It’s not just underfunded public institutions like Chicago State University that are feeling the pain of budget cuts in Illinois; even the wealthy and private University of Chicago is being roiled by spending cuts and layoffs that have fallen heavily on nonacademic and secretarial staffers, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Several employees in the humanities division were let go in mid-May, and another round of cuts affecting other branches could hit at the end of June, faculty and union representatives told the newspaper.
Some people are questioning why a prestigious institution that reports more than $8 billion in assets would need to cut costs at all, and how eliminating lower-level administrators is going to help it meet changing financial demands. A university spokesman would not make any top administrators available for comment to the Tribune and declined to answer specific questions about the cuts. In a statement, officials said the university was committed to aggressive spending on new academic programs, facilities, and financial-aid packages that it could not continue without cutbacks elsewhere.
Among the humanities-division employees who received layoff notices was Alicia Czaplewski, a longtime secretary in South Asian languages and civilizations whom a former doctoral student described in a petition as “a foster mother to generations of grad students and scholars alike.” The petition urges university leaders to reconsider their staffing decisions. Nearly 600 people had signed it as of Sunday night.
