News

By Emma Loenicker Since May 2022, a council of Tacoma Art Museum employees has been making efforts to unionize. They are organizing for livable wages and benefits, no further staff reduction, accessible grievance procedures to create accountability, transparency from leadership, standardized hiring and training procedures and influence in decision-making processes to improve their work conditions. This effort would make the TAM Washington’s first major art institution with unionized workers. On Oct. 17, TAM’s board of trustees received the workers’ letter requesting union representation. In the letter that TAM Workers United...

By Albert Chang-Yoo On Oct. 28, the Board of Trustees voted to affirm a plan created by President Isiaah Crawford aiming to avoid an estimated $10.5 million structural deficit by 2025. The vote was held at an open session following a week of deliberation. The recommendations include much of what the Academic, Administrative, and Auxiliary Program Review (AAAPR) report had advocated for; however, there were also important differences between the proposals. the proposals. President Crawford presented his plan in a less-thanprecise bullet-pointed slideshow entitled “A Sound Future: Recovery and Renewal.”...

By Albert Chang-Yoo   On Sept. 26, 2022 the Comprehensive Academic, Administrative and Auxiliary Program Review (AAAPR) submitted a lengthy list of recommendations to combat the University’s financial woes. The review found that in order to avoid an expected $10 million deficit by 2025, the University must make significant changes, including faculty downsizing and program consolidation. President Crawford will submit a preliminary report to the Board of Trustees today and final recommendations will be voted on in February.   The Comprehensive Academic, Administrative, & Auxiliary Program Review was created by...

By Audrey Davis, Contributing Editor   On Tuesday, Oct. 18, President Crawford emailed the campus community announcing the commitment of $10 million dollars toward the University’s endowment from the Tom and Meg Names Family Foundation. The donation is intended to aid the college’s endowment for athletic programming.   The gift will be divided, with $8 million establishing the Tom and Meg Names Family Foundation Endowed Fund for Athletics Programming and $2 million going towards the already established Tom and Meg Names Family Endowed Fund for Athletics. The $2 million commitment...

By Sara Orozco, KUPS Correspondent   Those with a job working for any of the media organizations on campus probably are asking the same thing: where are our paychecks? Since the beginning of this semester, almost all staff members in KUPS, Crosscurrents, Wetlands, Elements, Photo Services, and The Trail have been missing their pay. There’s one thing we can say for sure: It’s no longer in ASUPS’ hands. ASUPS approves budgets and student stipends through a lengthy bureaucratic process of senate meetings, but as of right now, only two positions...

By Nikki Hindmam   From early morning breakfast to late night snacks, the Diner is open for our students to feast at. Although we are slowly starting to see a return to normalcy from COVID-19, the Diner still struggles with a pandemic-related staff shortage. Unlike other locations on campus such as Diversions or Oppenheimer Café, the Diner hires full-time non-student workers. I sat down with Rutie MacKenzie-Margulies, a full-time staff worker at the Diner, to ask about her experiences. When she was a student, she worked in the Cellar until she...