What VCU can buy with 150k

Well, here we are again. Back for another semester at VCU, and soon spring will blossom the campus into a beautiful array of flowers and concrete-as usual. Yet, there is a darkness about VCU that I’m not familiar with.

In VCU’s strive to have more students than every other public institute of higher education in Virginia; somewhere along the path VCU lost its compassion for its students.

I realize that there have been massive budget cuts, which have reduced VCU’s capabilities – though you would think a sprawling urban university would have the common sense to prepare for this – but attention to the student body at VCU has fallen to a low.

I have seen departments cut classes to the point where it would be impossible to graduate with a psychology degree in May if you weren’t already signed up; financial aid that can’t work out; a simple switch of a student’s status in over a month-and-a-half and student jobs on campus cut to a meager 10 hours a week.

Yet, in the midst of all of these cuts, our own former governor and mayor, L. Douglas Wilder, received a pay raise. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Wilder will get paid an additional $100,000 to his salary last year of $50,000 to end up with a whopping $150,000-to teach two classes per year. Two classes-one in spring semester and one in the fall. Wilder only taught one class last semester, so I am assuming that an additional class warrants an increase in your salary. Sorry, but that is administrative salary.

When was the last time anyone saw Doug Wilder at a single organizational meeting? I have been in the SGA for several years and I have met Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, Sen. Mark Warner and even former president Bill Clinton, but in my four years here I have never even seen Wilder walk through campus, and I am on campus a lot.

My problem here is not Wilder’s insane salary raise-my problem is that it comes at a time when VCU is facing extreme cuts that might put real professors out of a job. Students cannot get into core classes because the student-to-class ratio is too high. Basic services such as tutoring are being cut back, yet we can afford to pay a man a higher salary who has little to no experience doing anything other than having a building named after him.

VCU has come to the point where we are hiring people based on their status? Come on. This is not the NFL and Wilder is not a Pro Bowl quarterback. Professors here should be hired or kept based on their ability to teach, not because of a title. What’s next? Does Wilder get a bid for university president when University President Eugene P. Trani steps down at the end of the semester?

There might be a lot of bright, well-educated people running VCU, but my guess is that none of them are in the financial department here. If I ran my checking account like VCU runs their budget, I would be broke within a week. VCU did not have the foresight to save a single dime to be ready for the potential of a recession.

VCU should have been ready to not cut professors and maintain the University as it is for at least a couple of years. It’s not like the United States doesn’t see a recession often, so why is there no thought into putting money away? Instead, we are faced with the reality that higher education is going to take a lot more cuts, and our plight as students is going to become a lot harder.

Those days when you could easily register for a class and graduate are gone because there aren’t enough classes or professors to handle VCU’s ever growing population. I can vouch for it personally-especially if you’re not pre-med.

When you came to VCU, you were told that your education would get you farther in life. You were told that having a degree would mean a good future for you. But if you cannot get into the classes that are required to get that degree in your four year term, are you still going to have that shiny outlook? At what point will VCU stop seeing dollar signs and start seeing that the students here are what makes VCU?

It is the students who keep VCU running. Without them, VCU is nothing more than buildings. There would be no need for employees if there are no students here. Maybe the powers that be should realize VCU would be worthless without students and put their time, effort and money into ensuring that each and every student here graduates with a quality education rather than just seeing how big and prestigious we can become.