A faculty committee at Catholic University of America this week resisted a controversial cost-cutting proposal that would eliminate 35 full-time professors, including those with tenure.
The report of an ad hoc committee, published late Wednesday night, is a forceful rebuke of key components of a long-simmering layoff plan that has sown division at the university, which is based in Washington, D.C., and was founded by American Roman Catholic bishops.
In its report, which was provided to The Chronicle by a professor, the committee questions whether the university has the authority to lay off tenured faculty members without either cause, a declaration of financial exigency, or the elimination of programs.
“There is broad agreement in the university community that touching tenure beyond that which is provided for in the handbook is like playing with fire,” the report states.
The university’s “academic renewal” plan, which Catholic’s provost proposed in March, seeks to close a $3.5-million budget gap by laying off about 9 percent of the university’s faculty. But it has come to represent much more than that, inviting a broader dialogue about whether the university’s enrollment declines are connected to what some professors see as an overemphasis on Catholic identity and moralism that fails to attract students of traditional college age.
A distinguishing feature of the plan is what it does not do: It does not eliminate programs or declare financial exigency, but rather bills itself as a relocation of resources that promises to raise the university’s national profile as a global Catholic research institution.
Touching tenure beyond that which is provided for in the handbook is like playing with fire.
In terms of pure optics, that goal looks better than gutting programs or declaring that the university is going broke, which Catholic’s leaders assert is not the case. At the same time, however, the proposal as written deprives the university of the rationales that the faculty handbook prescribes for eliminating tenured professors.
Andrew V. Abela, the provost, wrote in his proposal that “the faculty handbook does not envision a situation such as the one we face now, where we are simultaneously trying to improve academic excellence and financial sustainability.” He argued, however, that the procedures for cutting tenured faculty jobs “are general enough” to be applicable in this case.
That argument did not pass muster with the ad hoc committee, which called on the university to “firmly commit to upholding tenure as a permanent institution as described within and by the American academic community.”
So too did the committee reject terminations of full-time faculty members who do not have tenure.
Michael Mack, an English professor, applauded the report.
“It is not only a strong and authoritative defense of tenure at CUA; it is a moving affirmation of the value of every faculty member, tenured or not,” he said. “It reminds the administration that the dignity of the person and human solidarity are foundational principles that apply even to the faculty of the university.”
The proposal has not only caused enthusiasm, but it has likewise — and regrettably — been the source for grief, anxiety, pain, and even division in the academic community.
The proposal is moving through the university’s Academic Senate, a group that includes administrators and faculty members. The Senate’s vote is considered consultative and nonbinding, but the proposal has provoked heated discussion about whether the university can eliminate tenured professors in the manner prescribed in the proposal without the group’s blessing. The provost, however, has said there are “no reasonable alternatives” to layoffs, and intimated that the Board of Trustees woud take action to cut costs if the faculty did not.
In an email to The Chronicle on Thursday, Abela wrote, “I welcome the serious consideration that the ad hoc committee has given to the proposal for academic renewal. Their report will go before our Academic Senate next week, and I look forward to discussing it and the proposal with the Senate.”
Rejecting a ‘Caste System’
Professors at Catholic University, most of whom declined to be identified for fear of retaliation, describe the academic-renewal proposal as a particularly cold instrument that disguises a calculated layoff plan with a lot of high-minded talk about raising the university’s national profile. The provost has pushed back against that sentiment, characterizing the proposal’s critics as a vocal minority.
A key component of the plan mandates higher teaching loads for professors who work exclusively with undergraduates, freeing up those in doctoral and professional programs to teach less. If that comes to pass, consultants told the university, Catholic would have “surplus faculty” in some areas who could be laid off without reducing course offerings or cutting programs.
The ad hoc committee suggested a review of teaching loads but characterized as “unnecessarily divisive” the proposal’s suggestion that the university’s faculty be divided up into discrete classifications in which those working solely with undergraduates invariably bear the heaviest teaching burdens. Some professors have said that this aspect of the proposal would create greater equity, giving professors credit for working with doctoral students by reducing their teaching obligations. At the same time, however, many faculty members chafed at the idea of creating what some called a “caste system” within the university.
“The committee recognizes that the proposal has not only caused enthusiasm, but it has likewise — and regrettably — been the source for grief, anxiety, pain, and even division in the academic community,” the report states.
The committee expressed hope that its report would begin “a process of healing” for the university, where rancor and concern have been building for months.
Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.
Correction (5/3/2018, 4:52 p.m.): This article originally misstated when Provost Abela emailed The Chronicle. It was Thursday, not Wednesday. The article has been updated accordingly.
