Emporia State will cut dozens of faculty and staff positions in university restructure
In what university officials acknowledge will be deeply unpopular cuts, Emporia State University will begin a process of sweeping changes to the university’s program offerings after receiving the all-clear from the Kansas Board of Regents.
The Regents on Wednesday unanimously approved a proposal, presented by Emporia State University President Ken Hush, that will allow the university to suspend its regular program review process and discontinue some majors, and lay off otherwise protected, tenured faculty.
Hush told the Regents that years of a status-quo mentality toward falling enrollment and declining revenue, in which budget cuts had been applied uniformly across the campus, have put the university on a path toward a financial crisis by 1,000 cuts.
That approach no longer works, and earlier in 2022, university leaders began a process to change the university’s budgeting structure, Hush said.
What came out of those discussions was a recommendation for Emporia State to invest more of its resources and funding toward revenue-generating programs in the university’s “strike zone” — such as nursing, business, education and library science and information management — while cutting programs with low-enrollment or prospects for the future.
“Likewise, the faculty and staff with the needed skills followed with the needed programs,” Hush said. “What’s left over did not.”
The recommendation attracted intense scrutiny from groups on Emporia State’s campus and others around the state in the past week as critics called the move an attack on the concept of tenure and academic diversity. Earlier Wednesday, a group of students planned to stage a sit-in on campus, The Bulletin student newspaper reported.
Hush, who had been interim president since November 2021 but was named permanent president in June, told The Capital-Journal he believed the group of protesters and faculty who have spoken out to be a small percentage of the overall campus, and that only handfuls of students and faculty had engaged with the discussion process leading up to the final recommendation.
“These things have been going on for a decade-plus,” he said. “We’ll move forward together, and we’re open, but it has to be in a concerted, all-inclusive effort, not just one side to the other.”
About 2% of Emporia State students and 7% of faculty, staff may be affected
While Emporia State has not yet identified which programs or faculty positions may be cut, the university plans to notify students and faculty in affected programs by the end of the week.
University spokesperson Gwen Larson confirmed to The Capital-Journal that some staff had started to receive notices on Thursday, but she declined to share details on the numbers of staff notified so far or in which programs and departments those staff work.
Hush said the moves will affect only about 2% of students, who will all be given the opportunity to complete their programs of study at Emporia State University.
Hush said about 7% of the university’s approximately 800 faculty and staff positions will be eliminated, although any affected employees will be able to finish out the 2022-23 school year and receive three months of severance in May.
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Some faculty presumably will be allowed to continue teaching while the few remaining students in their programs finish their studies in the coming years. Hush said the university will work with faculty and the other Regents institutions to help place laid-off employees in any potential openings elsewhere in the state.
Emporia State University Provost Brent Thomas, who accompanied Hush to the Regents meeting, told the board that university leaders had pained over the decision but realized that to continue under the current university model would be to ask all faculty and staff to continue to do more with less.
“On behalf of my colleagues who have worked together on these analyses, I state that we support this initiative,” Thomas said. “I believe that it is time to move forward in an intentional and strategic manner, and failure to act will lead in further detriment to our university, our faculty, our staff and ultimately our students — the people we serve.”
Regents urge leaders at universities to dedicate themselves to excellence
While members of the Regents said they held “somber confidence” in the university’s plan, they emphasized to Hush that he and other university presidents that the blunt university management tool they had given universities in the wake of COVID-19 should remain a last resort.
“I’ve said before in my private life and in other venues that you can’t cut your way to excellence in anything,” said Regent Wint Winter. “You can, however — and sometimes you must — refocus yourself to excellence.”
Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com or by phone at 785-289-5325. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Emporia State will cut tenure and begin axing university programs
