Turning Points on WSU’s Dayton Campus | Photo by Soham Parikh | The Wright State Guardian
On Monday evening, Wright State University (WSU) 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.
Retrenchment process
On Nov. 12, WSU announced upcoming faculty cuts and program mergers to comply with declining enrollment rates.
The entrenchment process has begun and will comply with the obligations outlined in article 17 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the faculty union.
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.
Addressing misinformation
The email also addresses some issues that the University believes to be misinformation.
“Unfortunately, some from our campus community have attempted to unnecessarily create fear and panic within a variety of constituencies, most notably among Wright State’s students and alumni, without even giving the mutually agreed upon process a chance to begin,” according to the university. “This is reprehensible and, in the end, runs the risk of further exacerbating the university’s already declining enrollment—the very impetus for these anticipated bargaining unit faculty reductions.”
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.
Mcllevenna mentioned Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio as an example of an extreme situation.
“They were down to their last 10 students. It was on the verge of collapse. That is an extreme situation,” said Mcllevenna. “We wrote the contract for an extreme situation. We said ‘yes, if that happens, the university is absolutely going to go bankrupt. So we agreed to those provisions.’”
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.
One of the deciding factors in considering whether or not retrenchment is necessary is if the decline in enrollment is believed to persist.
Wright State administration believes it is expected to do so according to their cited reason for retrenchment in the email.
“[The university anticipates] a significant reduction in enrollment over at least four semesters that is expected to persist,” according to the email.
However, not everyone believes this to be the case.
“Falling enrollment has happened. That part is true, but it has to be expected to persist, and we don’t believe that it is expected to persist,” said Mcllevenna. “We think that we’ve had a couple of bad years, sure, but there is no reason to believe that Wright State won’t start recovering pretty quickly.”
“The fundamental problem is that students are not choosing Wright State, and that is a problem that is fixable,” said Rooney. “Not only do I think it is not fixable by retrenchment, I think retrenchment makes it worse. I believe in Wright State and I know we’ve got fantastic programs and really smart faculty. We’ve got all the right pieces in place. The question is ‘can we convince people in the Dayton area that we are going to be here in two years.’”
University denies claims made by AAUP
In the email, WSU addressed many other complaints and accusations such as not trusting the university’s numbers and the university using the pandemic as justification to cut faculty.
In an attempt to clarify these statements, WSU argued that the university’s enrollment is tracked publicly and submitted to the state and the federal government. They also stated that the university’s enrollment began to decline long before the pandemic.
Finally, the university addressed a recent claim from an AAUP-WSU FAQ.
This claim stated: “Even if your program remains in existence, as the administration promises, reduced numbers of faculty will result in substantially fewer available courses, or your required courses may be offered less frequently. This will inevitably increase the cost of your education by lengthening the time required for many of you to complete your programs of study and graduate,” according to the university.
The university responded by denying these claims.
“This is a baseless and categorically untrue statement. The university has always prioritized, and will always prioritize, a commitment to our students, and there is no reason to believe that faculty retrenchment will prolong the time it takes to earn a degree at this institution, or that retrenchment will cause the cost of a degree from this institution to increase,” according to the university.
According to Mcllevenna, this was just a small portion of the FAQ and took the information out of context.
“This is just basic math. If you have 10 teachers in a department and they are offering 50 courses a year, then if you had five, they would offer 25 courses. There will be fewer sections of the mandatory courses and fewer choices in your electives. If there are fewer sections in those mandatory courses, that means there will be much more difficulty scheduling,” said Mcllevenna.
The FAQ was distributed to students by some faculty earlier this week, according to Mcllevenna.
This is a developing story.
