Audubon

 On a wine tour of Tuscany I was on, there was a guy who worked for the Audubon Society. He told us of a conflict: they had considered a name change, and rejected it (because Audubon was a slave-holder). The younger employees were in favor of the change, and the leadership not so much. The guy I met was younger and part of the movement to change to be more inclusive.  Our local Jayhawk Audubon society will change its name (to what it hasn't been determined). I'm not super opinionated on this issue, though I am skeptical of symbolic gestures like this. I don't think most people even know much about Audubon as a person in the first place.    

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Our chancellor and provost put out a message about the AA case. Since my university has qualified admissions (you get in if you meet a standard metric), we don't have Affirmative Action, but of course we still needed a Message of Deep Concern for the Decision. Once again, our leaders are deeply concerned, etc... I disagree with the Supreme Court, but as the father of an Asian American I think it was quite damning that Harvard ranked Asian American applicants lowly for the personalities--without having met them, of course. It was by a considerable rate, too.   

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We have 2.5% raise. Inflation is at 4% so far for 2023. Last year we got 5 (inflation was 6.5). No merit increase, so work on the merit committee where we parse our colleagues contributions is pointless. We are voting for the union this fall, if all goes according to plan. 

So suppose we had a salary of 100,000 

Five percent is 5000, so that is 105,000.  

2.5 of 105,000 is 2625, so that is 107,625. 

To keep up with inflation we would have to have 106,500 the first year, then 110,760. We have lost 4,000 to inflation. (Me, less, because I don't make 100 grand).  Not to mention we got almost nothing in 2021, when inflation was 7%.