Ohio University will not approve requests for new tenured or tenure-track faculty hires for the time being, citing tight budget constraints.
In an e-mail to faculty, students and staff Friday, President Roderick McDavis announced changes to guidelines of the university-wide hiring freeze, which has been in place since September 2008.
Among the changes is a decision to limit faculty searches to non-tenure-track professors. The outline for the next few years of budget planning from the provost's office describes those positions as critical instructional positions.
Becky Watts, McDavis' chief of staff, said in an e-mail that Group I positions (tenured and tenure-track faculty) that are not funded by outside sources will not be approved for the immediate term.
OU currently has 921 Group I faculty members across its six campuses.
Any positions that have already been approved or for which searches are already underway by today can still move forward.
In the multi-year planning document, Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit and Mike Angelini, interim senior vice president of Finance and Administration, said the reasons for tightening the hiring freeze have to do with strategic priorities.
It will allow (the provost) and (the head of Finance and Administration) to understand the staffing levels of each unit and the activities that those employees support
the plan states. (And) it will provide an opportunity for units to strategically prioritize their staffing for the upcoming year and to estimate potential salary savings that could be used to meet budget reduction contingency plans.
OU has cut $13.75 million from its budget this year and anticipates cutting at least as much again next year, due to a falling state subsidy.
Faculty Senate Chairman Joe McLaughlin said he understands why administrators made the decision to further restrict hiring, but added that OU should be careful about losing Group I professors.
On the one hand we're probably looking at another devastating budget cut next year and this is the time that people start planning to do searches next year
and they want to be cautious
he said. On the other hand
it's really
really important that we keep up our number of tenure-track faculty.
The largest difference between Group I faculty members and Groups II, III and IV is the level of teaching and research they are expected to provide. The non-tenure-track positions are primarily instructional, whereas Group I professors are required to do more research.
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Emily Grannis
