Misericordia AAUP Chapter

03/24/2021

The Misericordia University administration claims that the university, or certain departments within it, are "over-tenured."

What are the facts?

- Fact: Tenure simply protects academic freedom
- Fact: Tenured professors can be still be fired for cause or when their programs are discontinued. Tenure just means they get due process
- Fact: In 2001, Misericordia had 88 full-time faculty, and only 1 was not tenured or on the tenure-track. Concerns of "over-tenuring" are very recent by comparison
- Fact: The share of tenured professors at Misericordia has been the same (about 20% of all full-time faculty) since 2006. Suspending tenure decisions does not reverse some trend toward a more tenured faculty. If anything, it perpetuates a trend AWAY from the stability that a tenured faculty provides

See more at http://bit.ly/MisCounterCase

03/22/2021

The Misericordia University Board and administration claim that it was necessary to suspend tenure decisions because tenure is a financial issue.

Let's check the facts:
- Fact: Tenure protects academic freedom, the collective right to teach, create scholarship, and speak when acting as academic professionals, without institutional censorship or discipline
- Fact: Tenured professors can be fired for doing a bad job ("for cause") or laid off when the university is in financial exigency
- Fact: Tenure costs nothing. A professor could be tenured without any pay increase whatsoever
- Fact: Tenure is a right, not a privilege

See more at http://bit.ly/MisCounterCase

03/19/2021

Get the Facts!

The Misericordia University administration has emphasized a need for new, innovative programs to appeal to prospective students, implying that the university doesn't have enough such programs.

What are the facts?
- Fact: The administration chose to fire TWO professors developing the new, interdisciplinary Environmental Studies program
- Fact: The Computer Science program has zero full-time professors and no Program Director. The administration has chosen not to hire replacements
- Fact: Firing professors undermines the ability to create new programs. It takes a lot of time and effort to develop new programs. When professors are fired and departments shrink, the teaching, advising, and administrative work still needs to be done. The remaining faculty must do a larger share of the work, leaving them with less time to create new programs, or even revise existing ones

See more at http://bit.ly/MisCounterCase

03/17/2021

Get the Facts!

The Misericordia University administration claims they must fire professors to preserve the university for the future. What are the facts?

- Fact: Misericordia has $63 million in endowment, much of which is quasi-endowment, meaning it could be spent. - Fact: $9 million of that endowment was added just since June!
- Fact: Fundraising for the Henry Science Center exceeded expectations by nearly $9 million
- Fact: President Owens and the VPs have insisted the university is in "strong" financial health. (If this is the case why continue to fire people?)
- Fact: Firing staff and faculty and suspending tenure decisions has damaged morale on campus, which *threatens* the future of the university, rather than "preserving" it

See more at http://bit.ly/MisCounterCase

03/15/2021

The Misericordia University administration claims that we need to cut costs by firing professors. Let's check the facts:
- Fact: Misericordia had a nearly $3 million budget surplus last year
- Fact: The VPAA asked the faculty for cost-saving measures, then the administration rejected these ideas and fired 12 professors anyway
- Fact: Staff were furloughed and laid off. Professors have been fired. But zero administrators were fired or had pay cuts
- Fact: The Misericordia endowment has grown by $9 million since June

See more at http://bit.ly/MisCounterCase

03/12/2021

Get the Facts!

The Misericordia University administration claims faculty must be fired because the student-to-faculty ratio is too low. What are the facts?
• Fact: The university uses the "too low" student-to-faculty ratio to advertise! A low student-to-faculty ratio is used to indicate small classes and the personal attention from professors that makes Misericordia a great place to learn
• Fact: Most of the faculty who have been fired in 2020-21 are in programs that have had the smallest drops in their student-to-faculty ratios
• Fact: Misericordia's student-to-faculty ratio is comparable to the ratios for our peer institutions

See more at: http://bit.ly/MisCounterCase

03/10/2021

Get the Facts!

The Misericordia University administration claims that faculty must be fired because too many faculty have been hired since 2013-14. Let's check the facts.
• Fact: There are 30 more professors in 2020-21 than in 2013-14, but most of those positions were added to departments that did not lose any faculty
• Fact: Six of the fired professors are in departments that gained only one position since 2013-14
• Fact: Two professors are in departments that have not added any positions since 2013-14
• Fact: Four departments already have fewer faculty than when College Misericordia became Misericordia University, and each one has had a professor fired
• Fact: The current VPAA approved hiring many of these "too many" professors, including 8 of 12 faculty who have been fired

See more at http://bit.ly/MisCounterCase

03/08/2021

Get the Facts!

The Misericordia administration claims that faculty cuts are necessary due to decreasing enrollment, but that conclusion isn't supported by the facts!
• Fact: Most of the faculty who have been fired are in small programs that have had only small declines in enrollment
• Fact: Faculty are teachers, researchers, and scholars, not enrollment managers. We have a Vice President for Enrollment Management for a reason!

See more at http://bit.ly/MisCounterCase

02/23/2021

“…research in social psychology shows that inequity and biases operate more in environments with ambiguous evaluation criteria… women and underrepresented minority (URM) groups are more likely to be disadvantaged” (O’Meara, Lennartz, Kuvaeva, Jaeger & Misra, 2019)
https://facultyworkloadandrewardsproject.umd.edu/documents/omearaetal2019.pdf

02/19/2021

From this week's Friends of the Chapter Briefing:
As they say, those who do not learn from history…

"At their best, colleges and universities do much more than build skills and knowledge; indeed, their primary value lies in exposing undergraduates to diversity, the rich realms of culture and the intellectual life. It also does something that some incorrectly confuse with political indoctrination: it gives students a vocabulary and intellectual framework with which to make sense of the world."

Read more: Do Academics Know Their Own History? - Inside Higher Ed - February 11, 2021

Why academics need to know more about the history of higher education.

02/18/2021

“Given the abrupt shift to online learning, institutions should suspend students’ teaching evaluations and replace them with holistic teaching assessments”
https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/09/04/advice-academic-administrators-how-best-support-faculty-during-pandemic-opinion

02/17/2021

From this week's Friends of the Chapter Briefing:
We cannot wait for the powerful to save us; we must save ourselves and each other.

"Systems and structures retain the power they possess in and over our lives by convincing us that our contributions lack value unless they are coherent, coordinated, and appropriately scaled up. We internalize the narrative that our actions are inconsequential unless they result in a tangible outcome that can be appraised or appreciated somehow, so we discount the inestimable power of modest, imperceptible, or even private acts as asymmetrical weapons of rebellion against our condition."

Read more: It's Up to Us - AAUP - Winter 2021
https://www.aaup.org/article/its-us?

Faculty need to look to each other and not just to administrative leaders when addressing problems such as systemic racism.