Faculty & Staff

Amid choppy headwinds for the sector, Hampshire College has reduced some employee benefits, including suspending retirement contributions for employees for fiscal 2025, a spokesperson said in an email.

Senior leadership at the school will also take cuts to their compensation. At the same time, the Massachusetts-based private college is giving raises to all employees who make $100,000 a year or under and giving all employees five extra paid days off.

The college’s enrollment is stable but headwinds including delays in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid prompted it to reassess its revenue and expense model, the spokesperson said.

Some five years ago, Hampshire flirted with closure. It went so far as to only admit a partial class of students in 2019, and it was actively looking for a merger partner to help sustain it. 

Since those financially distressed days, the college has launched a major fundraising drive that raised more than $43 million to date, the spokesperson noted. It has also revamped its curriculum to replace majors and departments with classes focused on addressing pressing global issues.

Hampshire's enrollment has recovered “significantly” over that time, the spokesperson said. The college projects steady enrollment of 1,000 students by the 2026-27 academic year, and it expects 900 full-time enrolled students for the fall — up from under 500 last year. 

Even with those developments, the college ran a total operating deficit of $3.4 million in fiscal 2023, a more than tenfold increase from the prior year, according to its latest financial report. The difference is due to a decrease of nearly $3.7 million in federal COVID-19-related funds that reduced Hampshire’s income in 2023 by that amount, the spokesperson noted.

“Hampshire College remains on a strong path back to financial sustainability,” President Ed Wingenbach said in an emailed statement this week. “Over the last five years, we've been part of an extraordinary comeback and I'm confident the talented team here can support this extraordinary work, while creating a sustainable operating model where expenses and revenues match.”

The benefits changes are relatively modest compared to other institutions that are making cuts — some of them quite large — to programs, faculty and staff this year. 

Columbia College Chicago, for instance, recently announced cuts to 70 positions on campus, a 5% reduction in faculty and staff. And University of Lynchburg, in Virginia, said it would nix 40 staff roles in the short term and eliminate 40 faculty positions in the coming years as it cuts programs and tries to balance its budget.

Pennsylvania State University’s commonwealth campuses will reduce their workforce by 10% this summer after 383 employees accepted the institution’s voluntary buyout offer in May.

The combined salaries and expenses of the departing workers is $43 million, which could ease Penn State’s $49 million budget deficit. But officials said on June 11 that some positions will need to be backfilled and that they will determine the actual cost savings later this year.

The same day, Penn State also announced a campus restructuring plan that will bring 11 universities under the leadership of four chancellors. The plan will also shift some costs from individual campuses to Penn State’s general overhead budget.

At the beginning of the year, Penn State unveiled plans to cut almost $100 million from its fiscal 2026 budget. It cited the need to reduce expenses when announcing the voluntary buyouts for commonwealth campus employees in May. 

Penn State's overall student body has fallen slightly in recent years, declining about 3.9% from fall 2019 to fall 2023, when the university had around 88,000 students, according to the institution’s data. But the overall enrollment count is buoyed by increases since fall 2019 at University Park, Penn State’s main campus. Enrollment at the 20 commonwealth campuses declined 15.2% to around 24,000 students during that time, it said.

Tracy Langkilde, Penn State's interim executive vice president and provost, said Tuesday the buyout program allowed campuses to lower personnel costs "in a way that we felt would be as compassionate as possible."

Buyout packages include 12 months of employees’ base salary and subsidized health insurance for six months. A fifth of eligible employees took the deal, and 77% of those workers are staff, Penn State said.

June 28 will be the last day for about half of departing employees, while the rest will leave by the end of the year.

The buyouts also presented a chance for Penn State to reconfigure how its campuses operate, Langkilde said. Several commonwealth campus chancellors are leaving, including through the buyout program, according to Penn State.

Beginning July 1, 11 of Penn State's commonwealth campuses will be combined into four regional groups, each of which will be overseen by one chancellor.

