We call on you to bargain in good faith with faculty and staff unions and to respect the value and dignity of the work done by faculty and staff. We call on you to stop spending tens of millions of dollars on big-time athletics at the expense of first-rate academics.

Why is this important?

Rutgers faculty and staff are committed to high quality education for each and every student, groundbreaking research and lifesaving health care. These services rely on the professionals who work with the students, patients and community every day.

Rutgers’ faculty and staff are currently bargaining for new contracts with the President and Board of Governors. The administration should bargain in good faith instead of cancelling sessions, proposing to reduce and eliminate earned benefits and putting forward insulting economic offers.

Experts’ research has identified $600 million in unrestricted reserve , and an inordinate number of Rutgers managers with salaries over $250,000 per year Student tuition and fees subsidize athletics at a higher rate than any other American university, while student debts mount and faculty and staff are left behind financially.

Rutgers management needs to stop diverting hundreds millions from academics to athletics. . Rutgers has adequate resources to reduce student costs and respect the value of the faculty and staff by negotiating fair contracts.