By: Sydney Umstead, News Editor
Students and faculty concerned about the proposed $15 million cuts at Canisius and frustrated with the pay and benefits for faculty participated in a demonstration and teach-in last Friday. The event was televised by all three local TV stations (channels 2, 4 and 7), and prior to the event, The Buffalo News also published a piece on the picket.
Students and faculty attended the demonstration with signs and chants which included things like “Protect Faculty, Protect Education,” “Make Our Mission Matter,” and a quote by Pope Francis which states, “Unions Protect Worker Dignity.”
Some of these signs can still be seen in the windows of Churchill Tower, and as of Wednesday morning, fliers with a QR code link to the televised stories have begun appearing on campus. However, reports suggest that these same fliers are also being removed from their various locations.
Canisius management released a statement submitted to the news organizations, stating that “[The AAUP] does not have a formal standing or official role in Canisius University's governance structure and does not represent Canisius faculty.” They continue, “Canisius University remains steadfast in its commitment to maintaining open and constructive dialogue with our faculty through established governance mechanisms as we work together in shared dedication to our mission.”
Dr. Tanya Loughead, president of the Canisius AAUP-AFT, Local 6741 noted evidence from the recent faculty morale survey claiming, “Results demonstrated that over 75% of faculty are dissatisfied with their pay and benefits, over 85% of faculty are dissatisfied with the transparency of the senior administration, and and over 78% of the faculty have low or very low trust in the judgment of senior administration. So this picket, in fact, does ‘represent’ the majority view of the faculty.”
Senior student Bex Nagel stated that their role at the event was not only as a student but also “as a representative of the professors who wanted to attend, but were afraid to lose their jobs.” Nagel has also been “a student voice online, posting about the event and issues we stand for, since departments couldn't advocate for them through their social media pages,” they said.
Nagel discussed how “Canisius needs be more transparent with their students and faculty,” adding, “President Stoute said repeatedly at the Student Senate meeting on Friday that he encourages ‘open dialogue,’ and yet it's almost impossible to plan a meeting with him, and even when he does agree to meet with students, all questions are pre-approved.”
As a senior, Nagel discussed how it feels to leave the university while this is going on. They stated, “Part of me hears these budget cuts and thinks, ‘thank god I'm leaving in six weeks and can graduate before my major gets cut,’ but another part of me thinks, ‘all these professors and underclassmen are feeling helpless, knowing that Stoute and the administration don't care about the students and the liberal arts departments.’” Furthermore, “After I graduate, I will be back as an alumni helping to protest with professors because they have changed my life and I cannot truly explain how much they mean to me.”
At the event, one professor in attendance stated “This was a long time coming.” Loughead discussed this in the context of what is currently happening at Canisius. She posed the question, “If they plan to cut $15 million where are they going to cut it from?” Adding, “Are they once again going to cut disproportionately from academics?” This is in reference to the academic program cuts and faculty layoffs that occurred under former Canisius President John Hurley in 2020.
One professor at the teach-in mentioned how four years ago, they had been standing in the very same spot they were standing in last Friday for the same reason: protesting cuts to academics. In 2020, Canisius management cut the Religious Studies and Theology major, allegedly without any shared governance in the process. Loughead also added to this suggesting that if there are evidence-based decisions being made, then their conclusion should be that, “we tried to save the college and increase enrollment by cutting last time, and it didn’t work, our enrollment only fell after those cuts,” continuing, “Evidence would suggest that cutting people and programs is not going to work this time either. Such cuts weaken the university and its image in the region.”
Dr. Mick Cochrane spoke during the teach-in, using sports analogies to convey the rhetoric that has been used by some higher administrators. Cochrane opened with the statement, “I could easily imagine someone with a background in athletics and a low tolerance for criticism accusing those of us protesting today of not being good team players,” he went on, “But we know that if a member of your team has gotten so confused; so turned around that they are trying to shoot at your own goal, attempting to kick the ball into your own net, there’s only one sensible thing to do: stop them.”
Cochrane addressed the discussions on “student success” that have been happening around campus with the statement, “It’s a buzzword in higher education: There are consultants who will, for a price, tell you how to achieve it,” he went on to note how, long before student success was a “buzzword,” it is something that “started happening right here in the 1870s, something that happened to me in the 1970s, something that is still happening on this campus.” Student success, he said, “changes your life.” Discussing this, he expressed how real student success “is not performed by a center – it happens, like all real learning, in a relationship. A student and a professor, bound together in mutual respect and curiosity in search of the truth.”
On the topic of the cuts, Cochrane explained, “Can you imagine a surgeon being charged with removing 15 organs from a patient without regard to whether the patient lives or dies?” He noted that AI software has the same pitfall. When tasked with something such as “increasing the world’s production of oil,” this simulation would “sometimes destroy all of humankind in the process because it was not given that constraint.” He asked, “What good is cutting a budget by some arbitrary amount if you destroy the soul of the institution in the process?”
Loughead mentioned that the timing of everything is crucial to “make sure that all parties know what’s going on,” including the Middle States accreditors and the Board of Trustees, which could potentially provoke these groups to call for a change of direction on campus.
The picket garnered support from other universities and from local unions, such as faculty from University of Buffalo, Niagara University and ECC; and labor organizations like the United Auto Workers and the Communications Workers of America. Loughead also invited Peter DeJesus, the president of the Western New York Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, who was present at the picket, and gave a speech supporting the Canisius AAUP-AFT.
Nagel mentioned again that, “Many Canisius faculty members told me that they wanted to attend the protest on Friday but they were scared to lose their jobs, so seeing that professors from other universities stood up in support was a powerful message.” Adding, “Instead of hiring yet another basketball coach or administrative person whose role nobody knows about, maybe we can use this money to save our important liberal arts departments.”
In regards to the future, Loughead stated, “I don’t think this is our last demonstration; it could be the first of many. We will keep up the heat until the concerns of students and faculty are taken seriously.” For example, she said that “if we were to start seeing signs that this budget-cutting task force is not truly operating according to shared governance” then there may need to be more demonstrations and more actions.
Similarly, Cochrane stated in his speech that, “We are the people willing to tie ourselves to a hundred-year-old oak tree when the crew with chainsaws and the blueprint for a strip mall arrive,” and that faculty were present and doing this because “We are here to assert that we – students and faculty – are the heart and soul of the institution.” Alluding to the State of the University and past actions from the Canisius administration, Cochrane discussed how, “it is wrong to condescend to us or yell at us, to dismiss our questions, or post armed officers to keep us from participating in important conversations.”
The response of the students following the demonstration and teach-in has been “overwhelmingly positive,” Loughead said. She expressed that, “We made sure half the speakers at the teach-in were students so that they could voice their concerns and worries,” which “underscores the fact that Canisius exists for the education of students.” However, besides the statement that the Canisius management made to other news organizations, nothing has been said on the matter.
Loughead pointed out the students who have been anonymously putting up fliers on campus and said, “I think this movement to change the trajectory of the university has been one that’s a solidarity movement between students and teachers, and it will continue to be.”
The on-campus movement and advocacy are still ongoing as faculty and students wore gold and ate lunch in the quad while a Middle States accreditor was scheduled to be on campus Oct. 30.
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