Kings and Queens Miss the drag show? Find out what happened. STYLE • Page 3
Graphic Images The Genocide Awareness Project images outside the Johnson Center drew an immediate reaction. NEWS• Page 2
League of Dreams Dodgeball and frisbee will become official intramural leagues in the fall. SPORTS • Page 7
George Mason University’s Student Newspaper www.broadsideonline.com
April 9, 2012
Volume 88 Issue 20
Annual Circus Draws Protest
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Appearance Spurs Demonstrations
Alex Williams, Jordan Foster Win SG Presidential Election Look to Move SafeRide and Diversity Roundtables Forward Rob Cooper Connect2Mason Student Goverment announced Wednesday that Alex Williams and Jordan Foster won the election for student body president and vice-president for the 2012-13 academic year by a margin of over 200 votes. With 933 votes, Williams and Foster beat out Liam Hennelly and Mohammad Ahmed’s 674 votes and write-in ticket Gabriel Levine and Ellie Shahin’s 110 votes. "It is a very difficult thing to put yourself out there," said Williams, a government and international politics major, in his acceptance speech in the Johnson Center. "I look forward to working with you and everyone else here, for the betterment of the student body." Foster, also a government and international politics major, thanked the student body "for putting the student back in Student Government," a phrase used as a slogan in their campaign. "It's a really positive experience to see so many people so invested in something," said Williams in an interview with
C2M after the announcement. Williams and Foster said they look forward to working with students to move programs such as SafeRide and proposed diversity roundtables forward. "Put us to work," said Foster. "Don't be afraid to come talk to us." Williams and Foster will take over for current SG president and vice-president Ally Bowers and Jacky Yoo in May. Also announced were the winners of the 30 vacant Student Senates seats. Thirty-two students competed for those positions. Originally 33 were in the running, but Matt Crush asked to be removed from the ballot, leaving just 32, according to Melissa Masone, assistant director for Student Government. Three write-in candidates received votes but didn't earn seats. To see a list of the 30 senators elected, visit connect2mason.com
Story taken from Connect2Mason
Photo by Stephen Kline
Protesters gathered outside the Patriot Center to protest the annual Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus that is held at Mason. Protesters have appeared in years past to protest the use of the animals in circus productions. The protests had little impact on the circus, which draws people from throughout the region.
New Peer Group Finds Professor Salaries Lacking
Mason Officials Want to Extend Domestic Partner Benefits to Employees
Mason in 3rd Percentile After July 2011 Move to New Peer Group
Many Peer Institutions Offer Benefits
Average Faculty Salary in 2010/2011
Justin Lalputan News Editor George Mason University professors are in the 3rd percentile for salary compared to peer institutions after a July 2011 move placed Mason in a different group of peer institutions. The move, which is designed to generate more money from the state for professor salaries, is supposed to help faculty deal with the high cost of living in Fairfax. Percentiles, in this case, are used to compare the average salaries of peer institutions. Being in the 3rd percentile means that Mason professors are paid less than their colleagues at peer institutions. According to the 2011-2012 Factbook published by Institutional Research and Reporting, the average salary at Mason in 2010 was $80,531. New York University, in the highest percentile, had an average salary of $111,891. A peer group is composed of the universities that a given school considers to be its equals across many criteria such as enrollment and faculty-student ratios. According to the Office of Institutional Research and Reporting’s website, Mason considers universities such as NYU and Florida State University to be in its peer group. The high cost of living in Fairfax was the driving force behind the change in peer groups. Provost Peter Stearns said Mason could not afford increases to professor salaries with school funds without raising tuition by a large amount, so they opted to change peer groups with special attention to cost of living. It is the goal of the state of Virginia for each of its public universities to be in the 60th percentile of their peer groups. According to Stearns, this means that since Mason is now in the 3rd percentile, the state should presumably give it more funds when it allocates money for professor salaries. “What should happen is when the state returns to giving salary increases, which it hasn’t done in four years, it should give us more than it gives any institution in the state,” Stearns said. “It should be allocating at least part of the money [to] moving the lowest institutions closer to the 60th percentile. I don’t know if they will, but that’s what they should
2010 2011
Graphic by: Colleen Wilson
Mason does not stack up well against many peer institutions for professorial compensation after a July 2011 shift to a new group of peer institutions. do.”
