All University of Arizona faculty will be asked to vote this week on referendums demanding delays in personnel cuts below the level of deans; reinvestment in academics; increased ranks of tenure-track faculty and graduate assistants; pay raises for those not on a tenure track; and downsizing of senior administration jobs.
The referendums were proposed Thursday when UA professors, lecturers and department heads hosted an all-faculty meeting for the first time since March 2020.
Some of the more than 640 attendees even suggested withholding final grades for the end of the semester until their demands are met.
βWe see this meeting as an opportunity to advance solidarity and solutions to our gross administrative mismanagement crisis,β Faculty Senate Chair Leila Hudson, who presided over the Zoom meeting about UA budget cuts, layoffs and executive power, told attendees.
βAlthough so many of us are precarious employees who have to think twice before speaking up in these times of looming personnel cuts, forums like this, along with representative democracy on campus, provide us with some means of moving forward as a community,β Hudson said.
There was a sense of urgency. βWeβre being asked to make decisions within the next two or three weeks with insufficient information that affect fundamentally the lives of staff and career track faculty,β said Gary Rhoades, an education professor, chair of the facultyβs financial recalibration committee and an associate department head.
The faculty can vote yes, no, or abstain on the referendums, which are:
β βUntil there is detailed, transparent and clear financial data and guidance on financial rules, we demand that the senior administration of the university and colleges delay any cuts to personnel at any level below the deans, as these personnel are most central to serving our students and academic mission.β
β βIt is time to reinvest and prioritize academic units. It is time to substantially downsize central and college senior administrators positions and personnel expenditures & to increase the ranks of the tenure-track faculty and graduate assistants, & to enhance non-tenure-track working conditions, pay and job security to better serve students who are paying more for less access to those who serve them.β
- βThe democratically elected representatives and elected bodies of the faculty of the University of Arizona should have a guiding and determinative role in the academic and intellectual shape of the institution. We are critical to teaching students, conducting research, and engaging in extension/outreach in pursuit of our core values. The proper responsibility of the faculty includes active involvement in the hiring of administrators to implement our values and ensuring their accountability to the University and its public purposes.β
UA President Robert C. Robbins and Interim Chief Financial Officer John Arnold βacknowledge and appreciate the essential role that every faculty and staff member plays at the University of Arizona,β a spokesperson for the UA responded in a written statement. βThey understand the frustration that arises from the difficult budgetary decisions that need to be made.β
The universityβs budget deficit now stands at $162 million, though according to Arnold the projected deficit for next year is $52 million.
College of Education Professor Carol Brochin, one of the organizers of the meeting, said Thursday: βWe do believe that we have the power to take back, to reclaim, to recenter the missions of the University of Arizona at a time when our senior administration and the Arizona Board of Regents have failed us.β
In response, an ABOR representative told the Arizona Daily Star the board βvalues and supports the work of the faculty and its input into campus decision making. The reality is the university needs to right size its budget and it will take a collaborative effort to get this done.β
Withhold grades?
During the Q&A portion of the meeting, many pointed fingers at Interim CFO Arnold.
βMy perception is that John Arnold is basically running the university now and making command decisions, disrespecting leadership of colleges and doing everything in a non-transparent way,β one questioner said.
Arnold did not respond to comment inquiries from the Star. He was named to the interim UA position in December after the universityβs financial crisis was revealed and is on leave from his role as executive director of ABOR, the board that oversees the UA. Arnold said in late February that layoffs would occur in phases throughout this spring, beginning with senior administration.
On Thursday Arnold released preliminary budgets for next year that will cut UA academic units by a total of $45.7 million, or 4.4%.
Robbins, meanwhile, announced April 2 he will step down as president at the end of his contract on June 30, 2026, or sooner.
During Thursdayβs faculty meeting, the webinarβs chat function soon became overrun with questions about Arnoldβs position.
βWho has the authority to fire Arnold?β asked Beverly Seckinger, a professor in the School of Theatre/Film and Television.
βWhat can we do? Refuse to post grades until John Arnold resigns?β Keith Maggert, a professor of molecular and cellular biology, asked.
βJohn Arnold is our effective president,β complained Lucy Ziurys, a regentβs professor of biochemistry.
ABOR responded in its written statement to the Star that the board βfully supports the tremendous work of interim CFO John Arnold in supporting this effort.β
Loss of tenured professors
The university needs to βrecenter academic units,β said Rhoades, the chair of the facultyβs financial recalibration committee.
