In his address to the University Senate, Chancellor Kent Syverud stressed that there would be no quick, university-wide cuts to faculty and staff as a result of the Fast Forward Syracuse plan.

As part of the final University Senate meeting of the semester, Syverud also spoke about two senate motions dealing with diversity, transparency and shared governance at Syracuse University, one of which affirmed the efforts of THE General Body.

While a main goal of Fast Forward is to increase university-wide dialogue, Syverud said there is currently a “very serious” communication problem in the Operational Excellence project.

“Many on our staff, many across our faculty at the university are convinced that the words fast forward means layoffs and that those layoffs will occur fast,” Syverud said. “Many believe this because of rumors, but they also believe it because some units are going through an Operation Excellence exercise.”

That exercise involves several departments “voluntarily modeling” how they would handle a 10–15 percent budget cut, Syverud said. This exercise is ultimately beneficial because it prepares the departments if they do encounter budget cuts in the future, he said.

Syverud reassured the senate that throughout his leadership at other institutions, he had to deal with these same questions, but he was always able to avoid layoffs.

He said he has intervened with top administrators to make clear that layoffs will also be a last resort for SU.

“While the Operational Excellence work will continue and will focus on making the university more efficient and less bureaucratic, there will be no university Fast Forward driven layoffs unless and until the academic Strategic Planning process is complete,” Syverud said. “That will take at least until the summer and realistically probably somewhat longer.”

Though some departments may need to add or remove faculty in the coming semester, Syverud said they haven’t been making cuts more frequently than other years. He added that he is very concerned that SU’s faculty and staff are treated “respectfully and humanely.”

At the end of his address, Syverud talked about the Board of Trustees decision on promotion and tenure and policies. He said that historically the University Senate has done three things: approve curriculums, approve degrees and approve faculty promotions.

“I noted that the board’s decision in May took the third of these away from the senate and replaced it with a still undefined process within the provost’s office,” Syverud said. “This decision was viewed as hostile in relation to the university’s shared governance.”

Moving forward, Syverud said he cannot change the board’s decision. He also said he recognizes and understands there may be distrust among the faculty about the selection process for the committee that will advise the provost on promotion and tenure decisions.

Syverud added that he believes the board wants to develop a tenure and promotion process that values faculty input and models the best practices at other universities.

Published on December 4, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Annie: apalme05@syr.edu