People who went to work at Columbia College when Mike A Alexandroff ran it were clear about the trade-off they were making. “The premise under which I was hired,” says photography professor Peter LeGrand, “was you’ll never have a great salary at this institution, but you will get a wonderful working environment, a great set of health benefits, and a retirement plan that provides a sufficient amount of money to live out your life comfortably. The last part of that premise is gone.” In late April, Columbia announced that its pension plan was underwater, that benefits would be frozen as of last December, and that a new plan would be devised by the end of 2003. Now, as word is getting out about what the new deal might look like–including the college’s intention to contribute no more than 5 percent
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How bad is it? “Having devoted 26 years of my life to the development of Columbia College, I now stand to lose approximately 37% of my promised retirement benefits,” photography professor Peter Thompson wrote July 1 in a searing letter to the school’s president, Warrick Carter. “While this may not qualify as a ‘crisis’ to you, it is nevertheless a serious setback for my family.” As for two pension models the administration is considering: “If implemented at the 5% pension funding level currently being pushed by the Trustees,” they would result in a loss of “48% to 54% of the previously promised retirement benefits for every employee whose data we studied….Many people will be much worse off than I.”
The original plan, which allowed retirement with an astounding 80 percent of salary after only 15 years of service, was modified to require longer service for full benefits around the time Alexandroff retired, in the early 90s. (He died two years ago.) Many faculty members say they aren’t surprised that the school can’t afford to continue even the modified plan indefinitely. What’s got their dander up is the abrupt notice of the change, the school’s apparent readiness to shuck a fundamental commitment and disregard for the welfare of loyal employees (who fear the health care plan might be next), lavish spending at the top (a notoriously high salary and benefit package for the previous president and a recently purchased presidential mansion the school’s now trying to dump), and some unanswered questions about how the problem came about. Anthropology professor Joan Erdman, one of two faculty members on the committee set up to design the new plan, wonders if recent growth in bureaucracy and student services are factors. Erdman says half of the college’s full-time employees have been hired in the last five years. In addition, she says, some auxiliary programs (like the Center for Black Music Research) that until recently had outside funding are now more dependent on the college for support.
