FROSTBURG, Md. – Frostburg State University began sending termination notices last week to faculty members who are impacted by cutbacks university officials say are needed to help make up a $7.7 million annual operating deficit amid declining enrollment.
Those immediately impacted will be semester-to-semester teaching staff, who will not return for the spring semester, while recently hired untenured faculty will be able to finish the academic year, according to media and university reports. Some of the notices, given to faculty who have tenure and have served for longer periods, have been given a one-year notice. In all, eight full-time faculty will lose their positions.
Frostburg State University has had to make very difficult decisions in order to assure the University is positioned well and has a strong financial foundation to continue its more than 125-year history of serving its students and as an anchor institution for western Maryland and the entire tri-state region we serve.
A statement by Frostburg said, “After many years of making moderate adjustments and cuts to deal with declining enrollments and increasing expenses, this year, in order to eliminate a recurring $7.7 million annual structural deficit, marginal solutions could no longer balance the University’s budget. In order to balance the budget, and indeed, in order to place FSU in a position to make strategic investments in its future, tougher choices had to be made.”
However, some faculty and members are unhappy with the process used and the communication that stemmed from that process. Members of the Faculty Senate, for example, came together in a show of support for those losing their positions, donning gray ribbons to show their unhappiness.
Those who received the notices by mail have 10 days to appeal their suspensions.
Frostburg serves 3,422 students.
The university’s statement said they gathered help from inside and outside the campus as they looked at how to make the budget work. And the statement said all cuts were difficult, but none more than the scaling down of the size of the faculty.
FSU is offering to those impacted support from a career placement firm to assist with job applications. And those terminated at Frostburg will be eligible for placement at another University System of Maryland campus.
The cuts could have been greater, university officials noted, except that four senior faculty members submitted their retirement notices, and 13 more have announced plans to phase retirement over the next year. Those faculty members will not be replaced.
