Faculty concerns to get airing

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

ll faculty and librarians are being invited by the Faculty Senate and the Massachusetts Society of Professors to convene for a special two-hour discussion of common concerns Thursday Feb. 21. The assembly is scheduled for 3-5 p.m. in the Student Union Ballroom.

     "This is an informal meeting to have a general discussion about the virtually emergency situation that is confronting everybody," said Ernest May, secretary of the Faculty Senate.

     Topics for discussion include the decline in faculty numbers, the closing of campus services, such as University Child Care and the Foreign Language Resource Center, campus planning, the FY03 budget, lobbying efforts, and the state of contract funding.
The size of the faculty is a particularly crucial issue, May said.

     "The cumulative effect of the 5 percent [budget] cut, cancellation of about 30 searches, plus other cuts, plus the losses due to early retirement with only a 20 percent refill rate, will likely make this year go down in history as one of the biggest cuts to an American Research I institution since WWII," said May.

     With a broad estimate of anywhere from 40 to 160 base (tenure and tenure-track) faculty taking early retirement this year and with a number of searches for faculty cancelled, base faculty numbers could drop lower than 930 by next fall from the current size of nearly 1,100, he said. A dozen years ago, May added, the base faculty numbered nearly 1,400.

     "We must create an awareness of what is about to happen and how this catastrophe might be forestalled," he said.