Kean projects $20 million deficit due to COVID 19 and calls for cuts

By Zoe Strozewski | Published by May 13, 2020

Kean’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved a resolution authorizing the university to suspend various academic programs and take other actions to offset a $20 million deficit due to the  COVID-19 pandemic, despite pleas from faculty, students and alumni at its May 11 meeting.

President Dawood Farahi, PhD, told the board and meeting attendees that the state of New Jersey had reduced its financial support to Kean by 50 percent in the last quarter, that Kean had to make partial refunds to students forced to leave dormitories and that other sources of revenue had “dried up.” 

“It was a dramatic and drastic, and to a certain extent, even a tragic event for Kean University,” Farahi said. 

Farahi said that the university is expecting a reduction in enrollment this fall of at least 500 full-time equivalent students and an additional budget shortfall of between $12 to $15 million in the next fiscal year starting July 1 partly due to a projected cut of state aid by 50 percent. “Unpleasant” cuts would likely be needed to make up for it, which could entail the elimination of programs, reduction of staff and furloughing of those not currently essential to university operations, Farahi said.

A plethora of students, faculty, and staff spoke during the public portion of the meeting urging the board to invite input from professors who interact daily with students and to table any decisions regarding program cuts until the new president, Lamont Repollet, Ed.D., begins his term on July 1. 

Constance Hassett-Walker, PhD, chairperson of the University Senate, said neither the senate nor the Kean Federation of Teachers (KFT) had yet to be given any information from the board on which programs were in danger of getting cut.

“This is indicative of how the flow of information is truncated,” Hassett-Walker said. “It’s very cards close to the chest.”

 The trustees did not respond to any of the multitudes of speakers — whose comments filled more than an hour in three-minute allotments — and unanimously approved every item on the agenda. They then went into closed session for more than two hours.

A disproportionate number of the speakers spoke in support of the art history program’s three, longtime tenured faculty: Lewis Kachur, Ph.D., Marguerite Mayhall, Ph.D., and Jacquelyn Tuerk-Stonberg, Ph.D., who were notified of probable termination months before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the current financial emergency. Supporters of the program have been campaigning to retain the professors all semester. 

Speakers said the art history minor is growing and more than pays for itself in course enrollment, is important to a full liberal arts education and the elimination of all its tenured faculty in favor of adjunct professors could affect the accreditation standing of the university. 

Some also pointed out that the arts have opened up to a broad array of minority populations and to diminish the program at Kean now is elitist.   

Dr. Kachur said that the late Thomas Shaw, Ph.D., a former art history faculty member, expanded the art history curriculum to reflect global contexts 20 years ago and helped the program become reflective of Kean’s diversity. The approximately 700 students the three faculty teach every year would miss the chance to experience that global and cultural education if the program was phased out, he said.

“Art history is not taught in New Jersey public high schools, so our survey courses are our only chance to expose students to art and world cultures,” Kachur said. “Apparently the administration feels that for our students, exposure to art and world cultures is expendable. Our students deserve better.” 

He also pointed out that Kean’s art history program was able to successfully place two of its students in Newark Museum internships through the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative.

“Madam Chair, let me underscore that both of these prized internships have gone to Latina women,” Kachur said. “This shows how the diversity of our Kean students is perfectly suited to the increasing valuation of diversity in the art world. So is this the moment to gut the art history program?”

Dr. James Castiglione, president of the KFT, urged Farahi and the board to draw from Kean’s estimated cash reserves of $150 million rather than make program and staffing cuts. He also asked that a say in how to deal with the deficit be given to the new president.

“I call on the university to act humanely and commit to no layoffs or non-reappointments of any personnel: faculty, staff, librarians, managers, and administrators,” Castiglione said. “Now is not the time for these actions.  Use the reserves to protect the core mission of the university and to preserve it for the new president.”

Robert Fagella, the KFT’s attorney, stated that the union could resort to legal action if mass cuts in staff and programs violated contracts.

“The kinds of things the board is talking about doing right now are pretty momentous decisions that, regardless of our past experiences, the KFT would like to work with the board and most importantly with the new president,” Fagella said, warning that the proposed moves could end up in a continuance of expensive legal actions that have marked relations between the union and the KFT under the Farahi administration. 

Professor Craig Donovan, PhD, called on Kean to be transparent and show the university where it is spending money, raising a longtime point of contention between pro and anti-Farahi forces.

Farahi said that he wasn’t going to respond to the financial statistics cited by Castiglione because everyone “knows the facts” and that the way art history calculated its financials by course enrollment  “is not the way it works.” He also said that the new president shouldn’t be encumbered with fixing financial problems caused by the pandemic and that it is his responsibility to deliver a balanced 2020-21 budget by June 30.

“It would be totally unfair to burden the new president from the gate with the level of difficulties that should have been handled, and they weren’t,” Farahi said.

The budget for the fiscal year 2021 will be provided in the next Board of Trustees meeting on June 22, Farahi said.

 

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