Don’t Make Day Scapegoat for Others’ Policies

Late last spring, San Diego State University’s president sent layoff notices to 146 faculty members. On Aug. 27 a majority of the assembled faculty voted to petition the CSU trustees to fire him. The vote reflects understandable frustration, but it’s not just: Thomas B. Day is not the villain.

There are, however, genuinely important issues here. To follow them, two key things about the university must be understood: the importance of tenure, and the role played by the faculty in setting university policy.

First, the situation. Over the past two years, Sacramento has slashed support of the California State University system--and thus SDSU--by roughly 25%. The budget of this university, like that of most others, is about 85% people. Most of the “people” budget goes to pay the faculty. A hit of this size, then, inevitably affects the faculty.

What is tenure, and why is it so important? Tenure recognizes competence and responsibility, and it is awarded following an elaborate ritual of testing and courtship. Tenure promises the professor intellectual independence and a long-term home. Thus, when tenured members of the faculty received layoff notices this spring, the stated commitment between university and professor had been abrogated. Reactions of shock and outrage are entirely understandable.

But were those layoffs Tom Day’s fault? He was required to respond to a budget disaster, and he hardly acted alone. Meet the university Senate, mostly elected representatives of the faculty. Last winter, faced with the prospect of more budget shocks, the SDSU Senate established a committee to consider how the university should respond.

That committee, and then the Senate as a body, concluded that further across-the-board cuts would damage the university as a whole, and that budget reductions beyond a nominal 1% should be addressed by making the cuts “deep and narrow,” taking out entire programs or departments in order to maintain the strength of the survivors.

Since its membership represented interested elements of the university, the group declined to recommend specific cuts, stating that these decisions should be made by the president. However, it established general criteria for decision-making: protect the university’s unique academic programs, its hard-won recent gains in the cultural diversity of the faculty, the talented recently hired professors. President Day accepted these recommendations. The trouble began when he acted on them. In May it became clear that, given the anticipated CSU budget, “deep and narrow” meant the elimination of nine departments and severe cuts in others.

The implications of the decision were of course awful for faculty members and students alike. Over the summer, the university sought to mitigate the imminent disaster. The Senate’s recommendation was “burn the furniture:” use much of the available infrastructure money to postpone the layoffs and teach the courses, at least during the fall semester.

President Day accepted that recommendation also.

It is clear, then, that while Tom Day has had to make some unwelcome decisions, he has not been riding roughshod over the will of the campus. Should we seek the president’s scalp because he acted on the advice of our elected representatives?

However, a corollary question is asked: no other CSU campus has laid off nearly so many tenured faculty members; why is San Diego State’s response so different? The answer lies in the fact that San Diego State really is unique in the CSU system. San Diego State places relatively greater emphasis on research and creative work, and has a high percentage of tenured faculty members. Thus, when faculty numbers must be reduced, tenured people are hit sooner and harder.

It would be easy for San Diego State to give up this uniqueness, but I can hardly imagine that either the faculty or their fellow San Diegans would want that result.

Should the trustees fire Tom Day? The facts of the situation are these:

* The decision for “narrow and deep” was made in accordance with Senate recommendations and, painful as it is, the alternative is to weaken the core of the university irrevocably.

* These decisions are a result of California’s budget crisis, not of some presidential character flaw. To say the layoff was unnecessary or capricious is to deny the arithmetic.

* Tom Day has an unerring sense for the essentials of a university, a thorough understanding of what makes this university unique, and a willingness to take on all comers in order to help San Diego State to succeed.

That doesn’t sound to me like a president who should be fired.