Save Our Campus!
President M. Roy Wilson & the Wayne State University Board of Governors
Our campus has been crumbling for years now. Many basic services like elevators do not work, classroom buildings have numerous problems, and all around things are falling apart. This is due to the fact that Wayne State has refused to dedicate meaningful amounts of money to these projects, and in fact, have been making things worse by outsourcing jobs and other measures which have resulted in lowering the amount of maintenance workers and custodians on campus.
The University has plenty of money; a recent financial analysis found the university has nearly $200 million in unreserved funds which Wayne State is currently not using. Yet, Wayne State continues to raise tuition, cut jobs, and raise their administrators' salaries. President Wilson makes nearly $1 million a year alone.
What we demand is the bare minimum, which is that the university administration actually does the job assigned to them. We highly encourage you to sign this petition. You do not need to be a student or faculty member to sign.
Feel free to leave a testimonial about how broken elevators, broken classroom buildings, lower wages, and more at Wayne State have left you feeling! How have you been Wayne Stated?
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To:
President M. Roy Wilson & the Wayne State University Board of Governors
From:
[Your Name]
Dear President Wilson and the Board of Governors of Wayne State,
We, the students, faculty, and community members of Wayne State, present the following list of demands in order to save our campus from ruin and to return dignity to those employees working at Wayne State University, as well as address several long-standing issues and new issues brought forward by our current national climate.
We demand that these goals be met no later than the end of the Winter 2023 semester on May 2nd, 2023, unless otherwise stated.
The funding for said demands will come from reducing administrator salaries and from the $185 million in unreserved funds that the university currently holds, as shown by the 2020 financial analysis conducted by AAUP-AFT Local 6075 and Howard Bunsis, Professor of Accounting, Eastern Michigan University.
- Reallocate $5 million from unreserved funds towards modernizing and upgrading elevators in the Student Center, Bookstore, all dorm buildings especially Anthony Wayne Drive Apartments, and classroom buildings.
- Reallocate $5 million from unreserved funds towards upgrading classroom climate controls - highest priorities being General Lectures and Deroy Auditorium.
- Reallocate $1 million from unreserved funds to fix and restore the Deroy Auditorium pool to working order - which should be complete no later than 2024.
- Reallocate $100,000 from unreserved funds to fix campus lamp posts.
- Reduce student tuition by 15% effective immediately.
- Introduce a moratorium on tuition raises until 2026.
- Immediately cease all hiring of contractors, and remove all contractors currently performing groundskeeping or engineering work in violation of the collective bargaining agreements of IUOE Local 324 and AFSCME Local 1497.
- Introduce a moratorium on layoffs until 2026.
- Raise the minimum wage of every employee working on campus, in a campus building, hired by Wayne State University or hired by any affiliated contractors, to $15/hr - including temporary and student employees.
- Eliminate drug and background testing for university jobs.
- Stock the Campus Health Center with plan B and plan C products, which will be free and available on demand.
- Establish a permanent, free-standing memorial dedicated to the Wayne State students who fought in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, located somewhere adjacent to Gullen Mall on the green space bordered by the Undergraduate Library, STEM Building, State Hall, and Mort Harris. The plans for the memorial must include, and be approved by, the Wayne State chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America.