Michele Papakie, a professor, department chair and graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, clutched a microphone on the campus’ Oak Grove late Thursday and summed up how she felt to a crowd standing under umbrellas.
"Grief for my colleagues!" she shouted. "Grief for my students and for my university!"
Friday was the deadline for the State System of Higher Education to notify tenured faculty of the first of what could be hundreds of layoffs at seven system campuses. But reality already had set in at IUP, which announced a restructuring two weeks ago and is the likely epicenter of what may be the largest workforce reduction in the system’s nearly four-decade history.
By Friday evening, expected system layoffs totaled 186.
At IUP, notices went out to 81 tenured/tenure track faculty, among the equivalent of 128 full-time faculty expected to be let go there after the spring, officials said. Another 21 permanent faculty at Edinboro University and the equivalent of 26 adjunct and regular part-time faculty will be let go there, while California University of Pennsylvania said it avoided permanent reductions through transferring faculty to other departments; transfers also lessened the toll at Edinboro.
Clarion University also said Friday afternoon that it opted not to send out layoff notices to permanent faculty, and in a statement said it hoped to handle staffing reductions “through attrition and elimination of temporary and vacated positions.”
Letters to tenure/tenure track faculty numbered six at Cheyney, two at Lock Haven and three at Mansfield.
Notices to tenured faculty on the seven campuses had to be sent by Friday under a collective bargaining agreement with the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, which represents about 5,000 system faculty and coaches. Other faculty including adjuncts could receive notice later in the school year.
“Today has been an extremely tough, emotional, and draining day. I was cc’d on every retrenchment letter that was emailed today,’’ said Erika Frenzel, president of the IUP APSCUF chapter. “I don’t want to speak in specifics as that is not my place, but there was more than one instance where an entire department was retrenched.”
The 33% enrollment loss at IUP since 2010 is stark but, to an extent, reflects what is occurring on public and private campuses generally in Pennsylvania and beyond as high school graduate numbers have fallen. IUP officials also point to declines in international students and persistence and retention efforts that so far have fallen short.
The university — one of the State System’s 14 member campuses — is not among the six being eyed for consolidation. It could face upward of 120 layoffs by the end of the academic year, hitting particularly hard programs in the arts, humanities and sciences.
This week, IUP students and others have taken part in rallies and demonstrations, some referenced on a Twitter hashtag, #ShameOnIUP. In one, 100-plus music students, dressed in performance black, stood at attention outdoors during a silent concert.
“This is what cuts to music and the art(s) look like,” tweeted Matthew Vetter, an assistant professor of English.
Amid the protests, IUP President Michael Driscoll this week released a seven-minute video saying that if IUP does not take steps immediately, it could run through its reserves and be insolvent within four years. He also took blame for incomplete information.
“I owe you an apology,” Mr. Driscoll began. “Two weeks ago, I talked to you about the vision for IUP’s future — IUP NextGen, a student-centered IUP,” he said.
“I chose to share with you the information that was available at that time, incomplete though it was, telling you about merging two colleges and focusing on key programmatic areas, while making sure IUP students receive a sound grounding in the arts, humanities and sciences ...”
He said gaps in what he provided fueled speculation and stress that students and employees did not need on top of a pandemic.
On Oct. 14, Mr. Driscoll announced consolidation of six academic colleges into five, with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the College of Fine Arts coming together for a new college.
University officials said program closures number only five so far: theater-musical theater; interdisciplinary fine arts-dance arts; master of fine arts in art; master of art-art education; and art studio.
But mergers, moratoriums and other decisions including moving departments into other parts of the university were met with complaints by some students and faculty that, in essence, the areas are being cut and professors who teach in them eliminated.
Ms. Papakie’s department, Journalism and Public Relations, with an enrollment of 40, is being moved into the Department of Communications Media. "How could they possibly be cutting a department that put five Pulitzer Prize winners in this world?" Ms. Papakie, an associate professor, asked in remarks heard by those standing in the rain on the Oak Grove and by others remotely.
Students with signs during that and other gatherings decried the likely impact on a university that in 2010 had 15,000 students, but as of this fall has just over 10,000. Criticisms included a decision five years ago to convert from a flat full-time tuition rate to charges based per credit, which boosted the price for many students.
“It is utterly disgusting to even consider cutting journalism in this political climate,” student Marty Weber wrote in a campus publication, The HawkEye. “You take a look around and decided to get rid of the fact checkers? The truth-seekers? The critical thinkers?”
The moves announced Friday drew sharply different reactions among management and the faculty union.
“We have been challenging the status quo and will continue to do so as we look to reshape public higher education in Pennsylvania and recapture our affordability edge in a competitive marketplace,” said State System spokesman David Pidgeon.
Jamie Martin, APSCUF president, called the layoffs devastating to both student opportunities and to faculty.
’We understand the System has financial challenges, many of which can be traced to the Commonwealth’s failure to fund our state-owned universities properly,” Martin said. “Pennsylvania ranks at or near the bottom in every measure of public higher-education funding.’’
Bill Schackner: bschackner@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1977 and on Twitter: @Bschackner
Updated at 3:52 p.m. on 10/30/2020
Correction, made at 1:45 p.m. Nov. 1: The president of the IUP APSCUF chapter is Erika Frenzel. An earlier version of this story misspelled her first name.
First Published: October 30, 2020, 3:14 p.m.
Updated: October 31, 2020, 2:26 a.m.
