Move to lay off professors has MSU Mankato faculty worried for future of tenure
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Colleges and universities across the country are cutting their budgets amid rising costs, federal funding cuts and declining student enrollment.
In some cases, that means cutting academic programs and laying off faculty to help keep the future of their institutions viable.
It’s already happening on Minnesota’s college campuses. In August, Minnesota State University, Mankato announced plans to lay off seven tenured faculty through a year-long process called retrenchment.
Provost David Hood says it’s part of a broader effort to reduce costs and follows a review in May that led to the suspension of 87 academic programs.
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Hood says they’re exploring other ways to cut costs, too — like consolidating or eliminating programs that are underperforming.
“It doesn’t make sense to continue to offer things that students are no longer telling you that they want,” Hood said. “They tell us what they want by where they decide to major. And, we have to make sure that we are constantly evaluating that, and that we are divesting and reinvesting those resources into places where there’s demand.”
But Jenna Chernega, president of the Inter Faculty Organization, the union representing several Minnesota’s public university professors, disagrees that the school needs to cut back.
“Mankato has been one of the financially healthier institutions in the Minnesota State system with more stable enrollment than the other six universities and pretty healthy finance numbers in terms of their budget and reserves,” Chernega said.
“It was shocking to me when they announced retrenchment,” Chernaga added. “Because I don’t think anyone who is familiar with the finances of the system was expecting Mankato to be an institution that would announce retrenchment right now.”
Fight over tenure
Chad McCutchen is one of the professors whose job is on the chopping block. He teaches Latin American studies in the History department, and says his classes are mostly full. He notes that most of the positions being cut are in the liberal arts, which he believes are essential.
“If they’re making these decisions, and particularly where they affect tenure, it’s difficult again to understand the rationale that they’re going off of when they say there's no demand,” McCutchen said. “Because everything that I’ve researched regarding a history degree says it’s just as valuable as it's always been.”
Chernega says by targeting tenured faculty members for layoffs, the university will effectively dismantle the institution of tenure at the school.
“This is not about finances, this is about eliminating folks in programs that for some reason, the administration doesn’t want any longer, or doesn’t want to support any longer,” she said. “They would rather support other programs for some unnamed reason.”
Hood denies that the school’s aim is to dismantle tenure by eliminating the seven tenured professors through retrenchment. He points out that 23 faculty members earned tenure just last year.
“We are fully committed to individuals who’ve had longevity here at the institution,” Hood said. “And who are contributing to the institution in very meaningful ways.”
Such conflicts over whether to cut tenured faculty positions are becoming more common at colleges and universities nationwide. Rising costs and federal funding cuts for research are squeezing budgets at a time student enrollment is projected to plunge ahead of a demographic cliff.
While freshman class enrollment increased at several Minnesota state universities this fall, the trend is not expected to continue as the U.S. birth rate is falling. Schools anticipate having fewer freshmen enrolling in future years.
“The expectation is that enrollment at many colleges and universities is going to continue declining over the next several years, unless schools can come up with new sources of revenue or unless they can charge students more, which doesn’t seem very possible,” said Lucie Lapovsky, a higher education economist and consultant.
“And that ultimately means fewer people working at the school, usually because that’s the only way you can save money after you’ve made many other cuts.”
Colleges and universities are increasingly relying on part-time, adjunct instructors and professors in recent years. According to the American Association of University Professors, the number of part-time faculty has increased by 70 percent over the last 40 years, while the number of full-time tenured positions dropped 26 percent, and the number of full-time positions on tenure track declined by half.
So Lapovsky says college faculty do have valid concerns about tenured professors’ positions being eliminated.
“But on the other hand, faculty need to be partners with the college and understand the college,” she said. “If it has fewer students, and students are paying less on average, the school can’t continue to support all of the programs and all of the faculty that they were previously.”
The seven tenured faculty at MSU Mankato will still be in their classrooms through the end of the academic year next spring, and the retrenchment process allows them to appeal the planned layoffs to the school’s administration, which could decide to keep them on.
