Many of you know that Oct. 30 was a deadline for administrators to inform us of any planned faculty retrenchments at our 14 universities. I’m sure many of you would like to know what is happening across the State System as that deadline has come and gone.
When we received notice of possible retrenchments this spring, we knew this day would come, much sooner than any of us wanted. We fought for a restoration of the State System’s budget appropriation with the knowledge that the proposed cuts were the stated reason for issuing those retrenchment notices. While we weren’t able to get funding back to where it should be, we were successful in staving off the threatened 50+ percent cuts. One by one, most of our chapters learned from local administrators that retrenchment would be off the table for tenured f
aculty at their institution this year. Unfortunately, this was not the case at all of our universities.
In mid-October, Edinboro administrators notified seven faculty members of the university’s intention to retrench them. The local and state APSCUF teams charged into action. Local administrators met with APSCUF officials and shared information, as required under Article 29 of our collective bargaining agreement. Edinboro APSCUF worked with management to find an alternative to seeing seven of their colleagues lose their jobs. At the end of the day, the administration and APSCUF found a way for ALL SEVEN to keep their jobs through job training or reassignment.
This situation is a credit to the hard work of our Edinboro APSCUF leadership, as well as the dedication of our contract personnel. It is also a credit to the Edinboro administration for doing the right thing by their employees.
However, just because we have won a small victory today does not mean we are abandoning the battlefield. Tenure is essential to creating a vibrant intellectual environment on our campuses, and retrenchment threatens the bedrock of tenure. The APSCUF leadership and our statewide Meet and Discuss team considers the fight against retrenchments to be one of our top priorities. We will have more updates on this issue as we are able to provide them in the weeks and months ahead.