DAY: Professors Ask That SDSU President Be Fired : Majority of Professors Asks for Day’s Firing : Education: Vote comes after months of turmoil at San Diego State prompted by budget crisis.

A substantial majority of San Diego State University professors Thursday called for the replacement of President Thomas Day over his budget-cutting decisions to eliminate nine academic departments and fire 146 tenure- and tenure-track professors.

In an unprecedented meeting at SDSU, 872 professors voted 55.7% to 42.4% to ask the California State University Board of Trustees to declare Day’s position vacant and to name a replacement who has the trust of SDSU faculty and students.

The tally was 486 yes, 370 no and 16 abstentions, with attendance by almost three-fourths of the 1,175 professors eligible to vote.

The vote came less than three days before the fall semester begins with the fewest students in a decade, largely as a result of publicity about canceled classes, fewer programs and fired professors.

The action brought to a head more than four months of turmoil at the state’s largest CSU campus over whether Day should have worked more closely with faculty to search for budget alternatives before announcing his sweeping cutbacks.

Day reiterated after the meeting that he would not resign, saying that, when a final budget comes down from Sacramento, “It will be crystal clear that what I’ve done had to be done. . . . I’m just another one of the walking wounded caught in the battle between (Assembly Speaker) Willie Brown and (Gov.) Pete Wilson.”

In a brief speech before the faculty voted, Day defended the layoffs of tenured faculty as the only way to keep about 400 graduate teaching assistants who are vital to SDSU’s graduate programs. Day considers San Diego State unique within the 20-campus Cal State system because of those programs.

But, in an unusual admission for him, Day conceded in a quivering voice that he had been “saddened--and severely chastened” by a vote of no-confidence by the 75-member Academic Senate in June.

CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz reacted cautiously Thursday, saying that he and the Board of Trustees will take the vote “very, very seriously.” Munitz said trustees will want to determine by their September meeting whether “Tom Day has the requisite tools to lead the campus forward and pull it together.”

Munitz said he wants to find out why the process of consulting with professors apparently broke down, emphasizing that “the process is in a sense more important than the product because you can’t move forward at an academic institution without the faculty having a feeling of participation.”

Day’s status is “an open question at this point,” Munitz said, citing the “large number of people on both sides of the issue who need to be heard, and understood, and listened to.”

Munitz said there should be further debate at SDSU concerning Day’s insistence on protecting graduate programs. During the past decade, SDSU has begun to resemble a University of California campus, with its greater emphasis on research, even though the state Master Plan for Higher Education assigns CSU primarily a teaching role.

“When resources were bountiful, no one worried about this, but now it is an important question, in light of economic implications, whether or not we need a stricter, smaller range of institutions,” Munitz said.

“Do you let some tenured professors go in order to maintain more research-oriented graduate programs for those who remain?” Munitz asked, pointing out that the teaching load at SDSU is about half that at CSU campuses with primarily undergraduate education focuses.

After Thursday’s vote, faculty members close to Day emphasized “the relative closeness of the vote” in the face of widespread anger over Day’s decision in May to eliminate tenured positions.

“This was not an absolutely overwhelming vote against Day,” chemistry professor Charles Stewart, a strong supporter of the president, said. “I think it will take more than the vote to remove him, although it does draw more attention to his style and does exacerbate tensions on campus.

“Personally, though, I think he’s in hot water” in his ability to work with faculty on the campus, Stewart said.

Another strong Day backer, speech professor Janis Andersen, chair of the Academic Senate, said she believes “things will work out. . . . I’m happy to have this behind us, and now we have to go on and solve our problems.” But Andersen admitted that the vote “suggests there is tremendous conflict and division among the faculty.”

Faculty members who pushed for the resolution said that the nearly 56% vote for Day’s resignation was extraordinary, given its serious ramifications for both Day and the campus.

“If I had 56% of my students vote for my resignation, I’d have to walk out of my class,” sociology professor Phillip Gay, one of those ticketed for termination in January, said.

