Rachel Buff
When the Chancellor Donates his $50,000 Raise to the University
When the chancellor donates his $50,000 raise to the University Food Pantry,
They put out a spread.
It’s delicious. Everyone gathers to eat it.
The shelves are full. Since there is no more food insecurity among students,
They are free to focus on learning.
When the chancellor donates his $50,000 raise to the University Health Center,
People from all over Milwaukee are inspired by this display of generosity. They donate
their services. There is acupuncture, massage, talk therapy and tarot reading; it’s all free.
There are Black and brown, queer and Indigenous, white and Asian American care
providers. Everyone feels better.
When the chancellor donates his $50,000 raise to scholarships,
the Wisconsin Board of Regents is ashamed. They drop tuition rates so low
That a working single mother of three can afford to take a class. (There is free childcare
for students.) She gets her degree, makes it big,
donates extravagantly. Going to college becomes an option for everyone in town.
When the chancellor donates his $50,000 raise to the university,
The money magically multiplies. Suddenly, everyone who makes less,
makes more.
When the chancellor donates his $50,000 raise to the university,
the example of his generosity reminds
faculty and staff across campus that the university is made out of
only love and labor, and that it belongs to everyone, including us.
We dance in our offices and continue the work.
Another University is Possible: it has been there all along.
It hovers in the wings of this cruel austerity:
requiring only courage, only love to take flight.
Rachel Buff is the author of Immigration and the Political Economy of Home: West Indian Brooklyn and American Indian Minneapolis, 1945–1992 (University of California Press, 2001) and Against the Deportation Terror: Organizing for Immigrant Rights in the Twentieth Century (Temple University Press, 2017). She is a full professor in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she directs the Cultures and Communities program. Her essays, poems, and stories have appeared in JEWSCHOOL, The Nation, Jewish Currents, Truthout, and other publications.
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