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What a university is about
Yesterday's Tallahassee Democrat features a story on layoffs at Florida State University. It points out the following:
Facing an $82 million reduction in state revenue since the 2007-08 school year, FSU administrators have eliminated some programs and sent layoff notices to more than 50 professors and staff, including 21 tenured faculty members.While the recession has required difficult decisions at all 11 schools in the State University System, more tenured FSU faculty are scheduled to be laid off than at the other 10 universities combined, according to data supplied by United Faculty of Florida, the statewide union representing college professors.
The piece later reports that the union is fighting the layoffs. That isn't surprising, nor is the fact that the university is taking steps to cut costs amid the current economic situation. What should be surprising, though, is how the article ends:
Jack Fiorito, UFF chapter president at FSU and a professor in the business school, said the union will continue to press to retain faculty positions."We're going to keep fighting this," Fiorito said. "This is fundamental. This is what a university is about."
Come again?
Professors are, needless to say, indispensable to any university. Especially in light of that, it is only right that decisions like the ones FSU has made be vigorously discussed and even challenged. But it is an entirely different matter to say -- as one professor apparently did -- that his colleagues' right to continued employment is "what a university is about."
The fact is, universities are about educating students -- or, as FSU's own website puts it, "the development of new generations of citizen leaders." Many state universities have similar mission statements, as Professor KC Johnson pointed out last week in his Philip Merrill Award acceptance speech. That is why they receive broad autonomy and generous support from the American people, including (in the case of FSU and other public institutions) taxpayers. They must never confuse that public purpose with the private interests of their various stakeholders.
Posted by Charles Mitchell on November 17, 2009 at November 17, 2009 12:40 PM
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