‘No Confidence’ Vote for SDSU President

In an unprecedented move Monday at San Diego State University, the faculty senate voted “no confidence” in the leadership of President Thomas Day for his handling of tenured professor layoffs and elimination of academic departments due to the state budget crisis.

The resolution, the first ever directed at a San Diego State president, came on a 41-29 vote, three more than the 38 minimum required for passage in the 75-member senate. The motion for “no confidence” would have failed without the four affirmative votes of student representatives who sit in the body, which represents the 1,400 faculty and 30,000 students in academic matters.

The action followed more than an hour of harsh speechmaking directed at Day for sending layoff notices to 145 tenured and probationary-tenure professors and for plans to eliminate nine academic departments----all in order to cut $11.5 million--without sufficiently consulting those affected.

Despite angry rhetoric and the actual vote, professors later expressed uncertainty over the practical effect of the action on Day or the university, having no precedents to fall back on.

“I guess what we have said in effect is that we don’t like what you did, and we’re watching you,” biology professor Nancy Carmichael said. A harsher motion for “censure” was not considered by the senate.

Day called himself more disappointed than angry after the action.

“I’m surprised in a way that the vote was not heavier” toward no confidence “because the budget is very threatening to people right now,” he said. “I’m sympathetic to faculty fears.”

Day said that the short-term effect would be “to make me even more sensitive to discussing matters with the senate and its executive committee. I presume the action means that they don’t like the style, the rapidity, of how I have handled the budget cuts.

“I can’t quibble with that. . . . they just don’t understand the constraints under which I have acted, that I have acted on a (budget crisis) matter, that I’d never do this if it were merely an academic matter.”

Day attempted some conciliation when he spoke to the senate before its debate, sketching out previously unannounced plans to ameliorate his harsh medicine as much as possible.

He promised to postpone for up to a year as many as half the tenured layoffs, assuming that state politicians require no deeper budget cuts than the 8% to 10% already targeted in his budget, and that they approve generous early retirement incentives for senior professors.

Even without an early retirement bonus, Day promised to retain for a year between 26 and 30 professors sent layoff notices in the nine terminated departments so that they can offer the necessary courses for seniors in those fields to complete their majors.