As yellow balloons bearing the lion crest of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization blew in the air, about 100 supporters stood in solidarity with the lecturers union outside the Fleming Administration Building yesterday.

The rally comes while the union is currently in contract negotiations with the University and one week after University officials decided not to reappoint Kirsten Herold, the vice-president of LEO.

Standing on top of a cement platform, Marc Ammerlaan, co-chair of LEO and a biology lecturer, kicked off the rally by equating the skills and quality of lecturers — who are not on a tenure track — with tenured professors.

“We are just as credentialed and just as qualified and just as gray and just as pot-bellied as the tenured track faculty members,” Ammerlaan said.

Elizabeth Axelson, lead negotiator of LEO and lecturer in the University’s English Language Institute, told the crowd that LEO demands that lecturers be paid the same salary as a University professor, excluding any monetary gains professors get for research. The University turned down this proposal, which includes an eight-year implementation plan, earlier this year, she said.

Also present at the rally was a Band-Aid-clad poster signed by LEO supporters, signifying the lecturers’ opposition to the University’s possible decision to cut more lecturer positions, Axelson said.

Axelson told the crowd that organizing rallies such as this to garner support is essential for the success of LEO’s negotiations.

“You can’t sit in a little room with management and get a contract on your own,” she said. “You have to have the strength of your members and your members’ supporters.”

In an interview last month, University Provost Teresa Sullivan said officials in her office have no plans to lay off lecturers.

“Right now our plans don’t include — from this office — they don’t include layoffs,” Sullivan said at the time. “But we’re a very decentralized place, and what we end up doing is giving each unit a budget, and they have to live within that budget.”

Though Sullivan couldn’t guarantee that no lecturers would be laid off due to the decentralized nature of the University, she said officials would look for other options for cutting costs before laying off lecturers.

“I would say that we are a human capital organization, and the reason we don’t look at layoffs first is that when we lay people off we don’t just cut costs, we cut assets,” Sullivan said at the time. “That’s not something that we want to do, but there aren’t a lot of places to cut in many programs.”

In an interview, Joe Walls, adjunct associate professor, who acts as spokesperson for LEO, said the purpose of the rally was to make the group’s struggles known to the public. The rally’s location merited special attention from the administration, he said.

“I’m sure they’re watching,” Walls said. “I’m sure they’re paying attention to what’s happening.”

Walls also said undergraduates should attend the rally and support the lecturers, as “what happens to lecturers impacts the classes they take and who teaches them and whether the classes are offered at all.”

LSA junior Jody Schechter, who is also a member of Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality, said she came to the rally not only because she believes in the cause, but also because she realizes how she is impacted by the struggles of the lecturers.

“I’m here because I believe that my lecturers deserve fair pay and because I realize how important they are to my education,” Schechter said.

Despite the fact that the lecturers were earlier urged not to discuss the rally in their classes, some lecturers brought students from their classes.

In an article published in the University Record on Wednesday, University officials said discussing the contract negotiations in class is a violation of state law and the union's agreement with the University.