For example, the chancellor of Penn State Brandywine, Marilyn Wells, will also begin leading Penn State’s Mont Alto and York campuses this summer.

"Grouping campus administrations together geographically will enable further collaboration and resource sharing while continuing to offer students full academic and support services," Penn State said.

The remaining commonwealth campuses will not be affected at this time, but officials Tuesday left the door open for further restructuring in the future.

The new model will also bring employees and services related to facilities, information technology and finance under Penn State’s corresponding central offices.

"At present, each campus is fully responsible for the salaries and fringe paid to employees in these positions," Penn State said. By centralizing the positions, they will become part of the general overhead budget and "result in further savings for the Commonwealth Campuses," it said.

Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi allocated up to $20 million to the consolidation and restructuring, about 40% of her office's fiscal 2026 strategic funds. The one-time expenditure will also give Penn State until the end of June 2026 to fully balance the commonwealth campus budget, it said.

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Without the right resources from the institution, faculty can struggle to tell their story, lose valuable time dealing with data requests and administrative tasks, and become fatigued with technological systems in place. When paired with data showing that 67% of faculty have experienced an increase in workload in the past year and about one-third of faculty believe their service efforts are undervalued, it’s a perfect storm that can quickly lead to faculty disengagement.

Streamlining Faculty Processes at East Carolina University

In a webinar with Interfolio, Cara Gohn, Interfolio Coordinator with the Office for Faculty Excellence at East Carolina University (ECU), shared how the institution has designed faculty reporting and evaluation processes that benefit both faculty and administrators alike. 

During the webinar, Gohn gave insight into how ECU tracks faculty activities, bringing in data sources from across campus. In addition, she shared how they connect this centralized data source to their annual faculty evaluations, streamlining the process for stakeholders. Gohn noted the importance of gaining buy-in for these processes across the institution and ensuring that everyone knows how to use the system.

How ECU Helps Faculty Succeed

Knowing how critical it is to provide information and training about why and how to utilize campus systems, Gohn and the team at ECU dive right in during orientation. As faculty begin the academic year, Gohn gets in front of them to share details about their faculty information system—including exactly how they’re going to use it during the first year as well as throughout their career at ECU. “We understood that there’s got to be a support structure in place,” shared Gohn. “Not just with what we configure and what we implement in the system, but a support structure that exists—and is part of my job—so that our faculty can be successful in the system.” 

As part of their efforts, there are three steps the team focuses on each year to ensure a level of support that will result in success for faculty: a strategic training schedule, tailored newsletters, and an up-to-date resources website.    

Step 1: Strategic Training Schedule

During the summer, Gohn gets a training schedule teed up for the entire academic year. Looking at the various deadlines for faculty and candidate submissions throughout the year, she aligns with the calendar to offer training sessions at times that will be most beneficial. Sessions are online and recorded, ensuring candidates can easily drop in from wherever they are or view them later if they’re unable to attend.

Step 2: Tailored Newsletters

Gohn also spends time creating newsletters tailored to the academic calendar, ensuring topics covered throughout the year align with important happenings and deadlines. For example, since she knows September has heavy deadlines for tenure promotion candidates, that newsletter typically includes details about training sessions offered related to that and some tips or FAQs around that topic.  

Step 3: Resources Website

Finally, the team maintains a comprehensive support website with a variety of resources to support faculty. In this one-stop shop, faculty can find training documents, training session recordings, help guides, and other resources to support their efforts in their faculty information system. In addition, ECU has specific pages for each type of evaluation process (reappointment, tenure, or promotion), providing a holistic website that faculty can visit to get all the policy-related information they need. 

Utilizing Technology to Simplify Workflows

These preemptive efforts on the institutional side all help set the faculty—as well as the administration and the institution itself—up for success. “We’re able to give administrators a look into the reappointment, tenure, and promotion process that they never had before,” shared Gohn. “System-generated templates behind the actual workflows allowed us to really make sure that everybody’s doing the same exact thing within the same deadline. “Back when we were using binders,” she noted, “the different components of the pad were all over the place. You can give guidance all day long, but when you have a bunch of hands in the pot, the pads would get to the institutional administrators and the personnel office, and they wouldn’t be able to find certain documents.” 

