UNL community shares disappointment with eliminations during interim chancellor listening session

University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty, staff and students shared disappointment with a decision to eliminate four departments during a listening session Thursday with interim chancellor Kathy Ankerson and NU President Jeffrey Gold.

Ankerson takes over after former Chancellor Rodney Bennett resigned at the start of the semester. She started about a month after the Board of Regents approved the elimination of four Lincoln campus departments: statistics; earth and atmospheric sciences; educational administration; and textiles, merchandising and fashion design.

Shireen Adenwalla, a physics and astronomy professor, said faculty no longer trust their leaders.

“There were two parts to this,” Adenwalla said. “One was a debate on whether or not the budget cutting was necessary, and then the other was the process of the budget cutting. On both those I think you have lost the trust of the faculty.”

Throughout the listening session, Gold said trust between the campus community and himself was broken throughout the budget reduction process. He also said there were mistakes in the process.

“I'm accepting the responsibility, right here and now that my trust in the process that was presented to me was not accurate,” Gold said.

Ankerson said she appreciated the array of questions and comments about trust because it helps her understand where to start in her new role.

“We are at a critical time, and to understand the depth of trust that has been lost, the work that it's going to take to build that back up in both realms, both ways, all ways,” Ankerson said.

Dawn Kopacz, an associate professor in earth and atmospheric sciences, said faculty and students haven’t heard plans for how the eliminated programs will be phased out.

“Our graduate students don’t even know if they’re going to have funding next year to finish their programs,” Kopacz said. “This is not responsible stewardship of a university community.”

Gold and Ankerson said they would look into the status of those communications.

Zee Cronin, an office associate in the College of Education and Human Sciences and member of the staff senate, said the senate had put together a list of ways to rebuild trust after pay raises were cut over the last year, but it felt like the administration hadn’t taken steps toward completing it.

“It feels to me like we do a bunch of work to put this together and present it, and there is no actionable progress on these things,” Cronin said. “It feels like a waste of our time, a waste of our effort, and it makes us feel a loss of hope and a loss of trust in the system.”

Gold said the administration has been working on those items, with some of them like extra days off coming to fruition. He said there are some things actively underway that he hopes to announce soon.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Zee Cronin was part of the faculty senate. The story has been updated to reflect the correction.