To: Mary Ellen Mazey, BGSU President, Rodney Rogers, BGSU Provost, William J. Primrose III, BGSU Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Name, Title or Position (optional)
STOP THE ARBITRARY FIRING OF 100 NON-TENURE TRACK FACULTY
In opposition to Bowling Green State University President Mary Ellen Mazey’s announcement to terminate 100 full-time non-tenure track faculty, I am joining students, alumni, faculty, community members, and university supporters to call for an immediate stop to all plans to reduce the BGSU faculty workforce.
Slashing faculty numbers while planning to increase enrollment by 6,000 students (as you publicly announced in 2012) will greatly diminish BGSU’s position as one of Ohio’s top-rated public universities. Your plans would compromise the education of current students, and it would reduce the prestige of degrees that have already been granted by BGSU.
With nearly $200 million in unrestricted assets in reserve, you have no reasonable justification for terminating ⅛ of the faculty. You must retain BGSU’s hard-working, long-serving, and dedicated faculty as an investment in the future of the university and its tradition of excellence. We insist: you must halt your plans to eliminate 100 faculty now. Instead, begin to engage students and faculty in a new, inclusive planning process that creates a positive vision for Bowling Green State University.
Why is this important?
The quality of education at Bowling Green State University is at risk because the university administration has abruptly and arbitrarily decided to terminate the contracts of 100 full-time faculty.
On January 18, 2013 the president of Bowling Green State University, Mary Ellen Mazey, announced that the administration would be eliminating 100 hard-working and dedicated non-tenure track faculty at the end of spring semester 2013. The decision was not based on the quality of the instructors’ teaching, and no plan was offered to redress the inevitable imbalance of faculty-to-student ratio.
In his remarks to the Faculty Senate January 15th, BGSU Provost Rodney Rogers spoke approvingly of allowing class sizes to balloon from a normal enrollment of 30 students to 50 or more students. In September 2012, President Mary Ellen Mazey announced her intent to increase BGSU’s enrollment by 6,000 students by the year 2020. In spite of these plans for growth in enrollment, BGSU’s top administrators aim to significantly reduce the number of faculty. Clearly, the administration’s short-sighted and mismanaged plan portends a troubling future for BGSU students: bigger classes, fewer faculty, and lower educational quality.
The BGSU administration has cited the need to save money in the face of impending cuts to state funding. In Ohio’s new formula for public universities, BGSU’s share of state money will fall, and the administration claims that it must take steps to keep costs low. Yet its plan to save money in the short term hurts BGSU in the long term—course completion and graduation will not improve with fewer faculty and increasing the number of students in classes. The value of a BGSU degree should not be compromised by careless plans that put short-term monetary savings ahead of long-term quality education.
Plain and simple: Decreasing students’ interactions with faculty diminishes students’ educational experience.
By signing this petition you are sending a clear and direct message to Dr. Mary Ellen Mazey, Dr. Rodney Rogers, and Mr. William J. Primrose III that you REJECT their plan. Supporters of BGSU call on the administration to disavow its intent to cut the number of faculty and increase class sizes. Please sign the petition to protect the future of quality education at Bowling Green State University.