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Is U Of D Leaving Us?

Is U Of D Leaving Us? image Is U Of D Leaving Us? image
Parent Issue
Day
31
Month
December
Year
1975
OCR Text

 

Is U of D Leaving Us?                                                                               

By Denise Crittendon   

   At the University of Detroit, which has caught the fiscal flu,  one might say "anything goes" these days-anything but improvement, that is. In an effort to compensate for a current $1.2 million deficit in the U of D budget for the 1975-76 fiscal year, administrators according to faculty sources are preparing to lay off some 20 per cent of "the University's faculty on four days notice, effective January 8. These sources further indicate that the layoffs are motivated by U of D's desire to restore its crumbling credit rating with local banks, and may represent a step toward moving the University out of the city entirely.

   Meanwhile, U of D administrators, who hope to save between $750,000 and $1 million via the layoffs, are facing cost overruns on School of Law renovations which may go as high as $4 million. The faculty at Michigan's largest private university who average between years of service and between 50 and 60 years of age, are hurriedly attempting to organize in time to prevent the layoffs.

   Although administrators appear to be groping for other answers. it looks like all U of D part-time faculty and some 40 to 60 full-time faculty may soon be forced to join the ranks of the nation's already elongated unemployment lines. The Schools of Engineering and of Arts and Sciences will take the brunt of the full-time cuts, losing as much as a third of their faculty.

   The U of D Board of Trustees has not yet acted on the massive layoff decision submitted by the University Budget Committee. A closed meeting described by one professor as "the first true conflict on the Board of Trustees," adjourned last week without any definite results.

   In response, two of the U of D faculty groups, The American Association of University Professors and the U of D chapter of the Michigan Education Association (MEA), have combined with a group of independent professors in an attempt to form one "union".  Last Wednesday, the groups lied an application with the National Labor Relations board requesting a collective bargaining election. It is their hope that through then combined efforts, as a new group called the U of D Faculty Union, they may be able to secure a faculty contract with the university.

   The current system, involving separate contracts between the University and individuals, allows the faculty no input into University decisions. At best, the contract merely indicates that the instructor is bound by administrative procedures.

   Because of this, the University gave the faculty no say-so about the pending layoffs, explains Dr. John Watters of U of D's Religious Studies program. "We were simply told the cuts would come." says Watters. "It is the position of the union that financial difficulties shouldn't be resolved by layoffs. If there is any restructuring in the university, the faculty ought to be involved, even at the lowest level."

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  "It is the position of the union that financial difficulties shouldn't be resolved by layoffs. If there is any restructuring in the university, the faculty ought to be involved, even at the lowest level."

   According to Dr. Carlton Smith. Assistant Professor of Sociology and Campaign Coordinator for the U of D branch of MEA, the average faculty member has worked at the University for fifteen years and served a seven-year probationary period - which, coupled with the thirteen years of education he received prior to joining the staff, totals twenty years of education. Ironically, they are now being given about four days notice.

   "Many are so highly specialized in their areas of work, they can't do anything other than the kind of work they are prepared to do in the classroom," says Smith.

   He also points out that the majority of the professors are between the ages of 50 and 60. The loss of their jobs also means the loss of their medical and life insurance benefits, a loss which could prove very critical for some of them who have heart trouble or other ailments.

   They will be receiving severance pay. However, at this point, it is not exactly clear how much, or how long the pay will be allotted to them.         

   Smith discloses that one reason for the University's financial problems is an estimated $4 million cost overrun school officials foresee as a result of the extensive renovations being made at the School of Law. There is disagreement on what the exact cost of the construction will be, but estimates on the work, originally slated to cost $3.9 million, are as high as $7.9 million.

   Furthermore, rumors are rife suggesting a potential U of D exodus from the city.  A professor who asked to remain anonymous, reveals that the University is already about the task of gradually uprooting itself from the urban area and moving out of the city.

   "They made a commitment to the city, but now they are trying to shrink her and move her. It's like a wagon train leaving behind the black people and others too poor to make the trip," he said.

   These charges are given some credence by the school's rapid decline in enrollment from 9,000 to 8,000 students between 1972 and 1975-and the skyrocketing 30 per cent tuition increase over the past live years.       This faculty source speculates that by raising its tuition and admission requirements. the school is slowly attempting to "abandon the working cIass students" and redeem its former reputation of the '50's as an elite, white, Roman Catholic institution. By the fall of '77, at least two sources predict that the entire Freshman class will be transferred to Clarkston, Michigan, in Northern Oakland County, 30 miles from the city - a location quite inaccessible to inner city youths. And the huge faculty cuts, some contend, may be one giant step in this direction.