EAST LANSING — Even before Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz announced personnel cuts, some faculty said they had a feeling of what was coming.
“Anyone could look at a university department’s budget and see that few, if any, of them could handle the cuts without cutting people,” chemistry professor Rob Maleczka said.
Guskiewicz announced in May that the university needed to cut about 9% of its general fund over the next two years, with 6% cuts planned for 2025-26. In a June 30 email, he said officials had completed their reviews of departmental plans, and, despite the elimination of vacant positions, staff cuts would be necessary.
The financial issues were discovered as part of a ongoing review into the university’s finances conducted after Guskiewicz became president, MSU spokesperson Amber McCann said.
The idea of eliminating faculty, particularly tenured faculty, isn’t in-line with the university’s stated goals, Maleczka said. And, he argued, the two-month process from when the university first publicly announced budget reductions to when the university announced job cuts were imminent was rushed and showed a lack of respect for faculty.
“We’ve seen cuts before, we’ll see cuts again, but I’ve never seen this short-term of a timeline for them,” he said.
Guskiewicz’s June 30 announcement took some faculty by surprise. Non-Tenure Track Faculty Union President Víctor Rodríguez-Pereira wondered why he, as a union president, didn’t know sooner.
“Most of the information from the cuts and details have come from word of mouth and talking to people,” he said. “When the university has been more transparent and communicative, it’s come after unions like ours have pushed them to.”
Eliminating faculty roles
Throughout the month of July, unit leaders at MSU will communicate with their departments to implement the reductions, Guskiewicz said in his June 30 email to faculty and staff.
It’s not clear what positions department heads and university leadership agreed to eliminate, or if they would have equal impacts on faculty and staff. University leadership did not consult with the non-tenure faculty union before announcing layoffs, Rodríguez-Pereira said.
McCann said conversations were held with unions representatives about the budget adjustments. She did not say if the unions knew about the job cuts specifically.
Maleczka said he’s concerned tenured faculty, who are not unionized, could be pressured to quit. Guskiwicz’s email to faculty and staff said voluntary retirement incentive plans were possible for some tenure stream faculty. Professors with tenure have protection against arbitrary dismissal, but are not protected from financial emergencies or if their programs are eliminated, according to the American Association of University Professors.
And faculty who do get laid off before the school year starts will likely have a difficult time finding another job, Rodríguez-Pereira said. Hiring for faculty happens in cycles, and those who are laid off right before a new school year will likely have to wait until the next year for a new role.
But the potential impacts on students are more concerning, both agreed. Departments are still understaffed from COVID-era cuts, Rodríguez-Pereira said, and any more reductions might impact the programs that are offered.
That, and the risk of faculty at the cutting edge of their fields being laid off or retiring early, will make MSU less attractive for students, Maleczka said.
“I have argued in the past and will continue to argue that a student coming to MSU will learn from people at the cutting edge of field, who happen to be tenure system faculty,” he said.
‘A rushed process’
From the beginning, both Maleczka and Rodríguez-Pereira agree, the process was rushed and faculty and staff were kept mostly in the dark about what was actually going on.
The rushed process led to a lack of transparency, Maleczka said. He pointed to how the University of Oregon, facing a $20 million to $30 million structural deficit, held townhalls and answered questions from faculty and staff about how potential cuts would impact them.
MSU plans to cut about $50 million this year, according to their fiscal year 2026 budget approved in June.
But MSU gave department heads less than a month to submit requests for how their departments should be restructured, and then another few weeks to respond to and approve the requests. The timeline was due to a July 1 deadline to set the budget for the next fiscal year, officials said.
Maleczka said college deans asked Guskiewicz’s administration for more time to complete the proposals, which wasn’t approved. The personnel cuts were also announced while Faculty Senate, part of the university’s shared academic governance, was out for the summer, which surprised Maleczka.
“I thought there’d be more discussion,” he said.
Cuts to executive units
In May, the Steering Committee, comprised of faculty and students who advise on proposals for academic units, passed a resolution calling for the university’s executive management to “lead by example” and reduce their compensation by 9%. This was in light of continuing increases to executive level pay raises, the resolution said.
Guskiewicz said his office would take the 9% cuts this year, which Rodríguez-Pereira and Maleczka agree is a good thing.
“This is something we pushed them to do,” Rodríguez-Pereira said. “Cuts should come from the top and go to the bottom.”
Rodríguez-Pereira added he felt it wasn’t fair that faculty and staff were at risk of losing their jobs due to “bad financial decisions and legal settlements.” He added that the priority seemed to be the university’s financial bottom line, versus the impacts on faculty, staff and students.
“Universities are like businesses now,” he said. “The bottom line isn’t teaching our students anymore.”
Contact Sarah Atwood at satwood@lsj.com. Follow her on X @sarahmatwood.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU faculty say staff cuts were rushed, not communicated properly