Remarks to the Board of Trustees

Morning folks.

I’m Danny Caballero and I’m the Lappan Philips Foundation Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Computational Math, Science, and Engineering. I also hold an appointment in the CREATE for STEM Institute and I’m proudly starting my 12th year at Michigan State.

For the last several years, I’ve been on the organizing committee for the Union of Tenure Stream Faculty and I want to start this statement with some thank yous.

Thank you to the staff for setting up and organizing this meeting and for tidying up afterwards. Y’all make this place run and we all appreciate it.

And I want to thank the Board for investing in me, my research communities in physics and CMSE, and my colleges. Not only does MSU have the top elementary and secondary education programs in this country, it now boasts the largest and most diverse community of higher education STEM researchers in the US. We should all be very proud of that work.

I also want to thank y’all for the opportunity to teach the students that we admit to MSU and to thank our students for choosing us. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that the greatest privilege in this job is walking into an MSU classroom to meet a new group of talented, creative, and bright young people. Teaching our students is the most rewarding part of my job and I know that many of my colleagues feel the same way.

I chose MSU because it was a public research university with a clear mission for the state of Michigan. My parents have high school diplomas and while they both worked two jobs, they stressed the importance of a college education to my siblings and I. And I’m here able to offer these thank yous to you because of the education and training that I received at three different public research universities with equally strong commitments to their states.

I believe in MSU and I love working here.

I continue to choose to work at MSU because I believe in its core values: Collaboration, Equity, Excellence, Integrity, and Respect. Myself, my colleagues, MSU’s staff, and our students work on this campus everyday to uphold and uplift those values. We don’t always get it right, but we try everyday. Tenure Stream Faculty express those values through our research, teaching, and service - actions that undergird the mission of our public research university.

Over the last year, I have consistently seen those values compromised by your chosen representatives and outside counsel who you have tasked with negotiating with the faculty. The time and energy that we could have put to pushing forward MSU’s mission and the public’s money (including my own) that you have spent on outside counsel are things that neither of us will get back. Your representatives have wasted so much time, energy, and money on delay tactics. They have blown past their self imposed deadlines; they have provided incomplete and inaccurate information; they appear unserious and disrespectful in our meetings; they have failed to uphold the values of this university. As you and your counsel know, we have a majority of faculty support however you have tried to slice it. And that includes our librarians.

Here’s the deal, let’s choose a different path forward. We all want to have a thriving university community that upholds and expresses the values of Collaboration, Equity, Excellence, Integrity, and Respect. Let’s collaborate on a future that envisions all of us acting with integrity and respect. Let’s work towards an equitable solution so we can continue to show your our excellence.

MSU is a unionized campus in a state that unions built. The sooner y’all recognize that, the sooner we can all work together to build an MSU we are all proud of. MSU doesn’t need more bad press.

Take the easy win and recognize UTSF today.

We can build something better as collaborators.

Thank you for your time and attention. Truly. I know it’s been a long meeting.

Go green, my friends.