For a deeper dive into how ECU simplifies faculty reporting and evaluations, be sure to check out the on-demand webinar.

A college administrative professional makes an annual salary of $43,000. Because her compensation exceeds $35,568 per year, she is not eligible to earn overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s regulations as amended in 2019.

That will change on July 1, however, thanks to a recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Labor. The agency published its final rule updating overtime pay eligibility, which increases the FLSA’s minimum annual salary threshold via a pair of changes set to take effect over the next several months.

July 1 marks the first increase from the current minimum of $35,568 per year to $43,888 per year. After that, the threshold will next increase to $58,656 per year on Jan. 1, 2025, roughly 65% higher than the present-day mark — and will automatically increase every three years thereafter using a formula outlined by the DOL.

The HR department at our hypothetical administrative professional’s college now has a series of choices to make. The employee could be kept at her current pay level and converted from exempt to nonexempt status, making her eligible to earn overtime pay. Alternatively, the college could increase her pay so as to exceed the new threshold so that she may remain exempt.

Assuming the latter choice, however, should the college increase the employee’s pay to meet the July threshold, or should it go further? For example, the college could opt to increase her pay beyond the January threshold in anticipation of the 2025 rule change. Or it could wait things out to see if some — or all — of the rule gets struck down in court.

There is more to that decision than employers might realize, with considerations ranging from the financial ability of an organization to raise pay to the degree to which employees value being considered a salaried professional.

The American Council on Education, higher education's top lobby, has noted that the changes will "have significant budgetary, programmatic, and human resource implications for colleges and universities." And at least one higher ed expert advised more colleges to consider a merger, as the rule could increase many already-distressed institutions’ financial woes.

To help readers better contextualize such decisions, HR Dive spoke with employment law attorneys who broke down the process step by step.

Step #1: Identify affected employees

Employers should first identify the population of employees who, based on their salary level, would no longer be classified as exempt, said Brett Coburn, partner at Alston & Bird.

It is a basic step, but employers need to know how many salaried employees have pay that would fall below the coming increases in order to assess the size of any potential pay increases, Coburn said.

As an aside, an employee’s pay is only one component for determining whether that person meets the criteria for exemption under the FLSA. There is also the FLSA’s “duties test,” under which an employee’s job duties must also meet certain requirements for exemption.

“That’s still a critical part for me,” said Deanna Kempinski, senior manager with Baker Tilly’s HR advisory practice, who added that employers may overlook the duties aspect of overtime eligibility. “It’s a great opportunity to level set with positions and job descriptions, and employers need to take the time to evaluate each role.”

DOL’s most recent overtime rule did not make changes to the FLSA’s duties test, but a change in overtime regulations can nonetheless present an opportunity to identify potentially misclassified employees whose duties do not meet those requirements.

“Some of these people may not be comfortably exempt,” Coburn said. “It may be a gray area.”

Step #2: Run the numbers and analyze potential effects

Next, employers will need to determine what it would take to keep an employee’s pay above the new threshold, Coburn said, whether the difference is in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

One aspect that should be considered is how an affected employee’s pay compares to others in the same role. If the employee’s pay is below that of their comparators, that may indicate a deeper pay equity issue. “You may have an opportunity to mitigate or solve some equal pay concerns by giving those employees a raise,” Coburn said.

In some cases, employers may find that they already had plans to give pay increases to salaried employees who fall below the new threshold. But even planned wage increases can create wage compression concerns, said Jeff Brecher, co-chair of Jackson Lewis’ wage and hour practice group.

Specifically, if an employer decides to increase an employee’s pay to maintain overtime exemption, others who currently make more than that employee could become disgruntled, Brecher said. And given that future overtime exemption threshold increases are planned for 2025 and beyond under the new rule, employers might need to think about what an increase today could mean for its future pay policies, he added.

