After budget cuts and layoffs, faculty members are trying to stay upbeat but are still asking questions and looking for answers.
“The morale is OK, all things considered,” Faculty Senate Chair Tracy Floreani said. “I think faculty are concerned and willing to be uncomfortable and make cuts and scrimp for the greater good of the university.”
However, there also is dissatisfaction because after a faculty town hall meeting held Feb. 4, where it was announced layoffs were inevitable, faculty walked away caught off guard and with questions regarding a $1.1 million budget deficit only to come back to a university-wide budget forum Feb. 10, where 23 layoffs were confirmed.
“Until we had these budget summits a couple weeks ago, it didn’t feel like anybody knew the source of some of the problems, and so there was some frustration with that and so many question marks about what’s going to happen next,” Floreani said.
Susan Emel, faculty representative to the Baker University Board of Trustees, polled the faculty after the layoffs but before the BOT meeting Feb. 13 to gauge faculty members’ feelings and see if they had creative ideas to help with the deficit.
“Everyone felt horrible about the staff people losing their jobs,” she said. “They came back with a lot more conviction than I was asking for. Quite frankly, it was very moving.”
Emel said some volunteered to take pay cuts, teach overloads or classes for free.
She even received an e-mail from a retired professor who volunteered to help with recruitment.
“All of that kind of response made me feel like the mood was still united, hopeful, pulling together,” she said. “And really, if you think about it, I wouldn’t expect any less from this place.”
The faculty came together again Feb. 12 for a meeting about tenure.
Emel said every February, the BOT deals with faculty issues relating to things like tenure, sabbaticals and promotions because contracts are legally required to be issued in March.
Floreani said faculty senate called a meeting with Provost Randy Pembrook after rumors started swirling the BOT might not approve two faculty members for tenure due to budgetary concerns.
“In the eyes of the faculty, tenure does not cost more money because tenure is separate from promotion. What tenure means is that you will be issued a contract,” Emel said.
Alan Grant, associate professor of business and economics, said the meeting Feb. 12 lasted about two hours with faculty sharing their views with the provost to relate to the BOT.
“The faculty collectively were very quick to point out that there were not any budgetary implications that would help us out of this crisis this year or next year,” he said.
Pembrook said the meeting Feb. 14 helped clarify the fact promotions, which coincide with increased income, are separate from tenure, which guarantees employment.
“The tenure process is not in and of itself a salary adjustment,” he said.
It also helped underscore the importance of tenure in terms of recruiting and retaining quality faculty, Pembrook said.
“I feel like in these decisions both the faculty and the board have worked very hard in understanding that these are challenging budget times,” he said.
Professor of Physics Mahmoud Al-Kofahi and Associate Professor of Physics Ran Sivron received tenure Feb. 13 during the board’s executive session.
Al-Kofahi said the administration handled the issue as it should in the proper academic way and independent of the current budget concerns.
“The way I see it is that tenure is like promotion earned by the faculty based on satisfying the requirements as stated in their contracts and as explained in the faculty handbook,” he said. “In a way, tenure is something related to the performance of the concerned faculty in past years while the budget cuts are related to ‘future budget.'”
Grant said the fact Baker not only has to balance the budget but have a surplus of about $200,000 due to a bond covenant makes things extra tight.
“We’re down to the point now where we’re literally counting photocopies and worried about ‘Are we going to have enough room in the Xerox budget to Xerox exams this semester?'” he said. “It’s that tight at the departmental level.”
Floreani said faculty members are worried they aren’t serving students well.
“We’ve all been in so many extra meetings lately and this has occupied so much of our mental energy that I’ve talked to a lot of professors who just feel like (they’re not doing their students justice).”
Emel said many people are unsure what the coming months and years will bring because its hard to predict the future when the economy is still fluctuating.
“(We) can’t rebuild or heal until you get to a stopping point, so people are waiting for that.” she said.