The upcoming merger between Boston University and Wheelock College will result in more than 100 Wheelock faculty and staff members being laid off. The decision to lay off some Wheelock employees is a result of the economic struggles Wheelock would face, as well as an effort to reduce costs by avoiding redundancy in faculty positions.
From the very beginning of the merger discussions, it was understood by most members of the Wheelock community that the incorporation of Wheelock into BU would result in the duplication of certain positions, BU President Robert Brown wrote in an email.
“It is, however, our fiduciary obligation to use Boston University resources efficiently and prudently and we are ever mindful of the cost of attending Boston University,” Brown wrote. “It would not be right to support duplicate functions or retain staff and faculty who are not critical to the educational mission of the University.”
Several BU working groups assessed the long-term needs, the functions performed and the particular skills of Wheelock employees to determine which of the staff and the non-tenured faculty would be retained.
Seventy-two Wheelock staff members and 39 full and part-time Wheelock faculty members will be laid off, said BU spokesman Colin Riley.
The merger agreement did specify that BU would offer Wheelock’s tenured faculty full appointments, Riley said. All 32 tenured Wheelock faculty members were offered positions, along with 11 non-tenured faculty members.
BU Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs Julie Sandell wrote in an email that the layoffs will occur at the time of the merger. Wheelock is currently operating with its usual faculty and staff.
Wheelock President David Chard said the layoffs were decided upon after thoughtful analysis of Wheelock’s financials. He said the layoffs are necessary for BU to bring on Wheelock in a financially viable way.Chard said it is typical in any merger, corporate or higher education, for there to be a reduction in the size of the workforce.
“There has to be some economic reason that you can do [a merger] for less than the original structure,” Chard said. “Otherwise we would have stayed open as we were … It’s economic, it’s not performance-based.”
BU Human Resources is working to help Wheelock faculty and staff who have been laid off to find opportunities at BU over the next few months before the merger is finalized on June 1.
Chard said some employees, such as maintenance workers, custodians and student services staff members, were offered positions by BU.
Leah Mekler, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she thinks the layoffs are unfortunate for Wheelock professors and for Wheelock students who had a connection with the professors. As a transfer student from a small college, Mekler said she sympathizes with Wheelock students.
“I’m assuming that the Wheelock students go to Wheelock because they want a small school,” Mekler said, “so I have mixed feelings about the merger in general because now they’re going to have to go to a huge school.”
Chard said he thinks the layoffs have been handled in the best way possible.
“While everyone is sad about the situation because they realize this is an end of an era for Wheelock College, I think people feel like it’s been handled in a way that is very respectful and generous to our employees,” Chard said.
Alyssa Lee, a freshman in the School of Education, wrote in a Facebook message that while she feels it was inevitable that some Wheelock staff members would have to be laid off, she still thinks the layoffs were unfortunate.
“While I understand that obviously there can’t be places at BU for all of Wheelock’s faculty and staff, it’s still very unfortunate that a merger that was supposed to save Wheelock is resulting in it losing some of its professors,” Lee wrote.
The individuals who will be laid off will receive severance packages that were determined based on the number of years they had been employed by Wheelock. Chard said the severance packages BU will offer are more generous than those that Wheelock or BU typically offer.
There will be new faculty hires at a later time, but not until the two faculty groups from BU and Wheelock get to know one another.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article had a headline and lede that said more than 100 Wheelock faculty would be laid off as a result of the merger. In fact, that figure includes faculty and staff. The headline and lede have been changed to reflect the nature of the layoffs.
