Excerpt from the Wright State Guardian
On Monday evening, Wright State University sent an email to the community explaining the ongoing process of the faculty workforce reduction while also clarifying specific information the university believes to be inaccurate.
On Nov. 12, WSU announced upcoming faculty cuts and program mergers to comply with declining enrollment rates.
WSU has cited the reason for retrenchment as “significant reduction in enrollment over at least four semesters that is expected to persist.”
The university has formed a committee that will bring recommendations to President Sue Edwards. Both union representatives and administration members make up the committee. This committee will have 60 days to submit its recommendations. Simultaneously, Interim Provost Douglas Leaman is working with college deans.
After both the committee and Leaman present recommendations to Edwards, she will then present a plan to the Board of Trustees for potential approval.
Defining an extreme situation
The university claims that the retrenchment has been referred to as an “extreme action” but argues that it has been mutually agreed upon and approved by AAUP membership. The university also states that this is a similar action to other universities with unionized faculty.
According to WSU Faculty Union President Noeleen McIlvenna, the retrenchment process was agreed upon in the very first contract 21 years ago, for an extreme situation. However, the definition of “extreme situation,” does not seem to be agreed upon.
WSU professor and AAUP-WSU officer Tom Rooney believes that retrenchment is a major undertaking by the administration that may not be necessary at this point in time.
“Retrenchment is really a last ditch effort to save an institution that is on the verge of collapse. That is how it is traditionally used,” said Rooney. “By the time the university goes to retrenchment, they should have tried all kinds of other things to try to save money.”
Rooney also argued that WSU is not in a financial situation that warrants drastic measures such as retrenchment.
“The strange thing about it is that if you look at our financial position, we have not been in financial shape this good since 2014. We had some very difficult years (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018) where we were in really bad financial shape. But we are in much better financial shape now,” said Rooney.
