Campus unions sent a joint letter Feb. 10 inviting seven senior administrators to attend a town hall and answer questions from union members. When the town hall started, their chairs sat empty.
The meeting, hosted in the University Dining Club Feb. 18 by the Faculty Staff Union, Professional Staff Union, Classified Staff Union and Graduate Employee Organization, focused on the university’s response to President Donald Trump’s policies.
Union leaders focused on the effect of federal funding freezes on graduate students and research labs. “It harms all of us. We have graduate students,” said FSU President Caroline Coscia. “Your stipends come from grants, many of you. What happens when the faculty labs go dark?”
“We need to ask the administration: What are you doing to assist the faculty, staff and grad students with the freeze of funding? What actions are you taking to secure these jobs? Obtaining bridge funding? We need to know,” Coscia said.
They also discussed fears about immigration enforcement on campus since the Trump administration lifted policies preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement from conducting raids near protected areas such as schools and hospitals.
“It’s going to have a trickle-down effect on everybody, and so we really have to band together,” said CSU President Alexa MacPherson. “The fact that administration is just a no-show tells us that we are in this alone.”
“We were told by HR that the chancellor would be happy to meet with Union presidents plus one, so union presidents and vice presidents,” said PSU Vice President Penelope MacDonald.
One attendee objected to union leaders accepting a private meeting. “I think if we buy into that nonsense… if we agree to that meeting, then we’re giving in to their framing and losing ground,” he said. “I think we need to treat each other in the unions as equals. We’re all union leaders; that’s the nature of the union.”
UMass Boston Director of Communications DeWayne Lehman did not provide an explanation for the administrators’ lack of attendance. The unions addressed the invite to Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, Provost Joseph Berger, Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Marie Bowen, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance Kathleen Kirleis, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Karen Ferrer-Muniz and UMass Boston Police Department Chief Stacey Lloyd.
MacPherson expressed frustration about lack of support from administrators. “They’re out for themselves and they are not looking out for us,” she said.
Attendees said they want the university to show a tangible plan and commitment to support students and their education, beyond reiterating core values. “I think we’ve actually heard them say what their values are, sadly, so many times that it actually feels a bit hollow,” one attendee said.
PSU president Tom McClennan asked attendees how they feel about the university’s response. They said they are “angry,” “afraid,” “confused,” “abandoned,” “pissed,” “sad” and “ashamed.”
“It’s important to talk about how we feel, because when we share how we feel with each other, those feelings are what motivate us to take action,” McClennan said. “And when we share our feelings, that puts us in a position to take collective action, which is what we’re going to start doing.
“We’re going to need to go to rallies. We’re going to need to stand up for each other. We’re going to need to stand out and call out our leadership when they do things like remove [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] language from the website, despite our attorney general saying ‘don’t do that,’” McClennan said.
The previous week, the university renamed the “Diversity and Inclusion” page on its website to “Inclusion and Belonging.” It also removed all references to the word “diverse” from the page — a change they later reversed, writing that it was “published in error.” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell issued guidance Feb. 13 that a Trump administration order claiming DEI initiatives are illegal is incorrect, and that they lack the authority to ban such programs, even for organizations that receive private funding.
“UMass Boston leadership continues to assess the changes being put forward by the new presidential administration. Information and advice about those changes are being made available and communicated to our campus community constituents,” Lehman wrote in a statement. “Further, in collaboration with the UMass President’s Office and Office of General Counsel, we have established an easy-to-find information clearinghouse for news and information about recent and proposed changes at umb.edu/federal. We are committed to continuing to support our campus community during this period of shifting policies.”
