Budget issues have already forced Boston University administrators to cut 35 to 40 positions, with more cuts likely on the way early in the summer, according to BU executive vice president Joseph Mercurio, and some faculty and staff say they are frustrated with the way administrators have handled the situation.
BU administrators announced early in the academic year that more than 400 jobs would be cut within the next two years, though they did not offer specifics during the fall. Administrators made similar comments in January, saying only that the cuts would come through attrition and reallocation of labor.
But the lack of specifics has left a number of faculty members scared and unsure of their futures at BU, Faculty Council chairman William Skocpol said, and a number of faculty members are not happy.
‘There is so much wait-and-see in the actual situation and it leaves people not knowing,’ Skocpol said.
But one staff member whose job will be terminated as of July 1 thinks some faculty members’ fear is because of more than just not knowing where or when the cuts are going to come.
Julia Livingstone, an administrative assistant in the office of the University Chaplains, said she thinks upper administrators have not been forthcoming about the cuts, producing an on-edge work environment.
‘[Faculty and staff] are very exhausted and tired’ of the way the budget cuts are being handled, Livingstone said.
‘When staff members were alerted [about the layoffs], everyone became both frightened and anxious about their own jobs,’ she said.
Several staff members were so enraged about the possible cuts they held a meeting to discuss the matter in late January, though only six staff members and one faculty member Skocpol came. No more organized efforts have been made on the issue.
But despite the accusations of upper-administrator secrecy, BU provost Dennis Berkey claimed the university’s employees have been advised since the beginning of the school year about the university’s financial situation and possibility of cuts. The university has been honest with its employees, he said.
‘Last fall we began, with the involvement of the vice presidents, deans and department heads, a program to reduce the size of the faculty and staff over a two-year period,’ Berkey said. ‘That program continues.
‘There is no particular update at this point’ with regards to the layoffs, he added.
However, though Skocpol said Berkey told faculty members the cuts are over for now, he still does not necessarily believe it, saying that ‘come July, there may be some surprises.’
‘There have been assurances from the provost that there is no need for more cuts … whether the hope will be implemented or not remains to be seen,’ Skocpol said.
Livingstone also believes that ‘surprises’ will come once the spring semester is over a time when there is less media attention on the university.
‘I suspect [upper administrators] won’t make cuts until things quiet down: when faculty and staff aren’t as uptight about things, the students are gone and The Daily Free Press is not in press,’ Livingstone said.
Livingstone said she was fortunate to have been given plenty of notice her job would be terminated, but said other employees may not be so lucky.
‘[I have] a great dean that gave me plenty of notice,’ Livingstone said. ‘My concern is more for the others [who will be cut] with little notice.’
Because ‘each college has been given a quarter expectation’ by upper administrators, there ‘isn’t an overall picture of how the [faculty and staff cuts] are handled and with what sensitivity,’ Skocpol said.
From his experience with CAS, Skocpol has found that Dean Jeffrey Henderson has dealt with the issue well.
Once administrators assign a college’s quarter budget expectations, university deans pass the expectations on to the departments at issue, ‘and then the department tries to figure out how to cope,’ Skocpol said.
TOUGH CHOICES
Although the cuts may be unfortunate, Mercurio said BU is not the only school facing budgetary problems due to the nationwide recession.
‘The reality of the recession and the pressure of continually growing costs are challenging institutions across the country,’ Mercurio said in a Feb. 3 letter to The Daily Free Press.
In a recent interview, Mercurio said though there are fewer positions available within the university than last year because of the budget, the university is responding to the budget cuts in several ways not only through layoffs.
‘There are 150 fewer positions budgeted this year than last year,’ Mercurio said. ‘A vast majority of those [150 positions] are open, others of them have had their duties shuffled, some people have chosen to depart and a few layoffs have already taken place.’
Mercurio also said he is unsure if there will be any further layoffs before July 1. Those who have been laid off because of the budget were all staff members, he said, and there are no plans to layoff faculty.
And Skocpol said even though there is little threat that faculty will be laid off, many are being pressured to take breaks, leading to larger classes.
‘On the faculty side those that are tenured, pre-tenured or quite secure can help the budget by leaving to do research,’ Skocpol said. ‘Thus we are walking on narrow edge in terms of teaching courses.’
However, Mercurio holds that the integrity of the university will not be compromised in any way because of the budget, and that the university has used attrition to slowly cut positions.
Nonetheless, whether attrition is used or not, positions within the university will be cut at some point, Skocpol said.
‘There is budgetary pressure to make next year’s budget, and all this comes on top of years of budget cuts,’ he said.
But departments are oftentimes faced with tough choices.
‘Sometimes it has to unfortunately come to staff versus discretionary expenditures,’ he said.
Skocpol said these cuts could harm students’ experience in dealing with the university because remaining staff are often overworked.
‘The remaining staff may be too busy to figure out [the student’s] problems,’ he said.
Despite the problem the university is in, Livingstone thinks faculty and staff cuts should not have been the solution.
‘It is unfortunate that the 2003 management can not find a better way to respond to the budget problems than by cutting people.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
