Faculty members were spared as the institution slashed 300 jobs last week, but they know they could be next. Robert E. Bionaz, an associate professor of history (shown teaching last month), says the mood on the campus is grim. “It’s really an untenable situation.”David Mercer, AP Images
Last week at Chicago State University, another academic year came to a close in the usual ways. Students crammed for final exams, and the campus buzzed with preparations for its commencement, where more than 800 students would receive their degrees.
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Faculty members were spared as the institution slashed 300 jobs last week, but they know they could be next. Robert E. Bionaz, an associate professor of history (shown teaching last month), says the mood on the campus is grim. “It’s really an untenable situation.”David Mercer, AP Images
Last week at Chicago State University, another academic year came to a close in the usual ways. Students crammed for final exams, and the campus buzzed with preparations for its commencement, where more than 800 students would receive their degrees.
But none of that could overshadow the looming layoffs at the institution hardest hit by a months-long budget standoff in Illinois that has deprived public colleges of state money for most of the academic year.
There are many complex parts in this machine called the university. It’s unprecedented that a university of our size would lose this much of its work force.
Chicago State had put all 900 of its employees on notice in February that, come May, they should not return to work unless specifically “recalled.” On Friday, April 29, the day after graduation, administrative and noninstructional staff members waited hopefully to see if they would be among those notified that they still had a job. The recall process was also slated to play out over the weekend.
“No one seems to know anything,” one employee wrote in an email shared on a Chicago State faculty blog. “It seems like no one cares.” The employee reported waiting past working hours for word, only to be told to show up on Monday of this week and expect to hear by Wednesday.
The university did announce on Friday that 300 employees would be laid off in an initial round of cuts — about one-third of its work force — but no faculty positions would be affected yet. Now faculty members join their remaining staff colleagues in struggling to come to terms with the cuts and understand how the financially strapped university will function in the future, including how other cuts might play out.
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Faculty jobs are hardly safe. Based on the dates their contracts end — May 15 for lecturers and clinical professors, August 15 for tenured and tenure-track faculty members — some of them could be laid off, too.
“There is a likelihood that not all faculty will be recalled,” Chicago State’s president, Thomas J. Calhoun Jr., told the Chicago Tribune last week.
That prospect has people panicked. “There’s just utter insecurity all over the place,” said Robert E. Bionaz, an associate professor of history and president of the faculty union. Mr. Bionaz is a co-founder the blog CSU Faculty Voice, which has criticized how the university is run. He spent part of Monday on the campus assessing reactions to Friday’s layoffs, which affected custodians, admissions officers, administrative assistants, and information-technology professionals, among others. “It’s really an untenable situation,” he said.
‘Unprecedented’ Loss
The layoffs came about a week after state lawmakers approved a last-minute cash infusion to public colleges, including $20 million for Chicago State. But Mr. Calhoun said the money — less than 60 percent of what the university expected to receive this fiscal year — was too little, too late. Chicago State, like other public institutions, had operated since July 1 without state money, and was harder hit than most: The institution, on Chicago’s South Side, serves about 4,500 students, who are predominantly black and low-income students, and it depends on state funds for 30 percent of its budget.
The university had already declared financial exigency — a sort of bankruptcy for academic institutions — in February, cut the spring semester short, and moved up graduation to make sure the year would end before money ran out. The staff layoffs are expected to save about $2 million a month, but they come at a cost in other ways.
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Such expansive cuts are bound to result in a void of expertise in certain areas, faculty members say, as well as an increased workload for those left behind at an institution whose administrators have said it is committed to remaining open. The university’s website says summer classes will begin on May 31. Registration for the fall semester is underway.
“Department secretaries are missing. We let go of the bulk of the library staff. I don’t know how we could use the library over the summer unless they’re recalled,” said Philip Beverly, an associate professor of political science and president of the Faculty Senate. “There are many complex parts in this machine called the university. It’s unprecedented that a university of our size would lose this much of its work force.”
Bungled Layoffs
But for some employees, their fate was far from clear. At least one woman spent the weekend thinking she had been laid off, said Mr. Beverly, who is the faculty blog’s other co-founder. She even filed for unemployment benefits because she hadn’t been recalled by the end of the day on April 30. But at midday on Monday, she was told she still had a job.
I keep thinking, Is this the way a university is supposed to run? No. Maybe corporate America, but not a university.
Other employees have reported the opposite to Mr. Bionaz: that they were told they still had a job, then later laid off.
“This has been completely mismanaged,” he said. “What was the plan here?”
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For now there doesn’t appear to be a clear plan on how to shore up Chicago State’s financial future. As the state-budget stalemate continues, lawmakers are considering further emergency funding for higher education, according to news reports. Meanwhile, more than 60 social-service organizations are suing the state to be paid for services already provided, the local public-radio station reported.
Based on what has happened so far, faculty members say they don’t expect to know their fate until the last minute. William Jason Raynovich, an associate professor of music, found out about the scope of the layoffs from the news media.
“Being the vice president of the Faculty Senate, I should have known something, but I didn’t. None of us did,” said Mr. Raynovich. He checked in with staff colleagues about their job status in between giving final exams, he said. “I keep thinking, Is this the way a university is supposed to run? No. Maybe corporate America, but not a university.”
Audrey Williams June is a senior reporter who writes about the academic workplace, faculty pay, and work-life balance in academe. Contact her at audrey.june@chronicle.com, or follow her on Twitter @chronaudrey.
Audrey Williams June is the news-data manager at The Chronicle. She explores and analyzes data sets, databases, and records to uncover higher-education trends, insights, and stories. Email her at audrey.june@chronicle.com, or follow her on Twitter @audreywjune.