Faculty members at Vermont Technical College in Randolph learned Thursday that some of them, including tenured professors, may receive pink slips after Thanksgiving.
At a regular monthly meeting with faculty on Nov. 20, VTC president Dan Smith announced potential layoffs in the 2015-2016 academic year in several programs: English, Humanities, Social Science, Electrical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Architectural Engineering, Landscape Design and Horticulture, Math and Science.
<<< View a video recording of the meeting here. >>>
“In certain programs the layoff of full-time faculty will result in a program closure,” Smith said in a letter following the meeting. Smith could not be reached for comment by press time.
The exact number of layoffs is either not known or not yet public. Some factors that could affect staffing and program cuts are enrollment and faculty retirements. The latter may be spurred by cash incentives, Smith said.
Tim Donovan, the outgoing Vermont State Colleges Chancellor, said in an interview that he’s not aware of any degree programs facing imminent closure.
“I think Dan’s address to the faculty assembly and his follow-up letter was meant to inform the faculty of the challenge and the things that have to be (looked at) to address the challenge,” Donovan said.
Federal regulations require colleges to accommodate enrolled students through completion of their degree programs. He said the most immediate effect would be an increase in class sizes.
According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, Vermont Tech had 1,543 students in the fall of 2013, including both full- and part-time enrollees.
The school, part of the Vermont State College system, is looking at a roughly $2.5 million budget gap in the next academic year.
The administration is bound by collective bargaining agreements to notify faculty by Dec. 1 of potential layoffs the following school year. Donovan declined to talk about the number of positions to be cut.
National data show instructional staff at VTC totaled 189 in the 2013-2014 school year. Of those, 85 were full-time and 104 were part-time. Total staff at the school was 425, including 83 management staff, all but two of whom were employed full-time.
Donovan and Smith point out that VTC is required to report some positions that are not part of the college’s core operations. About 27 positions officially classified as “management” by the school actually are associated with Vermont Interactive Technologies, Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center, Continuing Education & Workforce Development, and Small Business Development Center.
Donovan confirmed that no administrative staff reductions are planned at this time. Six full-time administrative positions were cut in the past school year, he said.
Andy Myrick chairs the Faculty Federation’s VTC chapter. The union is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and AFL-CIO. Myrick said that although Smith named some departments that could be affected, pending layoffs are not necessarily limited to listed programs.
Though frustrated by the uncertainty, Myrick said he was not surprised by the announcement.
“We’ve seen this writing on the wall for years now,” Myrick said. “This is a 20-plus-year problem. We’ve pared and cut and reduced and reduced and reduced and we just can’t keep living this way.”
Myrick characterized VTC as a “canary in the coal mine,” whose decline forebodes trouble for the other institutions in the state college system: Castleton, Johnson and Lyndon state colleges and the Community College of Vermont.
On this point, the union and the chancellor’s office agree. Donovan, Myrick and VTC union president Ben Johnson, a librarian at the school, all lament decades of declines in state funding.
“The whole system’s been underfunded for 30 years, so it’s not surprising that more than one set of chickens would come home to roost,” Johnson said.
Donovan compared levels of state funding for all of public higher education in 1985 to today. What used to account for about $7.78 for every $1,000 of per capita income has fallen to $3.33.
“This is what happens,” he said about potential cutbacks at VTC.
Union leaders argue, however, that cutbacks are what happens when Vermont State College leadership doesn’t advocate strongly enough for funding in the state Legislature and doesn’t do enough to drive enrollment.
“The faculty and students have not seen anything proactive on the part of the chancellor’s office to change the problem, change the curve,” Johnson said. He said year after year, the administration has accepted decreased or essentially flat funding and simply absorbed the cuts.
“Now we have these calamitous layoffs that are potentially crippling to Vermont students,” Johnson said.
“It’s only to administrators that it looks like an attractive option … to fire our way to solvency,” Johnson said.
Donovan says the VSC staff have made a concerted effort to make lawmakers more aware of the potential consequences of poorly funding the state college system.
Vermont has a high percentage of secondary school students who graduate, he said, but the state has among the lowest number of high school graduates who go on to post-secondary programs. Donovan says the Vermont State Colleges have attempted to increase the number of Vermont high school graduates who go to college.
A special committee is looking at ways to restore state funding to the public higher education system and is expected to present a report in January.
By that time, a new chancellor will be at the helm of the Vermont State Colleges. Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding announced in September he will leave Gov. Peter Shumlin’s cabinet to take over when Donovan retires.
UPDATE: This article was updated at 3:04 p.m. on Nov. 26, 2014. The management staff numbers reported by Vermont Technical College to the National Center for Education Statistics include positions not directly related to the college’s core operations.