In 2021, the Wright State University (WSU) Board of Trustees approved a plan for faculty retrenchment. This plan, intended to "align with enrollment needs," was placed to help save money and keep tuition low. However, there are student concerns about how these retrenchment policies may affect them in the future.
WSU's President, Sue Edwards, is quoted in the original press release explaining that this decision is being made to ultimately benefit the university and its students.
“Certainly, this is a difficult decision for the university, and I assure everyone it is a decision we have not made lightly,” Edwards said. “We have for quite some time focused on alternatives to these changes, including two separate rounds of retirement incentives, a reduced reliance on adjunct faculty and an effort to reduce by attrition. Unfortunately, those efforts have not sufficiently reduced the size of our excess faculty workforce. The continuing enrollment declines require us to act further.”
Some students, such as graduate student Fern Lawler, are concerned about possible retrenchment due to faculty help with research and guidance.
“Graduate students rely a lot on faculty involvement for research, especially in certain fields. I worry for the students that may have their faculty retrenched and what that may mean for their research," Lawler said.
Currently, according to the WSU employee separation policy, there are not any specific employment procedures covering this when it comes to retrenchment. However, there have been changes that have been made by the Board of Trustees and other committees since the 2021 announcement.
Several other conditional changes have been made by the Faculty Senate to the retrenchment terms. Some of these include allowing access to the affected faculty member emails for research purposes and allowing warning before retrenchment begins.
The sentiment by the Faculty Senate and Provost Jim Dennison has been the same since The Wright State Guardian last reported on the issue in 2021. Retrenchment is an emergency tactic that will be avoided at all costs when possible.
“While policy states that this is at my discretion, the goal is to avoid it [retrenchment] through academic planning and the Faculty Senate,” Provost Dennison said. “I want to affirm that if retrenchment occurs, those who are affected will be given no more than one year’s notice.”
This is an ongoing issue that Student Government Association, as well as Provost Dennison, are working to solve.
