President Shirley Ann Jackson held a meeting last Wednesday, open to tenured and tenure-track faculty, to further discuss the economic situation facing the Institute and what measures have been taken to guide RPI through the financial crisis.
After providing some background to the roughly 125 faculty members in attendance on the stock market crashes and rapidly increasing unemployment rates that are facing both the nation and rest of the world, Jackson brought the scope back to the academic realm, sharing what some other colleges and universities are doing to address the economic concerns. Cornell University, Dartmouth College, and Syracuse University have all announced layoffs, while Harvard University has suspended most searches for new faculty, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will be making major budget cuts over the next three years.
Jackson said that the Institute’s endowment has dropped by 20 percent and further noted that all revenue sources such as gifts, tuition, and research would be impacted over the next few years. However, she continued by saying that to proactively respond to the economic downturn, RPI has taken steps which has placed the Institute in a better position to respond to the crisis, citing the numerous faculty hired in recent years and improvements to campus facilities.
“Innovation requires innovators,” Jackson said, “and that is why the health of institutions such as Rensselaer is crucial.”
She further stated that the proactive measures back in October, such as a hiring freeze and contingency budget plans, allowed the Institute to keep layoffs to a minimum. The reasons for the layoffs and other measures were “to address the additional financial need of our students who are impacted by the current economic crisis; to minimize tuition increases in the coming year; to enable continued faculty recruitment; and to meet required increases in contributions to the defined benefit pension plan that continues to support a number of our current faculty and staff, as well as those who have retired under this plan.”
The Institute will be working to ensure that current and future students will be able to continue to attend RPI in light of the financial difficulties, according to Jackson, and that raising funds through the capital campaign will also continue.
Jackson said, “The painful steps we have taken were very difficult, but they were taken in the best interest—both the short-term and long-term—of the entire university.”
Following Jackson’s remarks, there was a period for faculty to ask questions about the financial situation at RPI.
The faculty is further planning to address student and faculty responses to the economic crisis at its general meeting today. Students are invited to attend the event, which starts at 3 pm in Low 4050.
Students have continued to rally for more transparency through petitions that have been passed around campus. Brian Donlan ’10 said that the Students Against Finanacial Mismanagement at RPI has collected over 900 signatures on the petition and will be focusing efforts on the west side of campus this week, planning to possibly submit the petition toward the end of the week.
In addition, Vice President for Student Life Eddie Ade Knowles, along with Grand Marshal Kara Chesal ’09 and President of the Union Rob Odell ’09, have also coordinated a forum for all students to address concerns regarding the financial situation at the Institute.
The forum has been scheduled for tonight from 5–7 pm in the McNeil room of the Union. Knowles will take questions from students regarding the crisis.
The Student Senate also continued discussions on the economic crisis. Chesal met with both Jackson and Knowles earlier this week and reported on those meetings. She said that Jackson agreed that the RPI community needs more information than people outside of campus and that the media should not have been its first source of information regarding the layoffs.
