Dive Brief:
- According to an American Association of University Professors investigation into potential academic governance violations at eight institutions, some college leaders used the coronavirus crisis to close programs quickly and lay off faculty members.
- AAUP officials said faculty from other institutions nationwide have complained about similar shared governance concerns. “This report, then, should be understood as illustrative rather than exhaustive,” the authors wrote.
- The faculty organization found that tenure — and as a byproduct, academic freedom — faced a “frontal assault” at the colleges under investigation and many others during the pandemic.
Dive Insight:
AAUP’s findings raise the alarm on the future of shared governance, which the organization says has been threatened by the financial pressures of the pandemic. “There is no question that many colleges and universities are in financial distress, and many more will face daunting challenges in the next decade,” the authors wrote. “The question is whether robust shared governance will survive those challenges.”
The organization launched an investigation this fall into the eight schools over academic governance concerns:
- Canisius, Keuka, and Medaille colleges, all in New York.
- University of Akron and Wittenberg University, both in Ohio.
- Marian University, in Wisconsin.
- National University, in California.
- Illinois Wesleyan University.
Most colleges had been grappling with budget challenges, some of which started before the pandemic. Medaille anticipated a $6.5 million net loss in fiscal 2020. Federal coronavirus relief funding helped reduce the college’s deficit, according to AAUP. As of last June, Canisius was staring down a $20 million operating budget shortfall.
The schools took drastic actions to improve their budgets, including scrapping programs, laying off tenured faculty members, and moving away from a tenure system altogether.
AAUP’s investigation committee concluded that all the colleges probed violated or disregarded governance standards. In a statement emailed to Higher Ed Dive, Georgia Nugent said the institution “strongly disagrees” with AAUP’s findings and adhered to the organization’s guidelines as it reviewed academic programs last year. Illinois Wesleyan University President S.
Keuka, meanwhile, contended in a statement shared with Higher Ed Dive that AAUP’s report includes “myriad examples of misinformation and mischaracterizations.” The college said it experienced a nearly 24% year-over-year decline in enrollment revenue in fiscal 2021. It argued that it could only withstand that reduction by laying off faculty members and closing programs. It also surveyed to “gauge tolerance” for changes that impacted staffing.
“The AAUP appears to be either unable or unwilling to accept the fact that difficult measures … allowed Keuka College — and many other institutions across the United States — to achieve the financial position necessary to navigate the pandemic’s impacts successfully,” the college said.
Marian likewise contested the findings. Its president, Michelle Majewski, said in a statement emailed to Higher Ed Dive that the report “attempts to undercut the rationale” behind its decision to eliminate nine programs.
AAUP contended its policies and regulations regarding governance and academic freedom are “broad and flexible” enough to continue enforcing during disasters. However, it said most colleges probed did not follow those guidelines because they either didn’t exist in their regulations or their administrations abandoned them.
In recent months, the colleges under investigation aren’t the only schools to draw attention to mass layoffs or program changes. Since the study, AAUP reported that several other institutions have landed on the organization’s radar for their governance actions.
That includes Ithaca College in New York, which announced in October that it planned to eliminate 130 faculty positions because of enrollment concerns. And the University of Vermont unveiled plans to cut more than two-dozen programs to address a budget deficit in December.
