On Feb. 19, I entered Ed’s class with a coalition of diverse community members with a few simple questions. “Do you care about homelessness on campus? Do you want to lift employees out of poverty? Will you help struggling mothers? Will you read and sign our petition for a cut to the highest salaries to free up millions of dollars?” To each of these questions he fidgeted, avoided eye contact, and refused answering. His craven inability to say “yes” to wanting to help employees and students in crisis represents a core rot degrading our entire campus community. 

These amoral monsters are siphoning wealth from this institution. Where does it go? Under their beds instead of towards the most vulnerable. A generous maximum salary of $186,000 would free up at least $8.6 million a year. The math is easy. Chop from the top to build from the bottom. There is plenty of money to go around. 

If Ed Feser’s near half-million-dollar pay is justified by “skill and qualifications” we aren’t getting our money’s worth! Do your job. His February 24th email to students was rife with disingenuous math and failed to state a desire to shift funding priorities away from the high salaries of crony admin. It would be comical if it wasn’t insulting to us all. His annual pay could be put to better use helping struggling mothers, lifting employees and students out of homelessness, fighting food insecurity. We need a campus that works for all of us. Not wealthy admin.

Andrea Haverkamp