βThe corporate university prioritizes unregulated central spending, sweeping money from academic units for reallocation to administrative priorities, leading to managerially structured deficits ... and perpetual austerity,β Rhoades said. βThe corporate university invests in expanded managerial capacity, control and centralization, even as it reduces investment in and demands greater productivity from employees who do the universityβs work.β
The share of faculty in the total personnel expenditures at the university has declined by 12% in the past eight years, Rhoades said. Tenure-track faculty accounted for 10% of faculty hired in 2022, down from 24% in 2017, which he said βcompromises our mission.β
In a statement to the Star, Mitch Zak, a spokesperson for the university, said that βwhile the central administration, divisions and colleges all play a part in advancing our core mission of teaching, research, and outreach, the majority of the budget cuts aimed at saving $110 million in the upcoming year will come from reduced administrative expenses.β
βTraumatic working conditionsβ
Danny Clifford, a senior lecturer in English, said he wanted to talk about the βtraumatic working conditions and unacceptable inequities of adjunct career-track and non-tenure track instructors.β
Over half of the faculty, or nearly 1,900 people, βdo not have job security beyond short-term contractsβ despite teaching βthe majority of university classes,β he said.
He advocated that base pay for contingent faculty increase from $45,000 to $60,000.
βThe challenges we face today should be embarrassing for this administration and demonstrate unacceptable leadership,β Clifford said, later adding that there was a βculture of fear.β
Despite this, administrative positions continue to grow, Rhoades said, adding that his committee has tried to get UA officials to disclose how many senior administrators, including deans, associate deans, assistant deans, associate provost and assistant provosts, were being cut. The university has not shared that information, he said.
βWe have seen a growth in all of those positions that is greater than the percentage growth in students,β Rhoades said. βWhile at the same time weβve seen almost no growth in staff, a decline in tenure-stream faculty, a decline in grad assistants, especially teaching assistants, and even the increase in non-tenure track faculty has been less than the increase in students.β
Administrative spending
Rhoades gave his presentation at the meeting alongside Jeff Michler, a professor in the College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences.
Michler railed against the current budgeting model, Activity Informed Budgeting, and spoke about gain sharing, which was implemented by former UA Provost Liesl Folk.
Gain sharing meant that βif units did not spend their money down to what the provost felt was an appropriate amount of savings, that money got taken away,β βtaxedβ by the university in order to give it to central administration, Michler said.
That, alongside subsidizing discounted tuition for out-of-state merit students and βsubsidizing athleticsβ since 2013, has harmed the academic units, the core of the university, he said.
In fact, according to Rhoades, the academic units subsidize 25% of the athletics departmentβs current budget.
Michler said 75% of the 61 units that Arnold said were deficit spending this year were non-academic.
βThis looks like widespread overspending, but itβs mostly not by the revenue-generating academic units,β he said, contending most of the overspending units were administrative.
During the presentation, Arnold and Interim Provost Ron Marx sent an email to faculty listing their preliminary budgets to all colleges for fiscal year 2025. The budgets were decided during an βall-funds processβ that required each college dean to show how they would cut from their budgets.
Michler said he tried to get each collegeβs all-funds presentations. Only one, his own college, would provide the information, he said.
βWeβre not asking for something that doesnβt exist,β he said. βWeβre not asking for something that will harm the university.β
Proposed law stalls
A bill to limit the role of shared governance at the stateβs three public universities, which was gaining traction, has now stalled, State Rep. Nancy Gutierrez told the faculty at Thursdayβs meeting.
According to Gutierrez, the presidents at Arizona State University and Northern Arizona were βnot on boardβ with the bill, but βDr. Robbins was.β
Zak, the spokesperson for the UA, denied her statements: βThe Arizona Board of Regents and the University of Arizona have taken a neutral position on HB2735. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.β
The bill would require ABOR and university presidents to βconsultβ rather than βshare responsibilityβ with faculty regarding educational and personnel matters.
Faculty and other opponents said it would destroy governing bodies such as the UAβs Faculty Senate. It would βput all power in the president,β UA professor Ted Downing, a former state legislator, has said. βThe power to set up programs, hire and fire faculty, really all power.β
One of the billβs sponsors, Gilbert Republican Rep. Travis Grantham, previously told the Star it was inspired by βthe massive financial cliffβ threatening to βbankrupt the university system.β While contending that faculty would still be able to participate in decision-making processes under his bill, he also said faculty criticizing it are βthe most left of the leftβ who are βgrabbing and clinging to power.β
Gutierrez, a Tucson Democrat, told the UA faculty Thursday that Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and her team βwant to be a partnerβ with them.
βI wholeheartedly feel that you all are the ones, with your students and your staff together, that should be listened to, that should be honored, that should be respected,β Gutierrez said. βAnd I vow to protect that.β