'Most of us are...having to find a new career': Tenured faculty face layoffs at UW-Milwaukee
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) – A recommendation from the UW-Milwaukee chancellor could lead to the layoff of 32 tenured faculty.
Tenure, regarded as a safeguard for academic freedom, is something many work years to receive. Tait Szabo, an associate professor of philosophy, is in his 17th year as a Universities of Wisconsin employee and 10th as a tenured faculty member. For the last five months, he and many others at the college have dealt with the possibility of losing their jobs.
"Academics is such that you don't really have great prospects of leaving one tenured position and going to another," he said. "Most of us are probably facing having to find a new career at this point in our lives."
Szabo and his colleagues have had a looming threat of layoffs over their heads since March, when the Universities of Wisconsin announced the closure of its UW-Waukesha campus not long after closing its UW-Washington County campus. Both campuses were home to the College of General Studies, created in 2018 to integrate both branch campuses into UW-Milwaukee. But now that both of these campuses will be shut down, the staff at the college was left in a state of limbo as they waited to hear what would happen with their positions.
"I was hoping that we could bring those faculty over to our main campus and support them however we can and find jobs that they can do," UW-Milwaukee Computer Science Professor John Boyland said.
Boyland is a faculty senator who advocated for integrating the 32 tenured faculty from the college into other departments at UW-Milwaukee during last week's faculty senate meeting with Chancellor Mark Mone. In a majority vote, the faculty senate opposed Mone's recommendation to discontinue the College of General Studies and lay off its staff.
"He's going to be remembered as a chancellor who fundamentally, radically altered tenure," Szabo said.
Faculty Senator and UW-Milwaukee Associate Professor of Japanese Aragorn Quinn told CBS 58 that he feels this is the beginning of a tough road for tenured faculty around the state.
"At the core of my being, I believe that what we do on this campus is a social good and makes the world a better place, and tenure is at the heart of that," he said.
The UWM faculty union released a statement on the announcement, saying in part, "Closing the branch campuses, as mandated by the Universities of Wisconsin president, does not require the shuttering of CGS, and closing CGS would not require laying off its tenured faculty. The contributions of CGS professors to the educational, research, and access missions of UWM are immense, and the university has both legal and ethical obligations to retain them."
In his announcement, Chancellor Mone cited low enrollment, stating that from 2010 to 2023, the college saw a 65% decline in students without a corresponding reduction in staff, and that they see no evidence this trend will reverse.
"This decision weighs heavily on me, as the impact is profound, affecting 32 dedicated tenured faculty members, their families and communities, as well as many other dedicated CGS staff," the statement said.
"This process has been underway in some form for months. Last fall, President Rothman directed the closure of UWM at Washington County, which prompted UWM to examine CGS’s future in a new context. A UWM work team was formed to address the closure, including how to strengthen programming at UWM at Waukesha. This led to findings that there is no viable path for UWM at Waukesha."
Mone also addressed tenure in his statement.
"We know tenure is foundational to higher education, protecting faculty from political or ideological retribution. I deeply value this concept and recognize its role in upholding academic freedom — a pillar of free inquiry. However, in today’s climate, where universities like UWM are seen less as public investments and more as tuition-dependent businesses, tenure must be balanced with demand. We are not alone in this difficult situation. Public universities in Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia and Minnesota have recently had to lay off faculty members," it read.
You can read Mone's full statement here and can read his recommendation to Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman here.
The recommendation will now go to the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents.