Tag: Tenured

  • University of Nebraska System offers buyouts to tenured faculty amid budget woes

    University of Nebraska System offers buyouts to tenured faculty amid budget woes

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    Dive Brief: 

    • The University of Nebraska System is offering buyouts this fall to tenured faculty members eligible for retirement across its four campuses as the institution’s leaders look to shave $20 million from its budget.
    • Buyouts will be available to tenured faculty who will be at least age 62 at their date of separation and have worked at least 10 years in the system. More than 500 faculty members will qualify, according to reporting from Channel 8 News. 
    • In a Friday message to faculty and staff, system Chancellor Jeffrey Gold said the buyouts would position the institution “for long-term strength and financial sustainability.” The system has made several rounds of cuts in the past few years in the face of rising costs and limited state funding increases. 

    Dive Insight: 

    Like many other higher education institutions, the University of Nebraska System has sought to lower its expenses amid myriad financial headwinds, including rising labor costs and state and federal funding challenges. In June, system leaders approved plans to cut $20 million from its budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year and raise tuition by an average of 5%. 

    Those moves come after system leaders slashed $11.8 million from the most recent budget and $30 million from two years prior. The system has also offered several waves of buyouts over the past 15 years, though the payouts have decreased, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. 

    In this case, those taking the buyouts will receive 70% of their annual base salary in a lump sum payment. In 2019, eligible faculty who took buyouts got 80% of their annual salary and in 2014 they received 90%, the Journal Star reported. In 2010, eligible faculty received 100% of their salary. 

    Faculty members who take the latest buyouts will separate from the university next summer. 

    However, not all faculty members who apply will automatically be approved. While the system plans to allow as many interested employees to participate as possible, an FAQ said “each campus reserves the right to limit the total number of participants in order to preserve the viability of programs and services, as well as to remain fiscally responsible.”

    The news comes as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the system’s flagship campus, plans to slash $27.5 million from its own budget by the end of the year to remedy a structural deficit. The cuts could include eliminating or merging academic programs. 

    Earlier this month, UNL President Rodney Bennett said will review a planning committee’s recommendations for cuts and present final budget recommendations to Gold in October. 

    UNL officials also plan to grow extramural grants and contracts and boost revenue through higher enrollment and retention. They also hope to see increased revenue from the system’s tuition hike, which raised in-state undergraduate tuition from $277 to $291 per credit hour. 

    The other institutions in the Nebraska system are the University of Nebraska at Kearney, the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

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  • AAUP Report Backs Tenured Pro-Palestine Prof. Who Was Fired

    AAUP Report Backs Tenured Pro-Palestine Prof. Who Was Fired

    A new American Association of University Professors investigative report concludes that Muhlenberg College violated the academic freedom of a tenured associate professor who said the institution fired her for pro-Palestinian speech.

    Maura Finkelstein’s situation made headlines last year as the first instance that major academic freedom advocacy groups had heard about of a tenured faculty member being fired for pro-Palestine or pro-Israel statements. Complaints against Finkelstein also became the subject of a U.S. Education Department Office for Civil Rights investigation.

    Finkelstein previously said she was fighting her May 2024 termination and was continuing to be paid during the appeals. But a college spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed this week that Finkelstein has now “resigned from the college to pursue other scholarship opportunities.” Finkelstein didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment.

    Finkelstein, who is Jewish, had said a panel of faculty and staff recommended axing her over her Instagram repost that told readers not to “normalize Zionists taking up space” and called Zionists “genocide-loving fascists” who shouldn’t be welcome “in your spaces.”

    Members of the college’s Faculty Personnel and Policies Committee later unanimously concluded that Finkelstein shouldn’t be fired, according to the AAUP report released Tuesday. The report is from a Committee of Inquiry composed of three faculty from other higher education institutions, and it’s been approved by the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

    The report concludes, among other things, that “by initially dismissing Professor Finkelstein from the faculty solely because of one anti-Zionist repost on Instagram and without demonstrating—in fact, without ever seeking to demonstrate” that she was professionally unfit, “the Muhlenberg administration violated Professor Finkelstein’s academic freedom of extramural speech.” The report says the firing has “severely impaired the climate for academic freedom” at the college.

    A college spokesperson said the institution “has not been afforded the opportunity to review the amended report,” but pointed to the administration’s response to an earlier AAUP draft. That response, included in the final AAUP report, says Finkelstein “was afforded a fair and equitable process” and that “the cumulative effect of Professor Finkelstein’s conduct and post that called for the shaming of Zionists and to ‘not welcome them into your spaces,’ violated College policy.”

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