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SCRANTON — Marywood University is getting rid of 10 faculty members hired last fall, and the move has re-ignited criticism of spending priorities.
Associate professor of psychology Frank DeMatteo, who is also the secretary/treasurer of the Marywood Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, outlined the issues in an email Tuesday.
DeMatteo noted that last fall the university “hired 14 new tenure-track and 2 pro-rata faculty,” and that, as of Monday, 10 of those — eight tenure track and both pro-rata hires — “received non-reappointment letters” for the 2016-17 academic year.
“This action indicates significant financial mismanagement and is a clear violation of the AAUP principles and the University’s own policy on retrenchment,” DeMatteo wrote.
Marywood has undertaken extensive and costly construction projects that raised questions about spending priorities in the past, so much so that last October the faculty overwhelmingly approved no-confidence votes for university President Sister Anne Munley and the vice president of business affairs.
“Since then,” DeMatteo wrote, “the president has agreed to resign at the end of June, the VPAA’s contract is not being renewed, and the VP of Business Affairs contract expires at the end of June.”
Public Relations Director June Ann Greco said Munley announced her retirement, rather than resign, but the statement was otherwise correct. The contracts for both vice presidents are not being renewed when they expire.
Greco said the university had no comment on the 10 faculty members DeMatteo mentioned, but did stress they had been hired with one-year contracts and thus knew they could be out of work after that.
DeMatteo raised other concerns voiced by faculty that Greco responded to.
• “The administration froze our pay,” DeMatteo wrote. Greco said there was a freeze this year, but noted university staff received raises in each of the last 14 years.
• DeMatteo also noted the administration “cut our retirement benefits 5 percent,” which Greco said was technically true but misleading. She said the university had been contributing 10 percent of faculty savings plans and cut that to 5 percent, stressing it is a direct contribution, not matched to any contributions by the staff.
• A planned April visit by an accrediting organization was postponed until November “upon request of administration,” DeMatteo wrote. Greco said it was postponed on the recommendation of the accrediting group because Marywood is going through a leadership change. With Munley’s planned retirement, the search for a new president is underway.
Greco did not dispute other claims by DeMatteo, including elimination of merit pay, half-year sabbaticals and faculty development funds for those already tenured, but she pointed out most institutions of higher learning are grappling with the same problem: There are fewer high school graduates and thus a smaller pool of potential applicants.
“Higher education is in a changing climate,” Greco said, noting other area institutions have implemented cuts and restructuring as well.