William Paterson University says it’s saving the institution by cutting nearly 100 full-time professors over three years. Faculty members wonder what will be left to save.
By Colleen Flaherty December 20, 2021, Inside Higher Ed
Thirteen tenure-track or tenured professors are finishing up their last semester at William Paterson University in New Jersey, having been laid off this year due to budget problems exacerbated by COVID-19.
Now professors who thought their jobs were safe—and who agreed to a number of concessions in order to save as many colleagues’ jobs as possible in the first round of cuts—are facing another, bigger round of layoffs: citing ongoing declining enrollment and a $30 million structural deficit, William Paterson proposed cutting 150 more professors over three years, or about 40 percent of the full-time faculty.
That number has since been reduced to 100 over three years, with the faculty union agreeing to even more concessions. It’s also possible that a few more professors will opt for special retirement packages by a January deadline. But the prospect of losing anything close to 100 professors, out of about 340 total, has the faculty at William Paterson worried about not just their jobs but the future of the institution as a whole.
Read more here.
Solidarity Caucus 