Helen Scott is a professor of English at the University of Vermont, a department representative for the faculty union, United Academics, and is on the board of the Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
During this year of crisis, faculty and staff have mustered all our strength and resolve to ensure that the University of Vermont continues to fulfill its central academic and public interest mission. But the university administration is undermining these efforts as it pursues a shortsighted and reckless restructuring plan, justified by an accounting trick, that threatens to radically change and irreversibly damage UVM.
In December, management dropped a bomb, or, as the dean himself put it, lobbed a “hand grenade”: The dean of the College of Arts and Sciences announced plans to terminate 27 majors, minors and programs; consolidate departments in languages and the arts; and close the departments of classics, geology and religion.
Right before the winter holidays, three highly credentialed and much-loved senior lecturers were told they would no longer have jobs next fall. The board of trustees has indicated that more of the same will follow.
There is nothing strategic or rational about these cuts: This is a short-term, slash-and-burn attempt to “balance the budget” in the college no matter the damage. When confronted by faculty arguing that these cuts would irreparably harm the long-term health of the university, the dean admitted that this was a “roll of the dice.”
The rationale is a so-called “budget deficit” of $8.6 million. Pointing to this so-called deficit, management repeatedly argues that the College of Arts and Sciences is “not sustainable,” that its costs are too high, and that cuts are the only solution.
But none of this is true.
Under the incentive-based budget model (IBB), colleges and departments are not viewed as integral parts of an organic whole but are instead treated as separate entities that compete for students and resources. IBB purports to be a neutral operator that, through objective metrics, rewards or disciplines each unit based on its success in raising revenue and decreasing cost.
In fact, IBB is centrally controlled and highly subjective, with money allocated or withheld on administrative whim. One mechanism for doing so is the administration-controlled “subvention” fund.
Between 2016 and 2020, UVM’s other undergraduate-serving colleges contributed $111 million in net undergraduate tuition dollars (tuition after financial aid) to this subvention fund, while the College of Arts and Sciences provided the lion’s share, 44 percent. But although it contributed $88 million, the College of Arts and Sciences received only $54 million back. The rest was siphoned off to subsidize other “priorities,” including $23 million in salaries, benefits and bonuses for UVM’s 131 top-earning executives.
Far from being an “unsustainable drain,” the College of Arts and Sciences has been used as a cash cow — one that has been systematically starved and then punished for not thriving.
On top of this “academic fracking,” as one of my students put it, last semester the administration quietly eliminated the TRiO program, which provided essential support to first-generation college students, low-income students, and students with disabilities. Yes, during a devastating pandemic, they chose to cut off crucial resources to those most in need. Their justification for doing so — that a federal grant supporting the program had run out — is meritless, given that UVM has received $45 million in federal CARES Covid-19 relief funding and is slated to receive close to $11 million more.
This is not a budget crisis but a values crisis. Far from being in a state of financial exigency, the university as a whole is remarkably well off: The 2020 year-end financial report showed a net increase of $24 million; there is an untapped $34 million “rainy day” fund and an endowment of more than half a billion.
And yet classics, geology, and religion are being shuttered to “save” a total of $600,000. Three outstanding senior lecturers, with combined salaries of around $170,000, have been fired by a dean who himself makes more than $270,000, while the head basketball coach receives a bonus of $235,000.
Those in control are not prioritizing education or equity. They see the university as a corporation competing with other corporate universities for student dollars. That’s why UVM administrators, and university administrators across the country, are jumping on the same bandwagon of downsizing liberal arts to fund expanded technical training, expensive and ineffective consultant contracts, and vanity projects such as UVM’s planned $95 million sports arena. And, of course, they prioritize and protect their own excessive executive compensation.
UVM United Against Cuts, a coalition of faculty, students, staff, alumni and community members, instead sees education as a public good. We aim to provide a quality liberal arts education and to make a positive contribution to Vermont, in keeping with our university’s land-grant mission. We want to nurture our students’ critical thinking and understanding of the world.
The university’s wealth could be used to nurture and enhance academic programs, ensure livable wages for all who work on campus, increase antiracist and antisexist initiatives, and expand funding for TRiO and other valuable support networks.
Management has made it clear that it will not be moved by moral suasion or superior logic. We need to build solidarity between students, faculty, staff and the community and increase our organizational power so that we are ready for an epic battle for the soul of UVM and the future of public higher education in Vermont and beyond.
