Nearly 100 University of Nebraska faculty take buyouts from voluntary separation program

There were 56 faculty members at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who took part in the voluntary separation program. Those still at the campus say they are worried how the loss will impact them and students.

In an effort to close a more than $40 million budget gap this last school year across the University of Nebraska system, leaders introduced the voluntary separation incentive program for eligible tenured faculty. Those eligible had to be 62 years or older and have at least 10 years of service at the university.

There were 98 faculty members across the four campuses who accepted a buyout. The UNL campus saw the largest number of faculty retiring through the program with 56 members. UNO had 21, UNMC had 11 and UNK had 10. They will receive a lump sum payment equal to 70% of their base annual salary.

The university system wouldn’t provide a breakdown by department, citing faculty privacy reasons.

Richard Leiter, UNL Faculty Senate president and a law professor, said faculty are wondering where the money saved from the buyouts will be distributed. He’s also heard concerns about losing the institutional knowledge those faculty members provide.

“There were so many people that responded to the buyout, so a lot of people are worried about our institutional knowledge and institutional mentorship,” Leiter said. “There's going to be a big gap.”

In the law school where he works, three faculty are retiring, one of which teaches a required first-year course for students.

“We're not going to be able to replace her before next year, so the burden of teaching those classes is going to fall to another member of the faculty,” Leiter said.

Jamie Reimer, president-elect of the faculty senate and professor of music and associate professor of voice at UNL, said there are eight faculty retiring in the Glenn Korff School of Music.

“I think there is a sense of grief and loss that we're feeling,” Reimer said. “Even though our colleagues have chosen to voluntarily retire, unlike some other departments in our university who did not have that voluntary choice, there's still a sense of loss.”

She said all of those faculty would teach students one on one with specific instruments like cello or flute. This next school year, those students will have to adjust to learning under a new mentor, and likely one who is not tenure or tenure-learning.

“There will be a period of getting acquainted and learning how to work with this person and potentially adopting new methods that could both be exciting because it's always interesting to hear new ideas, but could also be mildly disruptive to their progress because it could be taking a different path to the same goal than the one they had previously been taking,” Reimer said.

Reimer also said the retiring faculty had graduate status, meaning they were qualified to mentor and teach students in master’s and doctoral programs.

“For each of those programs, you need to have a specified number of committee members to supervise your work, read your final portfolios, evaluate your performances,” Reimer said. “Losing eight faculty members at that level means that the responsibility for graduate education is falling on a proportionally smaller number of faculty members, and that is going to be a heavy lift for us next year.”

Reimer said they are still waiting to hear which, if any, of those positions will be rehired.

Troy Fedderson, senior director of strategic communication for UNL, said the university understands there are questions about next steps, and those discussions will continue throughout the process.

“It’s too early to speak definitively about specific position replacements or timelines, as decisions have not yet been made,” Fedderson said in an email. “How those roles are handled will vary and will be evaluated by individual colleges and departments based on their needs and priorities.”

As they wait, she said the remaining faculty are committed to ensuring students still get the best education possible.

”We recognize that this major faculty shift has been challenging for everyone,” Reimer said, “but we want our students to know that we are committed to serving them, as we always have, and we will continue to do so.”

By way of full disclosure, members of the Nebraska Public Media newsroom are University of Nebraska-Lincoln employees.