As part of the Visibilize-ing Care Festival in the spring, I'll be doing something to mark the restoration of our relationships with the Lang Courtyard trees, once human access to them is restored. But today visibilized other efforts at care, and needs for more.
The university leadership met online with the faculty of our college, answering various precirculated questions about the impending "voluntary" and likely subsequent "involuntary" departures of faculty and staff, and their effect on curriculum and student enrollment and retention. We didn't learn much. The administration isn't looking for new ideas. They think they've set in motion necessary and humane processes for reducing the workforce of the university in the face of enrollment decline. (The goal seems to be 10-15% of FTEs, however that falls out.) They emphasized that the "voluntary" stage was a way of showing respect and care for the community, maximizing "choice" and even generating new "opportunities," words that went down like lead.
After they left the zoom room for another meeting, we faculty had some time to debrief. What are the options facing those deemed "eligible" for "voluntary" departure, how spooked are students by imminent changes and how spooked should they be, have we any leverage? It took some time for the spell cast by their budgetary logic to be broken. We're talking not just about people's careers but their livelihoods - families and health care - our lives. There must be other ways of addressing the budget crisis, one for which faculty and staff are not responsible, after all; why are these not being explored?
The zoom grid, with more people than usual with their cameras on, felt like holding cells, but we could see each other. Someone had to leave and said "in case I'm not here next year, I love you all." This was someone offered early retirement. Others have other "choices," or none. A recently-hired part-time faculty member put it bluntly: "we need to be clear that a lot of us aren't going to be here next year." Sadness rose to anger and resolve. We're not letting this go down without a fight.
I was struck by how the administration's attempt to show care (they could have just let people go as some other places have, they explained, or fired everyone and let them reapply for their jobs, as others have) had backfired. As the deadlines approach for the "eligible" to opt into "voluntary" departure (Monday!), and then to accept or decline the specific offer made to them (2 weeks after that), and then for the administration to announce such "involuntary" departures as they deem necessary (starting January 2nd), we are a community stricken in ways we don't even know. (I know that I am less at risk than many others at this juncture.) The love flowing over the zoom barriers was palpable, tinged with fear and grief.
The convener of the March "Visibilize-ing Care" festival mentioned that some thought the anguish of university restructuring made this the wrong time for it, but others thought it only more valuable. My part of it, "Care of Trees," is inspired by the ways one of the "Religion of Trees" classes marked the passing of some of the Lang courtyard maples. Even as we mark the restoration of some relationships, we - whoever we are, for a lot of us aren't going to be there - will have to find ways to mourn the ruptures of others, too.