Another approach toward increasing pay may be to reconfigure the employee’s total compensation, particularly if their compensation package is heavy on bonuses or other incentives, according to Coburn. In that case, employers may be able to “front load some of that into regular salary,” he said, though this kind of change could come with productivity concerns if the incentive structure is viewed as contributing to employee productivity.

The alternative is to keep the currently exempt employee at their current pay and convert them to nonexempt status in time for the July 1 rule change, after which they would be eligible to earn overtime pay at time-and-one-half their regular rate of pay.

Aside from the need to train converted employees on timekeeping logistics, there are also morale implications. While some salaried employees may welcome the change, others may feel that they are being demoted or may no longer be able to take advantage of any job flexibility that their previously exempt status allowed them, Brecher said.

“An exempt employee’s workflow may be fluid, and the employee has flexibility depending on what their circumstances are to decide how they want to complete their work for that month,” he continued. “You lose a little bit of that flexibility.”

Nonexempt status conversion also can affect other benefits and perks, Brecher said. Exempt employees, for example, may have access to more vacation time than nonexempt employees due to the structure of their jobs. Employees who are reclassified may lose those benefits.

Salaried roles are not always compatible with nonexempt status, Coburn said. Currently exempt employees may perform jobs that require, for instance, frequent checking of messages or emails during the late evening hours or on weekends. Such work can be difficult to track for timekeeping purposes, Coburn said, and employees in currently exempt roles may not be in the frame of mind to accurately record it.

Step #3: Make preparations — even with lawsuits on the horizon

DOL’s overtime rule faces legal action that could delay it from taking effect. Business groups filed a lawsuit in a Texas federal court on May 22 asking the court to block the rule from taking effect.

In an email to HR Dive, Coburn said that news of that lawsuit did not change any of his guidance to employers on the subject and added that employers “should definitely be in wait-and-see mode” while continuing to prepare for the July 1 threshold update.

This in part because a court may not issue a ruling before the effective date, but Coburn also said that the January 2025 threshold was the main focus of the May 22 filing, with “very little discussion” about the July 1 update.

“So, in short, I think employers should be preparing for the July increase and considering all of the factors that we discussed earlier this week, but I would not roll out any changes to employees until we get a better sense of when the Court might issue a meaningful ruling in the new case,” Coburn wrote.

There is a higher likelihood that the Texas federal court will enjoin the January 2025 increase than the July increase, Brecher said. Large employers may find it particularly difficult to reverse any changes made in advance of the deadline, and there may not be much time for employers to do so in the event of an injunction anyway, he added. A federal court’s 2016 injunction of the Obama administration’s final overtime rule came just days before the rule was set to take effect.

Step #4: Have your communications strategy ready to go

The way in which an employer communicates changes related to the overtime rule is dependent on the number of employees affected as well as the geographic distribution of those workers, according to Coburn.

If the total number of employees is very small, HR teams could announce the changes to employees in one-to-one meetings with a manager present. But for large groups of affected employees, “I think it’s probably going to start with a written communication to those groups that is then followed up with specific training,” Coburn said.

He added that those communications should be sent to every single affected employee and should include an explanation of why any changes are happening as well as the organization’s expectations around accurate timekeeping, if applicable.

“All that stuff needs to be conveyed in writing and also followed up through a real-life training so that people are clear on what the expectations are and then follow up with documentation that the training happened,” Coburn said. “You want to avoid people saying, ‘No one ever told me.’”

HR should be ready to field any questions employees have, Brecher said, and a more robust option may be to host a webinar or similar presentation explaining the changes.

Employers also might want to consider creating a question-and-answer document for employees to reference as the change approaches, Kempinski said. Those documents can be crafted so as to cover as many bases as possible, but they may not be able to cover every individual circumstance.

Columbia College Chicago has announced plans to eliminate 70 positions across the institution. That figure represents about 5% of its total staff and faculty.  

In addition, the college said it will eliminate another 32 open positions as it tries to downsize in the face of financial pressures. 

