AFT, Local 212

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A Message From Local 212 President Michael Rosen:

August 23 , 2005

Welcome back or if you are newly hired welcome to MATC for the first time. This summer has been busy and challenging. With classes resuming, I want to bring you up to date on recent developments. I know many of you are concerned about the upcoming contract negotiations. Executive Vice President, Charlie Dee, will address this shortly.

There have been a number of changes in the leadership of local 212. I’d like to take a moment to recognize your colleagues who have volunteered or been elected to assume important positions in the local and college.

The first Vice President of Local 212 who is charge of appointing and monitoring all committees is Steve Holloway from the counseling department

The new Coordinator of ER & D our union led professional development program is Pat McFarland from the early Childhood Education Program

Our new Peer Support coordinator is the Adult High School’s Kevin Mulvenna

And last, but certainly not least, our new Grievance Committee Chair is Dr. Marlene Dombrowski from Human Services.

Thanks for agreeing to take on these important responsibilities.

I also want to introduce Dr. Anne Burback who coordinates our advising program.

Last year Local 212 members took the initiative to address advising issues and proposed the formation of a faculty Advising committee. The advising liaisons who are members of this committee are continuing to work on advising issues within your division.

This semester almost 20,000 students will be returning to your classrooms. Your advising efforts ensure that our classrooms remain filled, that students are in the right classes and that they are on track for graduation! Advising begins today and continues until the student graduates and for some it even continues beyond graduation when grateful students return to tell us of their achievements or seek advice.

You can help make a student’s experience at MATC a positive one. Advising helps our students and helps MATC grow!

In an important victory for our students and the businesses that hire them the AAS degree reconfiguration has been delayed for a year until 2007-2008. Those of you who have been told that you must agree to program changes by this fall do not have to do so. The decision to delay was made because so many faculty, including Marie Duprie, Laura Reger, John Reese, Tom Heraly, Phyllis Holder, Kathy Tomczyk, Pat Whalen and Mike Jelich aggressively argued that the general education class list of 21 courses was too narrow to meet our students’ and their programs’ needs. The state has established a Curriculum and Educational Policies Committee that will address this matter. Many of you have forwarded additional courses for the gen. ed. core. This new committee will review these. This delay is the direct result of your advocacy! Keep it up.

MATC also received good news when we learned that equalized values had increased substantially. State support for the college has dropped from 30% of MATC’s revenues to less than 17% since 1990. Over this time the college has been forced to increasingly rely on the property tax. Governor Doyle, recognizing the importance of the technical colleges, has exempted us from his property tax freeze. As he pointed out, our revenues are already capped at 1.5%, and the services we provide are the engine of the local economy. For every dollar invested in technical education, taxpayers receive a $9 return. And despite the fact that we must increasingly rely on property taxes as state aid declines, we have decreased the amount paid on $100,000 worth of property since 2000.

This is the beginning of my 18th year at MATC. I have worked here longer than any other job I have ever held. Some would interpret this to mean that I have trouble holding on to a job. I, contrarily, like to think it is because teaching at MATC is society’s most honorable profession. We train the people who make Milwaukee and Wisconsin work MATC grads care for the sick, educate our children, weld the mining equipment we export and run Milwaukee’s more than 400 machine shops. Former students not only keep your cars running and buildings air conditioned, they set policy for the nation and the state like Congresswoman Gwen Moore and Senator Spencer Coggs.

More importantly, MATC’s doors are open to all our community’s students. And we will do everything to help them succeed. If you are single mother returning to school, our childcare centers will care for your children while you attend class. If you are one of Milwaukee’s 80,000 residents without a high school degree, we run the state’s only adult high school. If you are a Hmong refugee or an immigrant from Uganda or Mexico, we will provide you with English classes and vocational training in your first language. We are the last and best hope for the growing number of our citizens who are economically marginalized.

We are also the state’s largest graduate school, providing vocational education to thousands of four year grads who need marketable skills.

The magic that is MATC begins in the classrooms and labs and shops. What makes MATC work is the relationship between you, our faculty and professional staff, and our students. So welcome back or simply welcome. We have serious work to do. Let’s get to it!

Archived Messages...

Michael Rosen's Speech to the MATC Board - September 29, 2004

Welcome back, August 2004

"Jobs report paints bleak picture for the nation",
Michael Rosen's editorial in the August 21, 2004 Journal Sentinel