Much of the recent discussion about YU’s finances has surrounded the anticipated merger between YU’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine and New York’s Montefiore Health System, an agreement which would cede $50 million of YU’s debt to Montefiore. (A February 3rd announcement has confirmed that despite the termination of the governance agreement in December, an agreement between YU and Montefiore has been reached and is close to being finalized.)
However, at a faculty council meeting on January 30, little mention of Einstein was made. Instead, the focus was on the need for individual departments within the undergraduate and graduate schools to “cut,” “shave,” and “consolidate.” Faculty members expressed concern that such belt-tightening will detract from the university’s academics and result in a drop in admissions and revenue.
One deficit-shrinking strategy that has fallen on the shoulders of individual departments has been the demand for professors to increase teaching loads.
At the faculty council meeting, Provost Selma Botman defended the demand for professors to teach more. In these trying financial times, she said, “the primary role of our faculty at this university has to be to serve students.” Botman maintained that while research is still a priority, the “teacher-scholar model becomes prominent.”
Though professors have taken on more hours, their salaries have not increased. Instead, due to a salary freeze and a cut in retirement from 7% to 2%, professors have their own financial woes to contend with. A recent increase in healthcare coverage costs has only exacerbated the situation.
One faculty member said that she ran the numbers and discovered that the cut has cost her some $30,000 in retirement funds. A suggestion was made for professors to instead take the 5% cut to their salaries, which, unlike their retirement funds, do not compound over time. Other professors noted that they cannot afford this cut in salary.
The very premise that “austerity” — cutting administration and increasing teaching loads — is the real solution to YU’s financial troubles was met with skepticism at the meeting. One professor even likened the strategy to trying to fix a leak by pouring out individual buckets of water instead of plugging up the hole.
Talk of restructuring departments led to a broader discussion about what the university is “trying to be” and why students choose to attend Yeshiva University.
One faculty member suggested that YU might need to stop trying “to be all things to all people” and that “maybe we need to make a choice between the Harvard and the Touro.”
Overall, morale amongst the faculty seemed low, with members expressing both anxiety over the lack of job security and frustration that they have been called upon to bear the burden of the university’s financial straits, though they had little to no involvement in the university’s financial decisions.
Botman acknowledged that current faculty members have been handed a bitter pill to swallow.
Professors come to YU for “noble things,” to teach and “launch students,” she said. “We don’t come to higher education to restructure.”
Assurance was given to faculty at the meeting that though the university is now “in a distressed, emergency situation” marked by restructuring, cutting, and downsizing, it will “one day” be able to focus on “rebuilding.”