The timing of the layoffs will vary by position. Those let go will receive severance and transition assistance, according to Jerry Tarrer, Columbia’s chief financial officer.

“Today’s layoffs take place as part of a set of measures designed to reduce the college’s operating deficit by half,” Tarrer said in a message to campus. The administration has predicted deficits of over $30 million annually in the years ahead, following a $37.9 million deficit for fiscal 2024. 

“As we work to stabilize and strengthen the college’s financial footing, we also are committed to better aligning our academic offerings to better support the academic and professional success of current and future students,” Tarrer added.

Columbia didn’t confirm which departments are seeing cuts. A report in the college’s student newspaper, The Columbia Chronicle, said those laid off so far included therapists in the college’s counseling center, as well as librarians, academic advisors, tutoring center staff and student financial aid staff.

College leaders previously told the campus that they did not plan on reducing staff in Columbia’s counseling center.

The announcement follows shortly after the college’s board voted on a sweeping restructuring effort that includes a curriculum revamp, administrative overhaul and expected staff cuts. 

As part of the restructuring, Columbia is reducing the core education requirements for students. College officials may also end up cutting 28 academic programs that they flagged as being “of concern.” 

The changes, expected to save $18 million in the fiscal 2025 operating budget, are part of a plan laid out by Columbia President Kwang-Wu Kim, who said in a May report that the institution faced a possible “existential threat” from budget deficits and enrollment declines. Enrollment has fallen 36% since 2013, to a student headcount of 6,529 in fall 2023, the president noted.

A small network of groups and donors have helped drive legislative attacks on diversity offices, tenure, and race and gender-based instructional topics at colleges, according to a nearly 150-page-report from the American Association of University Professors.

The report lists 11 conservative and libertarian think tanks, backed by a small group of donors, that have “have participated in this culture war against higher education.

AAUP traced how policy positions developed and written by those groups have made their way into well over 100 state-level bills banning DEI efforts on campuses or the teaching of critical theory and “divisive concepts.”

By AAUP’s count, state lawmakers have introduced more than 150 bills targeting higher ed governance and academic freedom since 2021. 

That number includes nearly 100 bills that the group describes as “academic gag orders” seeking to ban teaching of critical race theory and other concepts targeted by conservative activists. Of those, AAUP counted 21 that have been signed into law. 

The organization pointed to another seven newly signed laws restricting DEI on campuses, three that weaken tenure (two in Florida and one in Texas), and three that “undermine” accreditation (two in Florida, one in North Carolina). 

The AAUP report, authored by Isaac Kamola, director of the organization’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, traces the legislation to a backlash against progressive social movements, including Black Lives Matter and those pushing for LGBTQ+ rights. 

Kamola’s report argues that backlash has been advanced by a handful of interconnected think tanks, including Center for Renewing America, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, American Legislative Exchange Council and the Heritage Foundation, among others. The think tanks, in turn, are funded largely by a relatively small number of multimillion dollar donors. 

For instance, the report draws lines between “divisive concepts” bills at the state level and an executive order signed by former President Donald Trump in 2020 that outlawed federal agencies from incorporating “divisive concepts,” “race or sex stereotyping” and “race or sex scapegoating.” 

The Trump administration based the executive order on policy input from conservative activist Christopher Rufo, according to past media reports cited by Kamola in the report. Rufo has held positions at multiple think tanks listed in the report and has repeatedly lambasted critical race theory. 

At the April annual conference of the Higher Learning Commission, Zach Waymer, government affairs officer at the accreditor, said the effect on higher education from bills targeting DEI, critical race theory and similar issues was still “abstract,” with more impact visible so far on K-12 education. 

For their part, conservative think tanks and politicians say they are trying to prevent liberal and radical indoctrination of college students in their fight against DEI and critical race theory instruction. 

Despite the attention on teaching concepts such as critical race theory — and attention on the bills trying to prevent their instruction — at least some research shows that few classes at U.S. colleges actually deal substantially with those topics.

