Concerns noted in the Faculty Senate meeting of November 1, 2024
Approved by the Faculty Senate on November 20, 2024
(to be sent to each member of the taskforce)
1. We have no evidence thus far that $15 million needs to be cut. This number itself was not
determined utilizing shared governance. Faculty need full information to gauge whether it is or is
not the case that $15 million in cuts are necessary to reduce the current $7 million deficit.
2. We have no evidence that cutting programs and people will benefit the university in the short-
term or long-term. In fact, we have evidence to the contrary: the last time that the administration
and trustees made severe cuts (2020), the university enrollment went down, not up. Information
about cuts to academic programs and people inevitably gets into the press and prospective
students and their parents lose respect and trust in the university. Canisius has lost its reputation
in the region because of cuts, and further cuts would harm our reputation even more.
3. Stakeholders of Canisius (former trustees, donors, and alumni) have contacted faculty members asking what is going on at Canisius: many are losing faith in the institution and its
leadership. Significant donors are refusing to donate. Some say that the current trustees and
administration are “changing the fundamental nature of the institution” and the “170-year history
and mission of Canisius.”
4. Our main source of income is the selling of student credit hours that lead to degrees. It is the
faculty who create those credit hours. Therefore, faculty are the most revenue-generating group
on campus by definition, without said faculty, there are no credit hours to sell. If the goal is to seek “efficiencies” – one must start with the groups on campus who do not create the “goods” (credit hours and degrees) we sell.
5. The task force needs to make cuts to athletics at least proportionate to the cuts that academics has already taken (over 30%). We are accredited as an academic institution with athletics on the side, not the reverse. Athletics takes too much of the overall budget for a university of our size. Any group that believes that they are serious about their belt-tightening tends to look away from moving to NCAA Division 3 status, and cutting costs in athletics is not truly serious about belt-tightening.
6. We need statistics on the ratio of students to mid- and upper-level administrators (associate-dean, dean, associate-VP, and VP level). What is the national average of students to administrators, and what is necessary? We have cut the faculty by over 30% over the past 6 years. We have not cut mid-level administration by the same level. There seem to be even more administrators now than 10 years ago, especially when compared to the declining number of faculty. We need exact ratios of current administrators to students.
7. We need statistics on the number and ratio of student-support personnel. We require data on their efficiency in terms of student retention and success. What is the national average of student
support personnel (counselors, tutors, advisors) offered to students? Is there data that suggests
that cutting full-time faculty while keeping or raising the amount of student-support staff will lead to greater student retention? There is not as far as we know; Canisius should follow evidence-based solutions for student retention.
8. We understand that the trustees are concerned about the bond-buying with RBC. Their
assumption seems to be that RBC will look better at our finances if we cut $15 million, but what is the proof for this? They could just as likely say that the last time we cut people and programs,
this hurt enrollment and donations, and that, therefore, it’s a bad idea over the longer term that
Canisius’s debt remains outstanding.
9. The choice of the consultant is important, and faculty ought to have a say in this choice. There
are university consulting companies who do nothing but go to a campus and sloppily apply the
same rubric to every campus regardless of its character or mission: they simply walk in and cut
(for example) all departments with majors fewer than some arbitrary number (10 or 20). This
crude practice does not take into consideration the particular core of a university, the quality of its programs, nor that university’s mission. Most members of the Faculty Senate believe that we do not need to waste money on a consultant. But if we do, we must look at the track records of
various consultancies to ensure that whoever we choose will pay attention to our university’s
particular mission, history, student body, and region.
10. The Faculty Handbook notes that Canisius cannot cut tenured faculty without either a full
program review (including the APB, Senate, and Faculty Status committees) or without declaring
financial exigency. From the Faculty Handbook: “Academic Tenure: after the expiration of a
probationary period, teachers or investigators should have permanent or continuous tenure, and
their service should be terminated only for adequate cause, except in the case of retirement for
age, or under extraordinary circumstances because of financial exigency” (page 26). “Termination of a continuous appointment because of financial exigency should be demonstrably bona fide” (page 27). Is the university declaring financial exigency? If not, are the trustees and senior leadership prepared to pay the legal costs related to wrongful discharge and contract violations?
11. Senior administration seems to believe that full-time faculty can be fired and replaced with
adjuncts easily. This is not the case. Many departments are already struggling to find qualified
adjuncts (Philosophy, English, History, Journalism, Political Science). Canisius will not be able to offer students courses and curricula that they need to graduate if there are even further cuts to
faculty—true of both core and major courses. There is no endless pool of qualified people in the
area who want to teach classes for below-poverty wages.
12. The budget task force must be transparent, not confidential. The members of the task force must be able to openly discuss what is shared within the task force with the Faculty Senate and others within the university community. Only in that way—with the sharing of information and ideas in both directions—will this task force operate according to shared governance. Any attempt to impose a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement on members of the task force is a violation of shared governance.
13. The task force and Canisius community require transparency, clarity, and consistency of the
criteria used regarding how potential cuts will be made across the university.
14. We stress that the task force needs full and transparent financial information about Canisius
University in order to make wise decisions, not merely a synopsis or cherry-picked view of
financial information.
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