Wheelock staff question pending merger with BU

Wheelock College faculty and staff are demanding answers from the university leaders they say have left them in the dark and wondering if they’ll still have jobs when the merger with Boston University wraps up next year.

In addition to concerns about their own futures, many professors say they’re worried about what the merger means for Wheelock students, many of whom are students of color and firstgeneration collegians.

“A lot of our students come to Wheelock because it’s a small school,” said Irwin Nesoff, chairman of the college’s Department of Leadership and Policy. “They come because of the focus on service. The bottom line is they applied and were accepted to Wheelock for a reason. They weren’t going to BU. They are two very different institutions.”

Faced with declining enrollment and financial woes, Wheelock agreed to merge with BU in October. The small, education-focused college had 1,157 students in 2016, a 39 percent drop from a decade earlier, and school officials projected a budget loss of $6 million for fiscal year 2018.

The merger, slated for June 1, would give BU ownership of all Wheelock assets and liabilities and combine Wheelock’s School of Education, Child Life and Family Studies with BU’s School of Education, establishing a single school, BU’s Wheelock College of Education and Human Development.

Wheelock President David Chard will head the new school beginning June 1.

Nesoff said the merger has some faculty members questioning whether Wheelock officials could have done more to save the school.

“(We) don’t understand why this had to happen and why it had to happen so fast and why there was no opportunity for input from faculty or staff,” he said.

Only tenured faculty members have been promised a position at BU, leaving two-thirds of Wheelock’s faculty on the chopping block.

Christie Stephenson, spokeswoman for SEIU Local 509, which is working to unionize non-tenure faculty members at private colleges citywide, said union staffers have met with Wheelock faculty members to hear their concerns.

“It is troubling that the BU-Wheelock merger is proceeding in a way that disenfranchises faculty who have devoted decades to teaching, both at BU and at Wheelock,” Stephenson said. “Union staff have met with affected Wheelock faculty to hear their concerns about the merger, including potential layoffs and the impact on Wheelock’s unique culture and learning environment.”