“This is an unprecedented sampling of the university faculty,” speech pathology professor Michale Seitz, head of the California Faculty Assn. unit at SDSU, said.

Noting the serious debate before the vote, Seitz said “the thoughtfulness that faculty gave to this issue shows how strongly they feel about the need for new leadership.

“I only wish Tom Day had given that same thoughtfulness before he sent out layoff letters to hundreds of professors.”

The debate crystallized the issues that have preoccupied the faculty since Day made his budget cuts public in May.

In presenting the resolution, history professor David Dufault called Day’s management style “disastrous” for the campus. “There is no commitment to true collegial leadership . . . no faculty member saw the (May) plan in advance. There was no prior consultation.”

Day has consistently defended his “deep and narrow” cuts. Although debilitating for the few departments and professors being eliminated, he says, they would protect the vast majority of SDSU academic programs and personnel.

But Dufault said that “not only is (Day) so separated from faculty that he didn’t realize the havoc and suffering (caused) among those laid off,” he didn’t consider “how it would affect the loyalty and morale of those who remained.”

Dufault added, “Then he changed his mind and reversed” the layoffs last month, postponing them for one semester by deciding to use supply, library book and equipment money he had long refused to commit to saving jobs.

“That signaled the lack of necessity for the initial policy done hastily and without true collegiality,” Dufault said.

In a strongly worded statement, Karen Senn, chair of the health sciences department, detailed the months of planning earlier this year by her and her colleagues to carry out the “deep-and-narrow” philosophy that professors knew might come with further budget cuts.

But those plans, including the elimination of majors, a reduction in courses, a possible merging of programs with related disciplines--all totaling a 60% budget cut-- were never considered by her college’s dean or by Day, even though they could have saved the same amount of money without eliminating her department.

“The point is that the chairs and professors were never consulted,” despite their willingness to cooperate with Day’s need to cut back the university, Senn said. “I strenuously object to the unilateral decision to restructure the university according to the criteria and vision of a few individuals . . . with ambiguous and personal criteria.”

Even though the layoffs and department cuts have been postponed by Day for one semester, Senn said her department remains demoralized, and faculty members are still anxious to find other employment.

English professor Fred Moramarco castigated Day for treating tenured professors “like replaceable spare parts,” and referred sarcastically to Day’s refusal to make major cuts in athletics.

“If your son is an . . . NFL prospect, he can still go to this university,” Moramarco said.

Even professors who spoke against the resolution made little attempt to defend Day’s actions.

“He’s an SOB but he’s our SOB,” geography professor Ernst Griffin said.

“Tom Day does attempt to act in the best interest of this campus, even when I disagree strongly with him,” Griffin said. “He’s doesn’t act capriciously and vindictively without regard to the future of SDSU.”

Although Griffin said he agreed that Day “has badly mishandled” the budget problem with “apparently insensitivity and a lack of consultation,” his firing would cause the campus greater harm “by only hardening the situation and making (solutions) more difficult.”

Day said later he regrets that he has “not been able to explain well enough to the faculty that we do have a budget crisis, that we have to settle it this year, that it will involve people cuts and that it will involve tenured layoffs.

“The problem is that, with many people here who are facing terrible choices, the wish (for no layoffs) somehow becomes reality.

“I share their wish that we had more time to study this, but I am firmly of the opinion that there is not more time.”

Day said he always has been willing to consider alternative plans such as that of Senn in health sciences, but that they cannot substitute other layoffs, such as those of graduate assistants, for tenured faculty.

“My whole purpose was to first define the problem in May and then figure out a way to postpone as much as possible, and that is exactly what we have done,” Day said.

Day and other CSU presidents have planned for an 8% cut, but other campuses have not targeted tenured professors. Munitz said Thursday that, with a hoped-for 6.5% cut from the Legislature, no campus will lay off tenured faculty members this year.

That would give Day breathing room with his faculty to work together on a plan for cutting the university next year, Munitz said.

“But I first have to be certain that there is the ability of both Tom and the faculty leadership to pick up the pieces and get together,” Munitz said.