Merged state-owned universities send out layoff letters
Two of the six state-owned universities being merged in Pennsylvania have notified 26 professors of plans to lay them off by the end of the 2023-24 academic year, officials with the faculty union confirmed Friday.
Lock Haven University issued 23 of the letters, and Mansfield University issued three, according to the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, which represents some 5,000 professors across the State System of Higher Education and its 14 member institutions.
The State System plans by August 2022 to merge California, Clarion and Edinboro universities in the west into a new entity called Pennsylvania Western University. Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield universities in the northeast also are being combined, but officials have not announced what they will be called.
The system, like other regional public universities nationally, has been hit hard by high school graduate losses and other market and financial turmoil, most recently the pandemic. The State System enrolls fewer than 89,000 students as of this fall compared to nearly 120,000 in 2010.
The association said in a statement Friday afternoon that it is working to find alternatives to job losses. In a statement, APSCUF explained that there is a longer period of notice than typically occurs before layoffs take effect given a side-letter negotiated between union and management enabling retrenchment to be deferred until future years contingent on sufficient commonwealth funding for that purpose: “Such letters typically go into effect at the end of the academic year in which they are delivered. The timeline of this year’s letters is due to a side-letter agreement between the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties — the union representing State System faculty and coaches — and Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education.”
APSCUF said it does not anticipate additional letters this month. State System officials had
no comment on the layoff letters announced but indicated Friday it does not see any additional ones in the works.
“At this point, we are not aware of any additional notices going out this year,” system spokesman Cody Jones said.
“Every letter is traumatic for
the faculty member who receives it — and for their colleagues and students,” said APSCUF President Jamie Martin, who teaches at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “We are not yet out of the pandemic, and these faculty members are now grappling with the possibility of unemployment
during a precarious and troubling time.
“I am heartbroken for my colleagues who are already dealing with the uncertainty of consolidation — and for their students who face loss of opportunities as well,” she added.
The union said it is not a given that the faculty will lose their jobs. The union is working at the State System and campus levels to find alternatives including departmental and university transfers for qualified individuals. APSCUF’s collective bargaining agreement requires the State System to alert tenured faculty members by Oct. 30 if they are in danger of being retrenched.
APSCUF has been working to avoid job losses since spring 2020, when State System Chancellor Daniel Greenstein called for universities to return to the student/faculty ratios of 2010-11, a high-water mark for enrollment. More than 100 faculty members’ jobs were in peril during the previous academic year; through APSCUF efforts, the total jobs lost were reduced to 31, union officials said.
APSCUF represents faculty and coaches at the State System universities: Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock, and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania.