Column by David Rempfer

I don’t see how to decide which part of the UK Board of Trustees Executive Committee to awaken first by bringing the hammer down, so let’s just bring down a hammer big enough to address the entire table, and may what comes of it come.

Board, I am abnormally and startlingly appalled.

President Todd’s declining of his bonus has almost nothing to do with the financial quantity of his decision.  Leaving $168,000 in a budget $9.9 million short is a drop in the bucket at best—1.7 percent of the deficit — and only equates to an impact of about $8 per student.  In that single and small regard, Board, we do seem to agree: Todd’s decision should be swiftly pushed to the side, and as Mira Ball said we “students and faculty probably will not see any affect from this.”

Any financial effect, that is.

But you see, President Todd’s declaration had nothing whatsoever to do with a fiscal effect.  Rather, it had everything to do with an ethical effect, and that effect, I most assuredly correct you, could have an overwhelming impact which no UK student would miss. In truth, no collegiate president in this entire nation would miss it.

You see, we understand as students that the times are hard; our wallets are thinner than ever, as we and our parents empty our college savings funds that have taken a lifetime to amass. The professors here understand that times are hard; as you’re asking them to do more with less, amidst consecutive years where their pay has been frozen, and while their peers, coworkers and loved ones are being ushered out the door by budget cuts, I’m sure they grasp the enormity of the era in which we live.

The only question that seems to linger is this: do you see what we can’t close our eyes to?

I ask because I fail to see how it is even remotely feasible to approve a $168,000 bonus in an hour where students are thrilled to make $1.68 an hour plus tips.  I lack the capacity to comprehend how it is at all permissible to receive six-figure incomes while supervising students and families who amass six-figure debts in the pursuit of the better life that many either have never had or now question if they ever will.

I tell you the truth: I don’t want a financial effect.  I don’t want President Todd’s $168,000.  It’s a great start and I emphasize, a start, but I refuse to settle for that.  Board of Trustees, you have been entrusted with our administration in an hour where chaos reigns, with our education in a world where the truth is desperately absent and direly sought for.  No financial effect will touch that, but perhaps an ethical effect can.

Let’s quickly sidestep President Todd’s decision. As a leader and as a man, he is simply doing what should be done in a world where little seems to be done as it should be, and because of it that which is truthfully ordinary is being perceived as extraordinary.  Let it simply be said that he did the right thing.  Now, let’s refuse to sidestep your decision, Board.  Will you hold yourselves to the same standard which he is beginning to take ownership of?  Will you step forward to lead in a new reality?  Because UK will never become a top-20 university until it has top-20 leaders, and no great leader is willing to call out of their people what they will not give out of themselves.

Board of Trustees, I exhort you — I challenge you — to live a life that is worthy of your calling.  I encourage you to evaluate one anothers’ performances, but I challenge you to cease from assigning bonuses and compensation which stands at the measure of insult for the struggling and maxed-out.  I wildly applaud you for dreaming courageously of the future that could be, but I plead with you to awaken yourselves to the rough seas of today which our wooden-raft dreams will not endure.  I support your vision of becoming a top-20 university, but I pray I alert you to the reality that no vision succeeds without ownership. If you will not assume ownership at whatever expense, then you will fail at inspiring ownership at whatever expense.

But if you will assume ownership at whatever expense, then your ethical declaration will more assuredly be one which students and faculty will see the effects of.  More, they might just follow you into birthing something that overcomes our economy and stuns our world.

And if that comes, $168,000 was a bargain.

David Rempfer is an engineering senior. E-mail [email protected].