Struggling with relentless budget cuts, America’s universities have reached the last resort: getting rid of long-protected tenured faculty whose job security was once ironclad. But even in these dire times, the staff is not being sacked. Instead, they are being offered incentives of up to two years’ pay to retire early — and hundreds are accepting.
Some of the resulting vacancies are being left unfilled, leading to larger classes for students and heavier workloads for remaining faculty, while others are being taken up by younger, less experienced replacements at much lower salaries, accelerating a dramatic shift away from tenure. In Texas, where legislators have proposed cutting $750 million (Rs.3,375 crore) from funds allocated for public higher education over the next two years, 130 scholars at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas have accepted buyouts worth up to 18 months’ salary, saving the institutions a collective $18 million (Rs.81crore) per year.
They are not alone. Some 420 employees at the University of Illinois, 117 at Wright State University, 58 at the University of South Florida, 43 at Northern Arizona University and 42 at Rutgers, and the State University of New Jersey, have also agreed to take early retirement. The move will deliver a combined $17.7 million (Rs.79.65 crore) in savings a year. In addition, 27 faculty at the University of Nebraska have been offered buyouts.
All these institutions are public universities, financially dependent on cash-strapped state legislators. But private universities are also dangling early retirement deals before their faculty, allowing deans to make long-desired academic changes. For example, 24 faculty in two departments at George Washington University have accepted buyouts. In all, 38 percent of US universities have offered early retirement to staff, according to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
Some of the retirees may have seen the writing on the wall. Average faculty salaries in the US rose by only 1.2 percent last year, lower than the rate of inflation, and there is little expectation that things will improve. In addition, many university employees are being required to take unpaid furloughs, which are effectively pay cuts. In 1970, 80 percent of US academics were tenured or on the tenure track. Today, barely half are tenured. “It’s not a happy world in a lot of higher education,” says Sherman Dorn, president of the faculty union at the University of South Florida.
Dismal state of a vital subject
History teaching is far from the biggest crisis in American education. But it’s a problem nevertheless, and a neglected one. A broad effort to create voluntary national standards does not include history. The No Child Left Behind Act, George Bush’s education law, tests pupils on maths, reading and science. On February 14, Barack Obama stressed the importance of teaching science, technology and 21st-century skills. Meanwhile America’s schoolchildren score even more poorly in history than in maths: 64 percent of high-school seniors scored ‘basic’ in a national maths test in 2009, but only 47 percent reached that level in the most recent national history test.
One problem, a new report argues, is that state governments have pathetic standards for what history should be taught. Good standards do not ensure that students will learn history. But they are a crucial guide, according to Chester Finn of the Fordham Institute, a conservative think-tank. A Fordham study published on February 16, grades each state for the quality of its history standards. Twenty-eight states received a ‘D’ or ‘F’.
Many state governments’ education ministries emphasise abstract concepts rather than history itself. In Delaware for example, pupils “will not be expected to recall any specific event or person in history”. Other states teach children about early American history only once, when they are 11. Yet other states show scars from culture wars. A steady, leftward lean has been followed by a violent lurch to the right. Standards for Texas, passed last year, urge pupils to question the separation of church and state and “evaluate efforts by global organisations to undermine US sovereignty through the use of treaties”.
Some states fare better. South Carolina has set impressive standards — for example, urging teachers to explain that colonists did not protest against taxation simply because taxes were too high. Other states, says Finn, would do well to follow South Carolina’s example. “Twenty-first century skills” may help pupils become better workers; learning history makes them better citizens.
(Excerpted and adapted from The Economist & Times Higher Education)