Records of the President, Frank Newman (Rec. Gr. 1.13)

Series 1. Subject Series
Box 1-233, Folder 1-1903
The Subject Files consists of records relating to the administration of the University of Rhode Island during the presidency of Frank Newman. Included are correspondence, memos, reports, budget documents, agenda and minutes of meetings of the Board of Regents/Governors, program development documents, enrollment and admission statistics, and a variety of other materials relating to the administration, operation, growth and development of the University of Rhode Island.

Subjects range across the administrative spectrum and include admissions, affirmative action policies, collective bargaining, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the university's budget, the loss of accreditation and reaccredidation of the Graduate Library School, the academic colleges and schools of the university, and the related subjects of salaries and salary equity.

The university's budget and the related issues of labor relations and faculty salaries were areas of persistent problems throughout the Newman administration. Continuing the university's existing programs at the same id="c2" level of quality in the face of declining financial support from the state was a chronic problem for Newman. The budget files in this series document extensively the convoluted process with the university endured annually in getting its budget developed and then approved at the various levels of state government. The process not only involved the university, but the Board of Regents/Governors, the state legislature, and the governor's office as well. As these files demonstrate, the end product of the deliberations often bore little resemblance to the initial budget request.

A related issue was that of faculty salaries. The university faculty had long claimed that their salaries lagged behind those of colleagues at comparable institutions. Women faculty members further claimed that in many instances their salaries were lower than their male colleagues within the university. Attempting to raise faculty salaries in an era of declining financial support and addressing the issue of salary equity for women occupied much of the Newman administration's time and energy. Details of those efforts are documented in the AAUP and salary files. Neither of those issues was satisfactorily resolved, as is evidenced by a faculty strike over compensation in 1979 and a federal court decision which found the university guilty of discrimination against women faculty in the areas of rank and salary at hire.