lawyer

#Amid Layoff Fears, Tensions Flare at Albany Law - Law Blog

Tenure

Wikipedia Commons

Albany Law School is experiencing what you might call a third-tier problem.

Last week, the private law school in upstate New York said it s pushing forward with an effort to shrink its faculty, announcing that it would offer buyouts to up to eight of its 45 full-time professors. The move has raised the specter of layoffs at the school and has inflamed tensions between the administration and faculty.

Albany s dean and board of trustees say the school s deteriorating finances have left them with few options. They say a sharp decline in student enrollment and applications has hurt cash flow, projecting an operating deficit in the year ahead.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to achieve a cost-savings solution absent fewer personnel. We have offered generous buyouts—generous by anyone s standards—and we are now waiting for volunteers, the dean of the school, Penelope Andrews, told New York Law Journal last week.

Albany law professors contend that the school is exaggerating its financial troubles, putting tenure protections in peril.

Coming to the defense of the faculty is the American Association of University Professors, a national group that represents thousands of professors and investigates alleged violations of academic freedom.

Amid the talk of layoffs, the group wrote a letter to the school s dean, saying that unless the school was dealing with a bona fide financial exigency, layoffs of tenured faculty would constitute a breach of that freedom.

Indeed, its proposal, if effected, would eviscerate tenure at the Albany Law School and, with it, the protections for academic freedom, the AAUP letter from December said.

Ms. Andrews, quoted by the Albany Times-Union in an article published Tuesday, said she strongly disputes the notion that tenure is under siege. It is not accurate to say we want to eviscerate tenure. We want to cut our expenses and strengthen our institution, she said.

The AAUP asked an accounting professor at Eastern Michigan University, Howard J. Bunsis, to conduct an analysis of the school s finances, the Times-Union reported. His report concluded that empirical evidence does not support the idea that financial pressures are forcing the administration to cut faculty.

Mr. Bunsis said in a November report that in the last five years, the school s assets have increased and its liabilities have declined. He also calculated that in 2011, 35.5% of Albany s total expenses were spent on instructional faculty and benefits, a figure he described as startlingly low.

What s not disputed is that significantly fewer students are applying and enrolling at Albany, a problem that law schools across the country are confronting.

The number of applicants dropped about 45% between 2011 and 2013, according to data posted on the school s website. The class that entered in the fall is about 25% smaller than the class that entered two years ago. Total student enrollment has decreased to 591 from 687 in that period.

And even without the proposed buyouts, the number of full-time faculty has already dropped to 45 from 55 since 2011, according to figures posted on the school s website.

The dean has ruled out generating more revenue by lowering admissions standards and accepting more students, the New York Law Journal reported.

At the moment, the trustees are hoping that enough professors accept the buyouts in coming weeks. This is a problem that we have to get out in front of, said the chairman of the school s board of trustees, Daniel Nolan, according to the Times-Union. If the buyouts fall short, it s back to the drawing board. he told the paper.