Newsletter #12 - TAB Response and the Week at USC

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to take some time to share this week’s events, mostly because I’m sure many former and retired staff may not have heard. It’s been a pretty rough week.

This week’s Update on USC’s Financial Planning and Resilience Efforts from the Office of the President continued a trend of disappointing news. Unsurprisingly, it calls for all of us to sacrifice even more, with no information on how much we need to cover, and for how long. But don’t worry, they’re optimistic that we’ll weather the current storm and “place the university on a stronger footing for many generations to come”. Just don’t worry about the fact that we’re existing in the present.

Basically:

• The budget reductions we’ve operated under over the past 300 days are permanent.

• They’re going to scrutinize purchases over $50,000 (but for real this time)

• All staff hiring is paused, “with very few exceptions”.  Faculty hiring will be significantly restricted.

• Non-essential business travel, conferences, and entertainment will be limited moving forward (I’ll be watching all of you on LinkedIn)

• Extended Winter Recess is cancelled so we can all plan better now.  Thankfully there was no mention of “Winter Curtailment”, but perhaps they’ll surprise us with it later.

• Oh yeah, and yearly merit increases are paused, also with “limited exceptions”. This is especially interesting, because I seem to recall them touting that they invested $500M in compensation just as they were gutting our TAB. Perhaps they could have held on to a little bit of that for our merit increases this year…

And the best part, they’ve directed US to “identify ways to further streamline workflows, services, and operations to meet new budgetary targets”. I think this line was especially rich: We thank each of you in advance for the role you play in ensuring that we are behaving prudently. I think it’s worth noting that these topics were completely avoided during the State of the University Address.  What was most notable to me in the SOTU address was the pridefully arrogant statement that we “accomplished all of these recent initiatives without even increasing head count”. 

Also notably, there wasn’t any mention of Unifying Values in Monday’s soul crushing memo. Apparently, they were saving that for later in the week! On Thursday, we got the Update Regarding Our Unifying Values. They are “broadening” our Unifying Value of “Diversity Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)” into “Community”.  DEI is a sensitive subject right now, and more so considering the amount of money at risk. I know many folks who would lose their job if we lost federal funding. I also know many folks who are extremely sad and upset and fearful that USC is backing down on this fight. All I know is that it doesn’t feel like the university is “broadening” it’s role in anything right now. Reeling, retracting, and abandoning are a few words that come to mind.

And finally, you can read the response from the Office of the Senior Vice President of Human Resources to our TAB letter on the Staff Assembly Home Page. It appeared to be part template response and part “commitment to communicate better”. Interesting that the promise to communicate better came just one week before the two announcements I just mentioned. I find it especially absurd that they would respond to a letter that specifically calls into question their failure to live by the Unifying Values with this leading sentence: “USC's Unifying Values guide how we serve, support, and lead our Trojan community, creating a strong foundation for faculty, staff, and students to thrive.” Thriving? Give me a break.  Serving, supporting, leading? Get out of here. Morale is in tatters, we’re all devestated, and leadership has been absent for months. If you’re interested, you can join the Staff Assembly General Assembly meeting at 9:30am today for some additional updates, or send your thoughts via the Staff Assembly Feedback Form.

Now for the best part of this group, you! Towards the bottom of the last newsletter there was a My15atUSC survey that was a bit buried. I only got about 10 responses, so hopefully these new developments have you ready to tell me how you feel. Please, please, please participate in the survey and let me know how you feel. We really need your input to resume our Instagram posting. You can also email me at [email protected]. I promise I read all of your emails and survey submissions.

Over the next few weeks I hope to take a little time to build out the Discord server. Before I invite folks, I’ll need to confirm your email.  I want to have an idea of who you are just so I know we have a safe and secure space to discuss possible next steps.  I’ll send more info once I have it ready. Even if you don’t join us on Discord, I still plan to send updates here.

Please try to take care of yourself, and reach out at any time.

Fight On,

Phil