Professor: Ohio universities 'crippled educational opportunities' during pandemic

Back in the early days of the pandemic, faculty across Ohio held hopes that our universities, fearing financial pressure, would finally take the opportunity to make the reforms that would make higher education more affordable, accessible, and effective for Ohio students and families.

It was an opportunity for public and private institutions to reverse administrative bloat, skyrocketing administrative salaries, cuts in spending on instruction, and reform athletic departments that have become financial blackholes.

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The verdict is in and Ohio’s universities have failed to address the serious problems they face.

Much of this irresponsible approach was detailed in a report that the national American Association for University Professors released a few months ago.

The association has 25 chapters at Ohio universities.

Wittenberg University and the University of Akron, along with several other universities across the country, were highlighted for their destructive response to the pressures of the pandemic.

The report found that these universities were prompted primarily by “opportunistic exploitation” of an extraordinary event.

“Some institutional leaders,” the American Association for University Professors stressed, “seem to have taken the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to turbocharge the corporate model that has been spreading in higher education over the past few decades, allowing them to close programs and layoff faculty members as expeditiously as if colleges and universities were businesses whose CEOs suddenly decided to stop making widgets or shut down the steelworks.”

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Wittenberg, sanctioned by the national faculty organization, was found to have “initiated a program-review process that circumvented established faculty governance policies and procedures; suspended unspecified sections of the faculty manual that would have interfered with their plans to close programs and eliminate faculty appointments; and discontinued eight programs and terminated two tenured appointments without meaningful faculty involvement and in disregard of widely accepted academic standards— unilateral actions with devastating consequences for academic governance at the institution.”

While these cuts were being imposed, the opening of a new athletic facility dramatized the upside priorities.

The Akron administration ruthlessly attacked its own academic mission by eliminating nearly 96 faculty positions, recklessly stripping several departments of its full-time faculty and circumventing faculty advice. The action severely weakens the meaning of tenure and academic freedom at the institution. Of course, not a single one of nearly a dozen highly paid vice presidents lost their jobs in Akron’s alleged budget “crisis.”

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“The action,” the report concluded, “disregarded almost all of the AAUP principles and standards” accepted nationwide in higher education institutions.

Using the pandemic to pursue policies that crippled educational opportunities has been widespread. Wright State University, which mismanaged itself into a strike three years ago, has relentlessly pursued efforts to cut faculty positions. A wiser move would be to cut the athletic deficit or eliminate unproductive administrative positions. It seems Wright State, Akron, and Wittenberg are oblivious to the reality that faculty positions generate revenue.

Similarly, panicky Miami University, with a $27 million athletic deficit, slashed about 200 short-term contract faculty in 2020. Given Miami’s strong financial position, level-headed caution rather than an attack on academics would have been the proper course.

The University of Cincinnati, despite record enrollment during the pandemic, struck a hard blow against academics. UC chose to impose punitive 8 percent cuts on its 13 colleges – draining money from where education actually takes place so it can be spent elsewhere (nearly $30 million lost annually in athletics). And then UC hiked tuition on incoming freshmen.

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Even Ohio State posted a $10 million loss pre-pandemic in 2019, which it blamed on an “accounting” issue but has projected much larger losses due to the pandemic.

More: Ohio State athletic department lowers deficit projection for 2021 fiscal year

Students, parents, concerned citizens, and the legislature need to join with faculty to create reforms to channel more money toward education and scholarships and less toward projects barely related to the academic mission of higher education.

Ohio’s students deserve responsible management of their public and private colleges and universities.

John McNay is professor of history at the University of Cincinnati and past president of the Ohio Conference, American Association of University Professors.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Opinion: What did Ohio's universities did wrong during pandemic