Editor's Note: The original version of this story incorrectly attributed some information and direct quote to Biology Department Chair William Pockman when it should have been attributed to College of Arts and Sciences Dean Mark Peceny. The story has since been changed. The Daily Lobo regrets the error.
An early retirement incentive, offering reductions in workloads, has been offered to tenured faculty in all 21 departments of the College of Arts and Sciences, and so far no one has accepted the offer.
The incentive was first initiated in 2015 as a trial program to a small number of UNM departments. A memo states that the incentive’s goal is to reduce overall payroll costs.
College of Arts and Sciences Dean Mark Peceny wrote a mass email to tenured faculty to inform them of the incentive.
“As I am sure many of you are aware, the University of New Mexico is facing a serious budget crisis, with the possibility of a mid-year rescission given the significant shortfall in the state budget,” the email states. Peceny continued by emphasizing the budget crisis is especially “acute” in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Peceny said the college experienced a reduction of about a millions dollars in its budget last year, and expects an additional reduction of similar magnitude in the year to come given the difficult economic environment the state finds itself in.
Linguistics professor William Croft said he read the incentive carefully, as he hopes to retire in the near future, but didn’t consider the offer enough of an incentive. In fact, he says hanging it up early actually means less in the wallet.
“There’s no financial incentive,” he said. “If you retire earlier than planned, it means your pension will be less than if you retired when you planned because you’d have fewer years in the system.”
Croft said the offer is only an incentive to those already planning to retire, adding that a reduction to professors’ workloads could present problems in their departments.
Courses may have to be canceled, he said, and retiring faculty members are unlikely to be replaced right away which could create a crisis in their departments.
Biology Department Chair William Pockman said he doesn’t know if retired faculty will be replaced, or even who will replace them.
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“Teaching upper division courses requires expertise,” Pockman said.
Peceny said not all retiring faculty members will be replaced by tenure track hires, and some replacements will be delayed for several years.
Many positions will be filled by adjuncts who have no commitment to the University, which affects the way they teach, he said. Adjuncts aren’t expected to provide the work a tenured professor does, as tenured faculty invest long-term in the curriculum.
“When you take a class with a tenured professor, you learn from someone who wrote the book on their field of knowledge,” Peceny said.
UNM professor emeritus Richard Coughlin said many other public and private universities have initiated early retirement programs with success.
Unfortunately, Coughlin said UNM is seven or eight years too late with its undertaking of the initiative, when other universities have had early retirement programs for years.
“The time to have done this would have been when the University wasn’t under extreme budgetary pressure,” he said.
With the budget crisis, this program isn’t likely to benefit students, he said.
“All that will happen is there will be larger classes taught by adjunct faculty that are underpaid,” Coughlin said.
It’s better for students to be taught by people who have a long term relationship with the University, he said. Adjuncts don’t have job security, they don’t have benefits and they barely make enough to support themselves.
“I’m not sure anyone could stay in that situation for very long without becoming alienated very quickly,” Coughlin said. “If the College of Arts and Sciences simply replaces senior tenured faculty with adjunct faculty, they’re really going in the worst possible direction.”
Students have a better chance of getting satisfaction from a course taught by someone who has a commitment with the University, he said.
Coughlin said, with the incentive, UNM should be opening up tenure track positions to assistant professors.
“There aren’t enough tenured track positions. One way to open up tenured track positions is to encourage senior faculty to retire early,” he said.
Coughlin said if a senior faculty member retires, it will provide enough money to hire two assistant professors.
“UNM should be looking towards the future, not trying to continue a trend that many agree has been to the detriment of both students and the research mission of departments,” he said.
Universities have saved money nationwide for the past 20 years by replacing tenure track faculty with adjuncts, Coughlin said.
“It’s sort of like a business that depends on interns instead of hiring regular employees,” he said. “All the interns believe they’re going to get a full time job, but very few of them actually do.”
