President Wilson has selected Robert Holub, Provost at the University of Tennessee's flagship campus, as the next Chancellor at UMass Amherst. The MSP is pleased that UMass will gain a scholar and administrator of such great stature to lead the flagship campus in Amherst to new heights. And we are pleased to welcome a leader who understands how to build and support a great faculty, and respects the long tradition of unionization and faculty governance on the campus. Click here to read the University's press release about Robert Holub.

MSP members received, on average, over $1,600 in retroactive pay in their March 21, 2008 paychecks.

MSP President Max Page and Board Member John Brigham are on the search committee for a new Chancellor for UMass Amherst. Please contribute your ideas about what kind of Chancellor we need and offer specific names of individuals you think should be considered by clicking here. MSP believes that our members best understand the opportunities and challenges of our campus, and ought to help to direct the search committee. See below for Max Page's statement to the whole search committee which lays out his thoughts on some of the key issues facing the new Chancellor. You may want to underscore, elaborate, or amend these ideas when you write in.

After a short-lived recovery in 2006–07, faculty salaries are lagging behind inflation again this year. Yet the salaries paid to head football coaches, presidents, and other top administrators do not seem to reflect an economic downturn. Over the past three decades, the ranks of contingent faculty, nonfaculty professionals, and administrators have swelled while the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty stagnated. These are the central findings of Where Are the Priorities? The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2007–08, released by the AAUP.

Every other year, data released by the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics provide a snapshot of the growth of part-time positions in the professoriate. This year — an off-year for that data — the federal statistics provide evidence for another shift, in which the majority of full-time professional employees in higher education are in administrative rather than faculty jobs.