| Subject: Canisius Planning Picket & Teach-In Tomorrow |
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Date Posted: Thursday, October 24, 05:30:44pm
Author Host/IP: syn-074-070-140-050.res.spectrum.com/74.70.140.50
Canisius University faculty will hold a picket and teach-in Friday morning to protest the administration’s plan to cut $15 million from the university’s operating budget for next year.
Members of Canisius’ chapter of the American Association of University Professors say they are concerned that slashing that amount by the spring will harm university programs and that morale among faculty and students is already sagging due to several professors and administrators leaving or being fired in the past year.
“Management decisions are eroding the quality of education at Canisius, and so we stand together … to defend quality education at Canisius,” the AAUP chapter said. “When you de-prioritize faculty, you de-prioritize student learning.”
The Canisius AAUP, Local 6741 of the American Federation of Teachers, claims Canisius President Steve Stoute and his administration are making decisions without consulting faculty, in spite of the university’s shared governance policies.
Canisius AAUP President Tanya Loughead has been a philosophy professor for 19 years, and is an officer in the state AAUP and a member of Canisius’ faculty senate. She said faculty and students were already concerned about the departures of 11 faculty members and at least three administrators in the last year before Stoute announced a plan to address a $7 to $10 million structural deficit while adding new programs by reducing the university’s operating budget by $15 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year that begins in July.
Canisius President Stoute
President Steve K. Stoute is reducing Canisius University’s operating budget by $15 million to address a deficit.
Stoute, who took over as Canisius president in 2022, recently announced a plan to form a task force to determine how and what to cut. He said he arrived at the $15 million figure because he wants to completely erase the deficit created by years of declining enrollment that were not matched by reductions to staff or programs. He also wants to come up with $4.2 million to invest in programs for adult learners, the fastest-growing segment of the higher education market.
Canisius is among several colleges and universities faced with large deficits that were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and have resulted in belt-tightening and budget-cutting measures at SUNY Fredonia and Buffalo State University, among others. Those schools have responded by cutting low-performing programs in which classes had single-digit enrollment.
Loughead said Canisius’ faculty senate has been asked to elect four members to serve on Stoute’s budget task force, which will be expected to forge a plan by March 1. But meanwhile, she said Stoute angered faculty and students by trying to increase faculty courseloads from three classes per semester to four – a 30% increase with no additional compensation – starting next semester.
She said Stoute rescinded the so-called “4/4” proposal after faculty and staff protested the move, with the AAUP posting messages in elevators on campus and the editorial board of the student newspaper, The Griffin, arguing it would spread faculty too thin and negatively impact students and learning.
Loughead explained that Canisius faculty do not collectively bargain for their salaries, workloads and benefits, as is the case at most colleges and universities. Instead, a “Faculty Handbook” periodically updated by the administration and the faculty senate serves as an ongoing “contract” that is supposed to be determined by shared governance.
Canisius President Steve Stoute used his annual State of the University address to announce a plan to erase its estimated $7 million deficit by trimming $15 million from its budget while still “reinvesting” at least $4.25 million in new programs to serve adult learners.
Loughead said that over the last decade, changes to the handbook have been one-sided, including reduced health and retirement benefits that weren’t agreed to by the faculty senate or AAUP. She said faculty have not received a cost-of-living adjustment in their wages in more than a decade. And the recent dismissal of two popular professors and a vice president with no explanation or warning also violated handbook policies and upset students and faculty, she said.
When contacted by The Buffalo News, Canisius supplied a statement saying that only the faculty senate, not the AAUP, holds shared governance status at the university.
“Canisius University acknowledges the concerns being expressed by some members of our campus community and respects their right to voice these perspectives,” the statement said. “While the AAUP Advocacy Local 6741 coordinated (Friday’s event), it is important to note that this organization does not have a formal standing or official role in Canisius University’s governance structure and does not represent the Canisius faculty.”
Girish Shambu, a professor management at Canisius and secretary of the AAUP, said the faculty senate recently passed a resolution calling for more shared governance, transparency and communication, and demanding a decision-making role in the budget task force and upcoming cuts.
The resolution said Canisius’ “senior administration has failed to engage in shared governance on issues including agency account usage, the new parking policy, the strategic plan, the student pass-fail policy, the loss of library resources, the degradation of faculty healthcare and retirement benefits; and has held the belief that they had the power to impose (or not) a 4-4 course load onto many faculty members.”
As they tally their fall census, several Western New York institutions, including St. Bonaventure University, are celebrating their highest enrollments in years.
In a separate resolution, the faculty senate also berated the administration for not allowing students to attend Stoute’s Oct. 9 State of the University Address in which he announced his plan for $15 million in cuts. Stoute did sit down with student journalists at The Griffin to discuss his plans the next day.
“The Faculty Senate at Canisius University stands in support of the right of students to be informed on the status of the university and demands that students’ concerns be heard and be made a priority concerning the future of Canisius University,” the faculty resolution said.
Loughead said Friday’s event will start with a picket at 9 a.m. followed by a 10 a.m. teach-in to air concerns about the coming budget cuts.
She said 10 to 12 students are expected to join faculty in speaking out at the events.
“A lot of students are scared that if they cut $15 million, some of the reasons they came to Canisius will no longer be here,” she said. “They are worried that their majors, their classes or they favorite professors may be cut.”
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