September 23, 2010. Strongly-worded resolution takes issue with FSU administration’s firing of university’s tenured and tenure-earning professors, Points to dubious budgetary and hiring practices.
(See Links to Layoff Arbitration Briefs Below)
Resolution Concerning Faculty Layoffs
Florida State University Faculty Senate
September 22, 2010
Whereas Provost Abele alerted the FSU chapter of the United Faculty of Florida in December 2008 that faculty layoffs were being contemplated due to decreased funding from the state legislature. During the Spring of 2009, the Provost convinced many of us in the FSU community that layoffs of tenured faculty were unavoidable in order to meet the $56.6 million E&G (recurring) budget shortfall facing FSU in 2009/2010, and
Whereas in June 2009, 21 tenured professors received letters from the Provost notifying them that their positions would be eliminated in one year, citing “necessary budget cuts” as the sole reason for their termination. While all of the universities in the State University System faced similar budget shortfalls in 2009, only FSU chose to lay off tenured faculty, and
Whereas an additional 15 tenure-track professors also received notices of “non-renewal” in June 2009, and at least four of the assistant professors were laid off only so that tenured professors in those same units could be fired (as required by the Collective Bargaining Agreement), and
Whereas the combined 9-month salaries of the 21 tenured faculty was $1.56 million, less than 3% of the E&G budget shortfall. The combined 9-month salaries of the 36 laid off professors amounted to $2.56 million. Since July 1, 2009, and in spite of a campus-wide hiring freeze, at least 27 new tenured and tenure-track professors have been hired on the E&G budget, including five professors in the Provost’s home department, at a cost of at least $2.09 million in 9-month salaries. In addition, at least $1.44 million of E&G funds has been used to hire non-tenure track faculty. Thus, the budget savings from the layoffs of 36 professors were not used to significantly offset the stated budget shortfall, and
Whereas all of the new faculty hires were approved by the Hiring Freeze Exception Committee, which consisted of the Provost, Associate Vice President Anne Blankenship, and Vice President John Carnaghi and which has had no faculty representation, and
Whereas the faculty layoffs at FSU, which included two Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, were widely publicized and have had a significant and continuing negative impact on the academic reputation of FSU both nationally and internationally, and
Whereas the institution of tenure is a long-standing tradition that serves to protect faculty from arbitrary and capricious decisions made by their administrators to terminate their employment, and
Whereas the Provost and the Deans of the affected units were willing to nullify the institution of tenure at FSU, interrupt and damage the careers of 36 professors, and trade the academic reputation of the university for less than $500,000.
Therefore, be it resolved that the Faculty Senate of the Florida State University condemns the actions taken by the administration in 2009 to lay off tenured and tenure-track professors at FSU under the pretext of “necessary budget cuts.”
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