English Prof. Herbert Tucker joined students on the steps of the Rotunda yesterday at the Living Wage Campaign "teach-in" to read a letter endorsed by 223 faculty members. The letter was addressed to University President John T. Casteen, III and expressed faculty support for the Living Wage Campaign.
The letter, drafted by Tucker and History Prof. Herbert Braun, consists of signatories from 41 academic departments and requests that Casteen take a more active role on the issue of a living wage.
"We are offering our support to Mr. Casteen," Tucker said. "We would like President Casteen to assume a more proactive and morally defined position on this matter."
Tucker and Braun both emphasized that the letter was written before the sit-in and arrest of 17 students at Madison Hall and does not address those events.
Braun said the letter was informally distributed among faculty through e-mail. Any administrator or faculty member that wished to add his or her signature to the letter informed either Braun or Tucker.
"We don't have a list-serv where we can write to all of our colleagues," Braun said. "So what we had to do was find people that we knew or that we understood some of their sentiments in a variety of different departments and wrote to them."
Braun said they then asked if faculty members would be willing to sign the letter and pass it on to others in their respective departments.
"We got a surprisingly ... strong response," Braun said, adding that since the publication of the letter and its distribution to Casteen, three more faculty members had added their signatures.
Some faculty members said the call for administrative action is what prompted them to sign the letter.
"In my mind the purpose of the letter is to communicate to the administration that a significant fraction of the faculty wants them to put their full efforts into addressing this problem," Physics Prof. Donal Day said. "I don't believe it is to be solved simply, but I do believe that if the University administration puts their mind to it they can address this to everyone's satisfaction."
Others noted the call for "social justice" as their reasoning for endorsing the letter.
"I thought the letter was extremely eloquent in presenting the fact that social justice and high ideals are related to the educational mission of the University," said Anthropology Prof. Eve Danziger, director of graduate studies.
In addition, the letter calls for effective compromise between students and administration.
"The letter requests that the administration engage this issue with the students in a positive, constructive and respectful manner," Braun said.
Living Wage campaigners identified this as an important statement of support for their cause.
"A letter like this impels or thrusts the moral argument above the legal one, above the economic issue, and shows that there is unfaltering support for a living wage at the University of Virginia," said Sean Butterfield, one of the 17 students arrested at Madison Hall last weekend.
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