A UCLA astrophysics professor says he's homeless, and the university's teaching salary is to blame.
Dr. Daniel McKeown has taken to social media in protest over his $70,000-a-year salary, saying he was paid "so poorly last year" that he was forced to move all his belongings to a storage unit and leave his one-bedroom apartment in Westwood.
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He says the salary is not market value.
Currently living with a friend in San Diego and holding his classes online as he tries to renegotiate his salary, Dr. McKeown told KNX News' Karen Adams why he has chosen to go public.
"The goal here is to raise awareness for this and bring awareness to the terrible management that the administration has done and their short-sightedness in not compensating people like me fairly," said McKeown.
"The money that my teaching brings in [is] close to $5 million a year in tuition alone because I teach more than 800 students a year, and each pays $1,250 per credit hour, and my classes are four credit hours...yet I'm not being compensated for my role," he added.
The professor believes that if the student's tuition dollars are not being reinvested into their education, the funds must be going elsewhere, and he is calling on the Governor to look into exactly where that is.
"I'd like there to be some investigation done as a concerned citizen," McKeown said. "I would like the Governor to take a look at the financial budget of UC and see where they're taking the money since they're not paying lecturers and professors who teach such as myself fair wages."
McKeown, a full-time professor with a PhD, said the university told him to get a part-time job when he requested a raise.
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