Here is Paul Quinn’s letter to faculty following today’s “special” Meet and Discuss regarding retrenchment:
Fellow Faculty,I am writing to you to report what occurred at the Meet and Discuss meeting today. The administration provided us with a list of programs that they were looking at for possible program restructuring or program elimination, which could ultimately lead to retrenchment. The list is as follows:
- Advisement
- Electronic Media
- Nursing
- Philosophy
- Athletics
- Theatre
- Dance
I will be providing a document with a table explaining which majors and minors were provided that explains which majors or minors will be affected in these departments in a future email. APSCUF-KU was thankful to have Steve Hicks, our state president, Ken Mash, State Meet and Discuss Chair, and Julie Reese from the contract department with us at the meeting.The Administration simply had the Provost Carlos Vargas, the Vice Provost Carol Wells, Human Resources Director Sharon Picus, and Executive Assistant to the Provost Penny Oswald, Nobody from the state PASSHE was in the room. Neither were the financial managers for our administration. APSCUF requested tons of details and information which I will report to you in a future email. Many questions were left unanswered, and we will be pushing to get them as soon as possible. We are disappointed in our campus’s administrative leadership. However, local APSCUF is not giving up. We will continue to fight for every program on campus.Paul V. Quinn Sr.APSCUF-KU President
Today’s meeting followed a letter sent by President Cevallos to APSCUF-KU late on Friday, March 5th (presumably right before he headed to Phoenix for his conference). Here is a copy of the letter:
Wow. It’s chilling to see this in black and white. I feel really stunned, and I’m not even in one of the listed departments. My thoughts are with everybody (faculty and students) that’s more directly affected….
This was truly a chilling meeting. It is hard to believe that such potentially life-altering news could be delivered without the presence of key Kutztown administrators in attendance and without the ability to answer the simple questions. The only impressive aspect of the meeting was, in my opinion, the diligence of the KU APSCUF M&D team, the cool, persistent, and thorough questioning by Ken Ehrensal, and the appropriate, but measured, anger voiced by chapter president Paul Quinn. The APSCUF team requested the data and set the groundwork for what will likely be a very intense next meet & discuss meeting.