UNL faculty in eliminated programs can keep roles for one more year

Most University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty in eliminated programs will have until December 2026 in their current roles, according to the university budget process website. Notices of separation will go out in January 2026.

The NU Board of Regents officially eliminated educational administration; statistics; earth and atmospheric sciences; and textiles, merchandising and fashion design as part of $27.5 million in cuts at the UNL campus. The cuts were made to address a $21 million budget deficit and an additional $6.5 million in proactive cuts.

The Lincoln campus cuts are part of $40 million in needed cuts across the four NU campuses.

The 12-month notice applies to faculty in tenured, tenure-leading, faculty of practice and research faculty roles. Those with special appointments will follow the terms of their current offer letter. Employees in staff positions will receive notice based on their classification, with at least a 30-day notice for office and service staff and 90 days for those marked as managerial and professional.

Sarah Zuckerman, the UNL American Association of University Professors president and associate professor in educational administration, said that isn’t adequate time for faculty to find a new job because of how academic hiring works.

“Anyone who's not already started looking for jobs will be shut out of searches for next year, like they're already well into campus interviews and making offers,” Zuckerman said.

Zuckerman said the Faculty Senate and Graduate Council were told those separation notices wouldn’t come until May 2026, which would have matched better with an academic hiring timeline.

A university spokesperson said those initial plans were not final.

“During ongoing reviews, university leadership determined that an earlier timeline was necessary,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Zuckerman said faculty were told they may be offered to stay on as lecturers after the December 2026 separation and before getting a new job, but that salary would likely be half of what they are paid now to teach more classes. She said students are worried about how their teach-out plans to finish their degrees will look when faculty leave or their positions are cut.

“Students are right to be concerned, because whatever that teach-out plan looks like is not going to look like the degree that they signed up for,” Zuckerman said. “It is not going to include the faculty who they have been working with.”

Zuckerman said the overall timeline is disrespectful to faculty who have “given years of their life to the university.”

“This is really damaging to the university, to not respect academic norms, not give students the education that they're literally paying for,” Zuckerman said.

According to the university budget webpage, students in impacted programs are encouraged to reach out to their dean’s office for help planning a path to complete their degree or to transfer to another program or institution. Those pathways are set to be finalized in the spring 2026 semester before registration for next fall opens on March 23. Students with majors in eliminated programs will have first access to register for classes.