Compete Missouri will raise faculty salaries by cutting vacant positions. Some faculty are arguing the proposal will hurt faculty more than it will help them.

The faculty got a rare chance to talk as a group to the administrators behind these decisions. The meeting took place after almost 70 faculty members signed a petition against some of the Compete Missouri policies aand about 250 faculty members showed up to have it out with their bosses.

"What is your vision for MU as it transcends this process?" asked John Budd of the MU College of Education.

Budd is one of hundreds of faculty members who met to get much-wanted answers from the administration.

"If there are fewer faculty then there are going to be larger class sizes, there are gonna be classes and sections canceled," Budd said. "It's gonna really have an impact on the students."

Eliminating vacant positions will save $3.8 million a year. That's the money that would go toward higher salaries. But faculty members argue that the program is taking money away from the area that needs it most.

"Even when you look at their budget it seems like the first thing they do is spend all the money and say there's nothing left for you," MU Associate Professor Eddie Adelstein said.

Chancellor Brady Deaton defended the program as short term.

"We felt that was the most effective step we could take to ensure the future quality of this university," Deaton said.

Lauren Hibler markets the university to prospective students. She says it will be hard to do that with what she calls substandard policies.

"When possible incoming freshman come to hear about our university we're really in charge of just selling it. They tell us all these great statistics about 75% of classes being less than 25 students, and about a 19 to one student faculty ration but what I've heard today really makes it difficult to keep selling that," Hibler said.

Campus administrators called the open dialogue a success and say they were happy for the exchange. And faculty members said they were happy to get the chance to voice their opinions to the chancellor.