BY THE WAYNE COLLEGE REDUCTION IN FORCE (RIF) FACULTY HIT LIST

On July 15, 2020, the Board of Trustees, in consultation with the administration, at the University of Akron (UA) chose to eliminate ninety-six bargaining unit faculty. Those of us on that list of cut faculty call ourselves the Hit List.  Although there are satellite campuses of the university, there has only ever been one true branch campus. That college, Wayne College, (now known as “the Wayne Campus” in the wake of the University’s recent restructuring) is in a rural county in Ohio (Wayne County) and serves a specific population within that area (e.g., economically disadvantaged students and first generation students, in addition to first time and returning adult students). We feel the need to talk about the Wayne College RIF Faculty Hit List because of our unique position relative to the main campus of UA. While we share the sorrow, anxiety, rage, and concerns of all of our Hit List colleagues, we also have concerns that we believe may be unique to our regional campus position.

The Hits

In mid-May 2020, UA’s trustees declared force majeure (FM), triggering some aspects of the Akron AAUP bargaining unit contract. The administration’s interpretation of these changes was that they could fire any faculty member they wanted. At this point, the administration has failed the requirement of proving that FM indeed is the cause of the current financial crisis at UA. Within this FM framework, however, the university administration declared that every college would have to cut their budget between 20–35 percent.

In Spring 2020, Wayne had sixteen full-time faculty (with two additional faculty connected to the campus in a non-instructional, non-service capacity). When the semester ended, six of those sixteen left Wayne—four faculty retired and two separated. A simple calculation shows this to be a loss of 37 percent of our faculty through normal attrition. In turn, this would seem to impact the Wayne 2020–2021 budget—reflecting that reduction.  Maybe we are missing something about how all of this works. If we are, we wish someone would explain it to us. If the administration came to our Dean and said you must reduce your college budget by X percent, then those normal attritions should have (or could have) contributed to a portion of that reduction. Yes? No?

If the answer is yes (or even maybe) then we are at a loss to understand why the cuts to faculty at Wayne were so deep. Of the ten remaining faculty faculty members, seven were on the Hit List creating a 70 percent cut which included one non-tenure track (NTT), three long-serving tenured Associate Professors (one of whom, ironically, is slated for promotion to Professor pending the Board’s vote on tenure and promotion at their next meeting), and three at the rank of Professor (one who chose to retire before the list was published). We can’t help but wonder how much the Wayne administration was told to slash from the budget. We have not seen the list of staff and contract professional cuts, but the grapevine is buzzing about the elimination of significant positions in areas central to effective and efficient campus functions.  As yet, the University administration has provided the faculty with no information to clarify the criteria by which these cuts were made. Try as we might, we cannot see this as an act of FM to cope with COVID-19 financial hits, or even a somewhat shady use of FM to help facilitate management of pre-COVID debt. This feels like regional campus dismantling.

Continued Concerns

Wayne now has three faculty members (not including a faculty member who is paid from Wayne but teaches on the main campus). Two of the remaining faculty are in biology, one is in communications.

All of the faculty on the Hit List (with the exception of our NTT) also served as disciplinary coordinators. In this role, we vetted adjunct faculty for hiring (following university established standards, as well as any specific to the discipline, and in consultation with our main campus departments). We assisted and supported our established adjunct faculty. We mentored new part-time faculty and visited classes providing formative teaching assessment and feedback. Our coordinator roles were in place to ensure instructional consistency and excellence not only at the Wayne Campus, but also at the University’s Medina and Lakewood satellites, and our former Millersburg site. Additionally, we vetted and mentored instructors teaching in the College Credit Plus (CCP) program (college credit gen-ed courses for high school students taught at their local school by Wayne faculty or qualified teachers already on staff). For gen-ed areas that now have no coordinator, the discipline-specific quality control is gone. Our three remaining colleagues are undoubtedly highly intelligent, capable, skilled, and committed. However, the workload they will face is frightening and the disciplinary vetting and assistance to ensure quality instruction in specific gen-ed areas will suffer despite what we know will be their high level of diligence. It should also be noted that disciplinary coordinators worked with main campus colleagues to develop and collect required assessment artifacts from Wayne students. This process cannot be sustained. Again, this feels like dismantling.

Historically, Wayne has been a net fiscal asset to the University and a recognized asset in our service area. The College (Campus) is now offering four-year programs in addition to the first two years of general education programming for students who then transfer to Akron’s main campus. Yet there are only two gen-ed disciplines with full-time faculty oversight.  These cuts and their implications clearly speak against any long term concern for the future of Wayne (and by extension the University), our current and future students, and the communities we serve.