A 2023 analysis of 18.7 million syllabi by the nonprofit Open Syllabus found that fewer than 5% of college classes referenced "gender” while just 0.3% referenced "race." And fewer than 1 in 1,000 class syllabi included the terms “critical race theory,” “transgender” or “Marxism.”

St. Catherine University, in Minnesota, has cut 11 staff roles as it grapples with annual budget deficits.

The institution confirmed for Higher Ed Dive that it eliminated six staff positions with the closure of its early childhood center and another five in various other units.

While it didn’t specify numbers, St. Catherine said the employment of "a few" faculty members ended when their temporary contracts lapsed, but asserted it did not terminate or choose not to renew any contracts.  It also said “a number of” faculty retired this year and others have left for new jobs.

St. Catherine is one of an ever-growing cohort of colleges making cuts — both modest and large — to bring their budgets in line with falling tuition revenue and a tough operating environment.

The institution posted an operating deficit of $19 million for the fiscal year that ended May 2023 after racking up a $9.5 million deficit the year before, according to its latest financials. Total revenues decreased by about $6.5 million year to year year while expenses rose by $3 million. Tuition revenue, specifically, fell 7.7% from fiscal 2022 to fiscal 2023.

St. Catherine had 3,577 students in fall 2022, down 24.3% from 2017 and about a third from 2010 levels, according to federal data. 

Not helping financial matters, a former dean of St. Catherine’s nursing school was recently charged with embezzling $400,000 from the university. 

Based in St. Paul, St. Catherine says it is the largest Catholic women’s college in the country. In 2023, women made up 99.7% of enrollment at the university’s College for Women, its undergraduate program for traditional students.

Starting July, St. Catherine will have a new president, Marcheta Evans, currently chancellor of Bloomfield College of Montclair State University, in New Jersey. Evans will be St. Catherine’s first African American president following President Becky Roloff’s retirement. 

Jean Wincek, chair of the university’s board, praised Evans for her “embrace of the Catholic intellectual tradition, emphasizing scholarly inquiry and social justice teaching.”

Two Purdue University Fort Wayne professors filed a lawsuit in May seeking to block a new state law that ties tenure at Indiana’s public universities to whether instructors encourage intellectual diversity. 

Under the statute, university boards can deny faculty members tenure if they don’t “foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity.” If tenured faculty members fail to meet these requirements, they can face discipline, including salary reductions, demotions and termination. 

The measure is set to take effect July 1. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the lawsuit on behalf of the two tenured professors, arguing that the statute is unconstitutional because it violates their First Amendment rights. 

Local faculty groups panned the tenure law even before it passed the Indiana Legislature in late February. 

In addition to the new tenure requirements, the law also allows students and employees to file complaints against professors they say are not promoting a culture of free inquiry. And it requires that tenured professors be reevaluated under these standards every five years. 

Two chapters of the American Association of University Professors — one at Indiana University Bloomington and the other at Purdue University West Lafayette — published a joint statement in February arguing that the statute would undermine academic freedom and impede the two universities from recruiting and retaining talented faculty members. 

Shortly thereafter, lawmakers passed the bill, and Gov. Eric Holcomb signed it into law. 

This week's lawsuit, which was filed in federal district court against Purdue’s trustees, echoes previous criticisms levied against the statute. 

The statute “puts Indiana’s professors in an untenable position,” Stevie Pactor, staff attorney at ACLU of Indiana, said in a statement. “Through vague language and the threat of harsh sanctions, including termination, the law strips professors of the academic freedom that the Supreme Court has long recognized they have the right to exercise.”

Although the law defines intellectual diversity as “multiple, divergent, and varied scholarly perspectives,” it doesn’t spell out the meaning of “free expression” or “free inquiry.” Neither of the plaintiffs understand their responsibilities or the actions they must avoid under the statute, according to the complaint. 

Thus, the lawsuit argues, the two professors “believe they could be compelled to speak or prohibited from speaking” in violation of their free speech rights.