According to Stearns, Mason made an out-of-cycle change when they changed their peer group last July. Normally, universities in Virginia review their peer groups roughly every 10 years. Mason made its scheduled change in 2007 but was able to change its peer group in 2011 by negotiating with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. “The peer institutions that we negotiate with SCHEV are used for them to help determine faculty salaries,” said Kris Smith, assistant provost of Institutional Research and Reporting. “We had made a request for [a] cost of living adjustment, and in the end they chose to allow us to select a new set of peer institutions that would take into account cost of living instead of doing a cost-of-living adjustment.” According to Stearns, Mason negotiated with the state to add universities to its peer group that had similar cost of living, such as Boston College. “We worked hard to get this new peer group,” Stearns said, “because it was the best way, in the long run, to get our cost of living situation reflected in what the state gives us for salaries. We wanted to get worse.”
Last year, Mason gave professors a salary increase with its own money, which displeased the state of Virginia, Stearns said. Mason and Virginia Tech were the only two public universities to do so. Normally Mason waits for the state to contribute to salary increases because the state pays half the cost of the salary increase, but last year Mason officials chose to pay the entire cost due to the cost of living, Stearns said. Virginia hasn’t given public universities funds for salary increases in four years, but they may be looking to do so in the near future. “We have not heard the budget for next year. We don’t think a salary increase will be in the budget next year. There may be a bonus but not a salary increase,” Stearns said. “Some of the budget plans call for a salary increase in the following year. It’s a question of when the tax revenues begin to recover more fully, and the state can turn its attention to this issue.” According to Stearns, though there is a high cost of living in Fairfax, and Mason is in the 3rd percentile of its peer group, the rate of faculty turnovers due to salary issues is relatively low when compared to other institutions in the state.
Hannah Lea Smith Asst. News Editor Senior administrative officials at George Mason University want to offer domestic partner benefits to faculty and staff, and so do other Virginia universities. A December Public Policy poll found that 59 percent of Virginians would like domestic partnerships to be legally recognized. Most Virginia lawmakers, however, are not on board. When asked about the issue of extending benefits to samesex couples, Provost Peter Stearns and Linda Harber, the associate vice president of Human Resources & Payroll at Mason, said the same thing: “It’s the right thing to do.” “I don’t think that it’s an economic issue — it’s a people issue. And, yes, if we had the authority [we’d already] be doing it,” Harber said. “We should be providing comprehensive benefits packages for everyone, not just for traditional [couples].” In 2009, the presidents of the College of William & Mary and the University of Virginia joined Mason President Alan Merten in publicly supporting then-Governor Tim Kaine’s efforts to authorize Virginia public institutions to extend benefit packages to same-sex couples. According to a letter signed by the three university presidents, “Most of the major national private and public universities with whom we compete when we hire or work to retain top faculty already offer domestic partner benefits. The ability to offer this benefit is increasingly important now as we
attempt to recruit and retain the best faculty and staff in the most challenging economic climate we have seen.” Although Kaine issued an executive order banning discrimination based on sexual orientation, he was unable to push through legislation to allow public institutions to extend health insurance benefits to same-sex couples before the end of his term. “It does have an impact on recruitment,” Harber said. “If two schools offer you a teaching job — and one offers you benefits and one doesn’t, if one allows you to have proper health care coverage and one doesn’t — that would factor into your decision.” “If we’re looking at how we compete with our peers, we’re behind the curve,” said Dan Waxman, a doctoral student in Education who gave a presentation on the topic at the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association 2012 Conference. “It’s completely dependent on the political culture of the state,” he said. Fifty-seven percent of Mason’s peer institutions offer benefits to same-sex partners. Many universities in Washington D.C., including Georgetown University and George Washington University, already do. Virginia institutions including Hampden Sydney College, Washington & Lee University and the University of Richmond also offer domestic partner benefits. They can do so because they are private universities. The office of Gov. Bob McDonnell did not respond to requests for comment.