EMPORIA — Faculty leaders at Emporia State University are alarmed by their administration’s lack of clear direction following the sudden layoffs of 33 professors and staff members last week.
Professors have unanswered questions about which programs will exist beyond the current school year, and what to tell current and prospective students.
“Please wait for more information,” faculty senate president Shawn Keough told colleagues at a meeting Tuesday. “That’s what’s being pushed down at this point.”
The Kansas Board of Regents granted permission to ESU president Ken Hush to rapidly fire tenured professors in a cost-saving move permitted by a temporary COVID-19 policy that expires at the end of December. No other state university has taken the controversial option.
Most faculty members were allowed to remain through the end of the school year in May. Others were immediately dismissed.
Students responded with protests and a candlelight vigil. Hush’s office is now guarded by a chain, and the student newspaper, the ESU Bulletin, photographed him being driven off campus by police. Some faculty members were weighing legal assistance from the American Association of University Professors and rushing to secure intellectual property from university servers.
The author Joyce Carol Oates questioned the university’s actions through her Twitter account.
“If a university abolishes tenure, how can it expect to hire instructors who could get tenure-track jobs elsewhere?” Oates wrote. “In both the short & the long run, this is self-sabotage to a university.”
Some of the faculty senate members at Tuesday’s meeting were among those who were laid off, and remained silent. Others had questions that Keough, the senate president and a business administration professor, couldn’t answer.
Howard Pitler, an associate professor of school leadership, said his department chair had been told to clear out his desk when he was laid off. Pitler wondered about the future of the department. Keough stifled a nervous laugh.
“I just chuckled because that’s a lot better than you seeing tears streaming down my face,” Keough said.
Juan Chavarria, an assistant professor of accounting, information systems and finance, said his experience in the corporate world was that layoffs were immediately followed by a talk from leadership about what the organization’s roadmap will be.
“Why can’t we get that roadmap?” Chavarria asked during the faculty senate meeting.
The lack of certainty creates an unhealthy environment, he added.
“It’s not healthy for anybody — not for those who are leaving, not for those who are staying,” Chavarria said.
