Portland State U. Cutting, Reducing Departments After Declaring Financial Crisis

Portland State U. Cutting, Reducing Departments After Declaring Financial Crisis

This will undoubtedly lead to protests. It is Portland, Oregon, after all.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports:

Portland State declares financial crisis, reveals plan to cut or reduce 19 departments

After months of reviewing the viability of its academic programs, Portland State University is entering the next phase of its effort to achieve financial sustainability.

PSU President Ann Cudd announced Monday that the university will pursue retrenchment, a formal process to downsize the institution.

“I’m taking this step because after reviewing the results of our work, it has become clear that our financial condition is such that departmental reductions or eliminations may be unavoidable,” Cudd said in a morning press conference.

In a letter to leaders of the union representing PSU faculty, the PSU American Association of University Professors or PSU-AAUP, Cudd identified 19 academic departments that could see reductions.

Degree programs in departments like history, philosophy, economics, politics and criminal justice could be affected. Others like PSU’s interdisciplinary general education bachelor’s degree program, known as university studies, could be eliminated entirely. The possible cuts range from certificate to doctoral programs.

Portland State is Oregon’s third largest public university by enrollment. The commuter school, located in downtown Portland, is a prominent institution in the state, but years of declining enrollment has plunged PSU into financial chaos.

Retrenchment could have serious consequences for people who teach and learn at Portland State. It’s a mechanism that allows PSU to make sweeping cost-cutting decisions on its workforce and academic programs when the university is under financial hardship.

Tenured faculty, whose jobs are typically considered permanent, could find their positions on the cutting room floor too.

“It’s just a decimation of some of the most crucial forms of learning that we offer students here,” said PSU-AAUP President Bill Knight about the list of possible department cuts.

“I think we’re abdicating responsibility to take this much more seriously and much more patiently than we are,” he said.

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