Fifteen untenured faculty members will not be returning to Ashland University next year. Added to the three faculty members who retired and the four unfilled faculty slots that will remain unfilled, the university has lost 22 members of its faculty, 22 members from what is the most important population on campus.

Students come to Ashland University for the faculty, to learn in their classrooms, to research and practice their craft alongside them, to be mentored and guided by these excellent men and women. Staff, from admissions representatives to financial aid officers to the cleaning staff, exist to support the faculty, to facilitate and administrate the education students receive from their experiences with the faculty. 

Ashland University has fallen on hard financial times for many reasons. There is blame to be shared among countless sources, but the focus has to be on the future now, of overcoming these challenges rather than dwelling in the mistakes of the past that landed this university in such a financial crisis. Staff has been cut repeatedly, both cruelly and kindly. Budgets were tightened, fat was trimmed, yet systemic problems continued to plague Ashland University. A new president and provost were brought in and a prioritization process was launched in the hopes of identifying these issues while also highlighting and improving the areas of true excellence in this university.

I say all that to say, clearly, there were cuts that needed to be made to the faculty. The financial situation demands it, and reason does as well. It is wishful thinking to see the faculty come through this process unscathed, not to mention foolish. Simply put, there are areas of the university that needs trimming, adjusting and cutting, and I don’t envy anyone who has to make these decisions. 

I understood identifying these issues to be the purpose of the prioritization process, a systematic process to evaluate the university’s top programs and priorities, while naturally identifying the programs not contributing to the excellence of the university. I assumed cuts would come after this process, not before, focusing on those lower quality programs, as identified by the process. When those 15 faculty members were cut, I was furious. I could not believe some of the faculty cut, and I am sure across campus there are enraged students who would rise to the defense of each professor cut. 

As some time passed, my anger subsided and was replaced by a curiosity, a strong desire to understand why these cuts had been made. Answers I heard were somewhat expected. The faculty members were considered less productive by a metric called credit hours generated, or CHG. This measures the number of students professors encounter in the classroom, creating a number that is intended to measure the financial productivity of any given faculty member. 

Using this metric as a basis for cuts is troubling for a few reasons. First, it naturally values large classes. Professors who teach capped out classes will be favored over those specialized faculty teaching naturally smaller upper-level classes. This metric favors the professor teaching a core American history class to a group that may be largely non-majors over an upper-level class appealing to a specialized group of students. Even if that core-level history class is full, understanding that classes filled with non-majors do not reflect value being brought to the university.

I’m glad I am at a university that values the liberal arts. I’m glad the university requires me to take classes across multiple disciplines. However, I am not here because of the core curriculum. I am here for the Ashbrook program, and I am here for the opportunities in the Journalism and Digital Media department. I am not here for core classes or large classes. 

More troubling, these cuts were made based on a metric. Ignoring the quality of the metric, using any metric violates this university’s vision statement in a troubling way. A vision statement is a destination, an idea of where the university should be heading.

Our vision statement reads, “Ashland University aspires to provide a transformative learning experience that cultivates the mind and ennobles the heart, and that enables students to enrich the professions, promote the public good, and thrive in the broader world.” With goals of ennobling the heart and cultivating the mind, cold statistics cannot be the sole measurement of faculty productivity. Measuring these goals is impossible quantitatively, but is apparent in the way Ashland University’s faculty approach their jobs. Even the worst faculty members I’ve encountered seek to teach something significant, to further a student’s knowledge in a deep, meaningful way.

Making cuts based on metrics, before identifying the university’s priorities, seems entirely contrary to this vision statement. Cuts were not made to continue a great legacy or to enhance excellent programs. They were made to fix the bottom line, something necessary to someday achieving this vision statement.

A flat broke university cannot operate on any level, let alone achieve what this vision statement sets as our university’s goals. These cuts may ensure Ashland University, the institution, will exist in the future, but they appear to have done real damage to the aspirations the university has for its future.