Eastern Michigan U Lecturers Union: College Deficit Driven by "Bad Management"

by Roger Kerson
EMU-AAUP represents more than 680 faculty members at Eastern Michigan University. EMUFT represents more than 100 full-time EMU lecturers and library staff, and over 600 part-time EMU lecturers.

With Eastern Michigan University facing a multi-million dollar budget deficit, the unions representing more than 680 tenure-track EMU faculty members and 100 full-time and 600 part-time lecturers said today that the school must “focus on what we do best” by investing in students and staff to maintain a quality path to affordable higher education.

“This budget shortfall is driven by bad management decisions,” said Prof. Judith Kullberg, a Fulbright scholar and professor of political science who is president of the EMU chapter of the American Association of University Professors (EMU-AAUP).  “The answer is not cutting the jobs of the staff members who support our students. The way forward is to make good management decisions, by investing in our students and in programs that fulfill EMU’s mission as a quality provider of affordable higher education.”

In a recent email to the campus community, EMU President James Smith proposed cutting “upwards of 60 positions” to address a budget shortfall caused by overly optimistic projections of student enrollment in the 2017-2018 academic year.

Daric Thorne, lecturer of sociology and president of the EMU chapter of the American Federation of Teachers (EMU-FT) noted that the Faculty Senate Budget and Resources Committee concluded in its Annual Report of May 2017 that “There are few, if any, financial challenges faced by EMU that cannot be resolved by strictly aligning our budget with our motto:‘Education First’.” 

“My current position is about as straightforward as the Faculty Senate report,” said Thorne. “Any discussion about cuts at the university which do not include athletics, administrative overhead, and serious solutions to the student retention problem is disingenuous from the start.”

Kullberg also emphasized the need to cut athletic spending. “In the face of this fiscal emergency, EMU’s current practice of spending approximately $1,000 of every student’s tuition dollars each year on intercollegiate sports is simply not sustainable. EMU regents and administrators must aggressively review how much we spend on athletics, and resist cutting instructional and support staff who promote achievement of EMU’s motto of Education First.”

EMU must also review the controversial contract signed in December 2016 with Academic Partnerships, a Texas-based private firm hired to increase enrollment in online-only degree programs, said EMU-AAUP Executive Committee member Charles Cunningham, a professor of English.

“With enrollment falling, it’s clear there is no short-term benefit to a so-called ‘marketing’ arrangement with an out-of-state private company,” said Cunningham. “It’s hard to see any long-term benefit to an arrangement that gives half the tuition dollars from online programs to an outside party. And it’s just not possible to justify sending checks to Texas every semester when we are contemplating laying off our own hard-working staff members.”

“EMU has a proud heritage of excellence in classroom teaching, preparing our students to contribute to the Michigan economy and promoting upward social mobility,” said Kullberg. “The best way to address our fiscal problems is to strengthen academic programs. We should not lay off the very people who carry out EMU’s core mission of educating students.”