One of the plaintiffs is history professor David Schuster, who is working to be promoted to full professor, according to the complaint. The lawsuit says that Schuster doesn’t believe he should be forced to teach “divergent” views about slavery, such as the perspective “that slavery ultimately benefitted African-American people.”

Communications professor Steven Carr, the other plaintiff, has similar concerns, the complaint says. Carr is the director of the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and is scheduled to teach four classes in the upcoming academic year.

“‘Divergent’ perspectives regarding the existence and scope of the Holocaust exist, ranging from denial that the Holocaust occurred to ‘revisionist’ accounts challenging the scope and causes of that genocide,” the lawsuit argues. “Professor Carr would not teach those ‘perspectives,’ but the language of the statute would appear to require him to do so.”

Carr shared concerns with reporters Tuesday that the statute would give debunked theories new life. 

“That’s simply unacceptable,” Carr said. 

The two professors are asking the judge to declare the statute unconstitutional, block it from taking effect in July, and award them legal fees and other relief. 

Tim Doty, a Purdue spokesperson, said the institution has not yet been served with the lawsuit. However, Doty pointed to a February statement from top university officials saying Purdue would remain committed to academic freedom. 

“Unlike many other institutions that headed down convenient yet slippery slopes in recent years and months, this university has not been in, and will not get into, the business of censoring controversial speech, chilling unfashionable viewpoints, canceling campus events, suspending faculty or fellows, or issuing endless institutional public statements on social-political issues,” the statement said.

The share of women and faculty of color in tenure-track positions has increased over the past several years — but advancement hurdles persist for everyone but White men, according to a new report from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. 

The share of tenure-track faculty who are racial or ethnic minorities rose to 26% in the 2022-23 academic year. That’s up from 21% in the 2016-17 academic year. Increases in Asian and Hispanic or Latino faculty members drove the growth, CUPA-HR found. 

Despite gains like these, greater shares of women and faculty of color work in the lowest-ranking faculty positions than in the highest-ranking professorships. 

The latest CUPA-HR report sheds light on pervasive inequities in faculty representation. The advancement hurdles that women and faculty of color face have wide-ranging implications, including disparities in job security and pay. 

“Promotion from assistant to associate professor is often accompanied by tenure, which provides a certain amount of job security,” the report states. “Denial of this promotion generally means the faculty member must secure an academic position in another institution or drop out of academia altogether.” 

Yet the data shows that the shares of faculty of color and women decline at higher professor ranks. At the lowest level — assistant professor — 35% of people in the role during the 2022-23 academic year were faculty of color and a majority, 53%, were women. 

But those shares decreased within the next highest rank, associate professor, when faculty members usually gain tenure. 

In 2022-23, just 26% of associate professors were faculty of color and 47% were women. Among full professors — the highest rank — 22% of faculty were racial or ethnic minorities while 36% were women. Only White men see more representation the higher the rank, CUPA-HR said. 

Promotions to these two ranks are usually the only times that tenure-track faculty receive a substantial salary boost, according to the report. “Therefore, promotion denials are salary increase denials,” the report argues. 

These divides can create even further disparities among senior leadership. That’s because having fewer women and faculty of color at the full professor rank decreases their representation among the pool of candidates for positions like dean, provost and even president, CUPA-HR pointed out. 

The report recommends that colleges evaluate their promotion pathways for tenure-track faculty and implement mentorship programs to help women and people of color navigate the process. 

“To continue their investment and success in hiring women and people of color, leaders should strengthen efforts to promote them through the academic ranks with clear, transparent promotion criteria, effective communication, and actionable feedback,” the report states.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a powerful official who oversees the state’s Senate, is calling for lawmakers to increase oversight and scrutiny of colleges’ tenure policies and faculty governance groups.

In preparation of the state’s next Senate session, Patrick released directives on April 11 offering insight into his legislative priorities. He charged the Senate’s higher education committee with reporting on how the state’s public colleges are complying with SB 18, a law giving governing boards the sole power to grant tenure and codifying the post-tenure review process.

