Inside Higher Ed
August 16th, 2015
After Ashland University on Friday laid off 23 instructors -- many of them tenured -- and eliminated another nine teaching positions, President Carlos Campo described the future at the financially troubled university as "bright."
The move is a drastic one. Generally colleges avoid laying off tenured faculty members, and do so only if they're struggling to pay bills.
Guidelines from the American Association of University Professors implore universities not to lay off tenure-track faculty unless financial exigency -- a monetary crisis that threatens the survival of the institution -- has been declared, which is not the case with Ashland.
Ashland, a Christian affiliated university in Ohio, has experienced financial difficulty in recent years, but enrollment at the school appears steady and the institution had a near $3 million surplus in fiscal 2014. Officials began considering a restructuring of its academic enterprise a year ago. The move has the support of top university administrators and the governing board, but not all faculty.