‘Worried about our campuses.’ Penn State faculty still have questions after buyouts

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Some Penn State employees still feel left in the dark after numbers for the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program were released.

The University Faculty Senate held a special plenary meeting on Wednesday where they heard from Tracy Langkilde, interim executive vice president and provost, about the VSIP at the commonwealth campuses, which became public the day before.

In May, Penn State announced it would offer eligible commonwealth campus employees a voluntary separation incentive program. Employees could choose to terminate their employment at Penn State with a lump sum payment equal to 12 months of their base salary, among other benefits.

Out of 1,813 eligible employees, 383 took a buyout. Richard Brazier, senior associate dean for faculty and research, and the University College interim dean, said 40% of them already qualified for retirement.

Each campus had at least one person participate in the VSIP but a breakdown of how many left each campus was not available for Wednesday’s meeting. Langkilde said they hoped to have that for July’s meeting.

Faculty wise, campuses Abington, Altoona, Berks, Dubois, Lehigh Valley, Wilkes-Barre, Hazelton and Scranton had less than 5% of faculty take the VSIP.

Beaver, Behrend, Brandywine, Mont Alto, York, Harrisburg, New Kensington, Greater Allegheny, Fayette and Shenango had between 5 and 10% take the VSIP, Langkilde said.

Staff numbers were still being finalized.

The faculty senate voted 74-2 to form a special committee to investigate and report to the senate the impact of the budgetary and employment changes on the ability to offer curriculum and programs effectively across Penn State.

Keith Shapiro, associate professor of art, made the motion and said the senate has a lot of work to do in a challenging environment. To get ahead of the situation, they need something like a committee to investigate it.

The faculty senate also voted 47-20 to advise Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi to involve the faculty senate in the decision-making process for any future consideration of a VSIP. With that, they said any such programs should ensure that all faculty, including non-tenure line faculty with at least one year of service at eligible campuses, are able to participate.

‘We’re afraid, we’re worried’

As the meeting began, faculty senate chair Michele Stine said it’s been interesting to hear the responses and reactions from people to the VSIP and to see the messaging people are getting from each other “in the absence of any official communication about numbers, about who we are losing, about what that impact will be.”

“Something that really struck me that someone said today, really has stuck in my brain, and I think this echoes how all of us feel: We fear this, and we wonder if we’re in good hands. And I think that is the heart of what it is we’re talking about today. We’re afraid, we’re worried. We’re worried about our colleagues, we’re worried about our campuses. We’re worried about the academic structure of the university, and we wonder, is all of that in good hands?” Stine said.

New Kensington was hit particularly hard with the buyouts, Allen Larson, associate professor of communications and interim director of academic affairs at the campus, said.

“There’s a large staff departure at New Kensington ... very large, larger you’ll see when the numbers come out, than probably most places, and pretty devastating to the campus culture here, and to, well, to all of it,” he said. “One of the things that’s been most heartbreaking about watching that happen is seeing people leave who are leaving simply because they’re afraid that that is their only choice, right, don’t but no one can tell them that they will still have a job in six months. We can’t promise them that even though they probably would have still had a job in six months. And, really heartbreaking to lose the talent that we have lost.”

Brazier said they’re working on getting course coverage for the fall semester and do not anticipate any disruptions. The focus now is to identify critical positions, name interim staff and look at the final VSIP results, impacts and savings.

“Just to give you some sort of idea, the average number of courses of those faculty taking the volunteer separation was only two courses for the fall, which represents about 3% of the courses we offer across all commonwealth campuses,” he said.

Brazier said they’re covering those courses through a combination of several ways. They identify if it’s a required course or if there are alternate courses students can take, extending the separate date when needed, and identifying the instructional model.

“...We don’t expect to see the students impacted in their ability to move forward in their degree programs with this current slate of volunteer separations,” he said.

Questions about regional leadership model

Another big change the university is implementing this summer is many commonwealth campuses will become part of the regional leadership model, which will be led by one administrator.

• Penn State Beaver and Penn State Shenango

• Penn State Fayette, Penn State Greater Allegheny and Penn State New Kensington

• Penn State Hazleton, Penn State Scranton and Penn State Wilkes-Barre

• Penn State Brandywine, Penn State Mont Alto and Penn State York

Agnès Kim, an astrophysicist and associate professor of physics at Penn State Scranton, is worried about the lack of chancellors and going through a major reorganization.

Regardless of the reason why a chancellor left — VSIP, retirement or otherwise — many of them did, she said.

“So it occurred to me this frightening thought, do we still have somebody who can identify these things and communicate from the campus? Like in the case of Scranton, our chancellor is leaving ... do we have a person, not just a team, that’s looking at the overarching thing, but do we have somebody local to each campus, who knows how operations were going, who knows who has left, and who can communicate to this restructuring team to say, ‘Guys, this needs to happen in Scranton and otherwise we’re going to be in trouble in terms of operations.’ Is that a thought?” Kim said.

Langkilde and Brazier said they agreed, and each campus would need to have someone who understands the campus and who can be the contact person for the regional chancellor.

While many senators were able to ask questions during the meeting, Amit Sharma, professor of hospitality management, said much of the information presented was already publicly known.

“I just want to point out we heard a lot of information that was already there in the public domain, in the article that came out, and nothing very specific. So for instance, even how the ... new regions were formed. So we keep urging for more specific information that gives a little bit more confidence, so to speak, moving forward,” Sharma said.