The lieutenant governor further ordered lawmakers to recommend guidelines to oversee the role of faculty senates in higher education governance — something that has not traditionally been influenced by state lawmakers.

Texas has become a testing ground of sorts for Republican lawmakers looking to reshape higher education. Patrick’s list of priorities offers a glimpse into the issues that will be top of mind for state lawmakers. 

Patrick has previously called for the elimination of tenure at public colleges in Texas. In 2023, a Texas bill proposed completely banning tenure but that provision failed to gain traction with House lawmakers. Gov. Greg Abbott signed an overhauled version of the bill that instead codified policies like post-tenure review.

The lieutenant governor is also an outspoken opponent of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and he named a ban on DEI programs in higher education as one of his legislative priorities last year.

The state has since passed a law prohibiting public colleges from establishing diversity offices, hiring employees to do DEI work, or requiring DEI training for students or employees. Texas was one of the first to enact a DEI ban, and other states like Alabama have since followed suit.

Even before the law passed, some Texas universities paused their DEI policies over Republican criticism.

On Thursday, Patrick called for continued monitoring of public colleges' compliance with the state DEI ban, which took effect Jan. 1.

The Republican author of the ban, State Sen. Brandon Creighton, recently told the leaders of Texas' seven university systems to detail their compliance with the law by May 3, ahead of a senate education committee hearing.

Creighton raised concerns that colleges were attempting to circumvent the ban. Since his directive, some institutions in the University of Texas system have laid off DEI staff.

Patrick also called for lawmakers to review public colleges' free speech and antisemitism policies, two hot-button issues for education-focused lawmakers. Last month, Abbott addressed both topics in an executive order directing colleges to update their policies to address antisemitism on campus, though one free expression group said it could chill campus speech. 

The lieutenant governor left open the possibility of issuing further directives before the next legislative session starts in January.

The University of New Hampshire is laying off about 75 employees as part of an effort to reduce its yearly expenses by $14 million.

Colleges nationwide are facing significant competition for students and rising costs and the University of New Hampshire is no exception, President James Dean Jr. said Tuesday. In a message announcing the layoffs, he argued the institution must proactively make budgetary changes to address these issues.

Employee compensation and benefits represent the institution's biggest expense category, according to Dean. University spokesperson Tania deLuzuriaga said via email that a vast majority of the affected employees are staff but did not share exact figures

Declining enrollment and elevated inflation continues to batter the higher education sector. These trends have hit small institutions particularly hard, though public universities and state flagships like the University of New Hampshire haven’t been immune.

In September, West Virginia University approved dramatic staff and academic cuts in the face of a $45 million deficit. The university's outgoing president was a driving force behind the changes and argued they were necessary so more resources could be devoted to in-demand programs.

The University of New Hampshire is also facing budgetary challenges and fewer students. The university’s main campus enrolled almost 14,000 students in fall 2022, down from just over 15,200 a decade prior, according to federal data. 

Enrollment concerns are likely to continue. Colleges are preparing for what’s known as the “demographic cliff” — a sharp decline in the number of high school graduates that’s projected to start around 2025. 

"We know these challenges will persist in the coming years, and we must act to ensure that UNH is on firm financial footing to weather the challenges ahead," said Dean, who is set to retire in June. 

The layoffs represent a small proportion of the roughly 3,700 employees at the university’s main campus. But Dean acknowledged the downsizing will have "profound effects on the impacted individuals and their families."

Affected employees will receive separation benefits, severance pay and job placement assistance. The university will also offer eligible employees health insurance continuation.

Dean indicated that further cuts could be ahead, including "stopping some practices, consolidating some offices, and ending some programs and activities." He did not elaborate further.

University leaders plan to host a remote town hall on Jan. 24 to answer employee questions about the budget cuts. DeLuzuriaga did not answer if officials expect further layoffs.

"By addressing these challenges head-on, we are establishing a solid and sustainable financial foundation to ensure the success of our academic, research, and outreach programs and activities that are fundamental to our core mission and the exceptional UNH experience," Dean said.