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Originally posted by: info
"University of Southern Mississippi President Shelby Thames wrote that budget cuts of 5 percent to 10 percent could result in the loss of 103 to 165 faculty members. ... "

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Three questions come to mind if there is actually a loss of from 103 to 16 faculty members:

1. What termination criterion would be used?

2. Would State and Ole Miss also lose faculty members at that rate?

3. If not, why not?

While not unexpected, this will likely be catastrophic for USM. Any cuts more than 5% will mean loss of people. I expect that we should be hearing about a hiring freeze very soon.

What is troubling is that there should have been many budget planning meetings for months that anticipated this sort of news. Deans, chairs, faculty, and they usual suspects should have been involved in this planning effort. Given the refusal to include anyone outside the inner circle in conversations, we have no idea how USM will systematically deal with the budget crisis.

Amy Young

Balancing budgets is difficult. SFT faces a real dilemma. How can he continue to award all of these contracts to his cronies and supporters if there are budget problems. SFT does not want to test the hypothesis: do they back me because I am a "good" president for USM or because I bought them? I think we know the answer to this.

Of course, no one, and I mean no one, really knows what our finances look like.  We have a lawyer/failed politician/online class guru as our "CFO."  Governance is no longer shared, and teh finances all happen behind closed doors.  Where did the exact numbers like 103 to 165 faculty come from?  Obviously, schools overinflate the impact in order to reduce any planned reductions.  Yet, why would any knowledgable President who isn't aware that we have a library funding problem, who isn't cognizant of normal paperwork to keep the school in good standing, come up with some specific figures like that?  I would have just said, this could jeopardize a number of faculty positions, but up to 25% of the full-time faculty, because I guarantee you there are really only 500 or even less of us left.   

I will graduate in Dec. which if I am correct is when SACS will make a decision as to USM being off probation, more probation or loss of accreditation...so I am really on pins and needles. I do realize that my education is what is most important, but I'm not sure if an out-of-state employer would take my word for it if I wind up graduating from an unaccredited school....

I don't see how any supporter of SFT can get past the fact that under his administration the university wound up on probation....too bad there is no such thing as the No College Student Left Behind Act...his a** would be outta there! Hard to believe elementary schools are held to a higher standard than USM.

Under board policy, tenure track faculty employed for more than two years must be notified by September 1 that their contract will not be renewed. In other words, faculty here now must be given a contract for 2005-2006 since they were not informed by 9/1/04. Unless the board declares financial extingency, USM is obligated to provide contracts to all current faculty (the time varies for those employed less than two years; see IHL board policy at the IHL website).

If the board declares financial extingency and terminates faculty, it will be the death knell for higher education in Mississippi, since future recruitment of faculty will be impossible. I don't believe they would do that, and I don't believe the legislature would do that either.

On the positive side (if their is a positive side), if IHL declares financial extingency, it would put all of the universities in the same boat. Our brothers and sisters at the other 7 universities who have been largely ignoring our turmoil here at USM would be thrown into the same caldron as us. IHL would surely feel the heat then............