PRESENTED TO STUDENTS, ADMINISTRATION, AND SENIOR STAFF AT A LEGION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS (LOGS) MEETING ON

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2009 NOON- 3RD STREET GRADUATE CAMPUS:

Given the value of time, and the significance of the issues at hand, members of the student body have compiled a list of specific concerns and questions they wish to be addressed at today's meeting. We recognize that this list is extensive and detailed and that time may prevent all of it from being answered today, and with that in mind we have made this list public at this meeting and to the larger school community and ask that you publicly address this list in its entirety through a written or verbal statement before our next meeting. The specific locus of our concern is the recent layoffs of nine senior tenured faculty. It has come to our attention through unofficial channels that the board of trustees and the administration have declared a state of financial exigency that has resulted in these layoffs. More generally, we are concerned with the long-term solvency and reputation of the school. We fully understand that the economic crisis faced by this institution is global and dire, however, the circumstances surrounding the decision-making process and the resulting outcome have prompted the following grievances. From these grievances, we have also generated a list of questions. We know that you are anxious to address our concerns and we would ask that you refrain from doing so until we have completed reading this statement. 

GRIEVANCES

1. At the beginning of the semester, you met with LOGS and members of the graduate student body to discuss the financial state of the school and steps that were being taken to ensure solvency and the maintained quality of our education. During that meeting, financial exigency and layoffs of faculty in any capacity were not mentioned. 

2. During this meeting, jobs and curricular stability were specifically described as inviolate aspects of your long-term strategy. In light of these recent events named above, this is clearly not the case.

3. The student body was not given any official notice as to the details of this event and have had to piece together information through a variety of unofficial channels.

4. The student body was not given the opportunity for input on the details of this drastic decision.

5. Given that certain departments lost half of their tenured faculty as a result of this decision, we feel that these layoffs inevitably affect the future curriculum in a significant and harmful way for students, accreditation, enrollment, and reputation. 

6. The graduate student body has already expressed concern regarding the SFAI MFA program's recent and dramatic drop in US News and World Report rankings and feel that this decision can only compound this problem. 

7. Above and beyond faculty layoffs, a declaration of financial exigency has significant ramifications for school rankings, enrollment, and future donations. Given this, there was again a systematic lack of transparency and a failure to involve students and alumni in this decision. 

8. It has come to our attention that the administration has been employing the services of Littler Mendelson, a high-profile and anti-union litigation firm. We question the ethics of this relationship given the institution's commitment to academic freedom, a progressive curriculum, and a larger institutional philosophy.

QUESTIONS

With these grievances in mind, we would like to ask you the following questions:

1. In the faculty contract, which is available at today's meeting and also online at aaup/ca.org/sfai_contract.html, financial exigency is defined as "the critical and urgent need for the Institute to reorder its expenditures in such a way as to retain solvency."  We would like to know:

-what specific criteria were considered in reaching this decision

-how these criteria were analyzed,

-who exactly was involved in making this decision

- can we see all documentation involved in this declaration, and why has it not been formally and officially announced to the student body until now? 

2. As per the requirements delineated in Section 8 of the Agreement for the Faculty Bargaining Unit, when did the President meet with the faculty senate to explain the financial exigency? 

3. This same section of the contract lists the following guidelines for layoff procedures in the event of financial exigency:

            1. A freeze will be placed on the hiring of any new faculty.

            2. Voluntary programs will be implemented, such as voluntary reduced salary, and/or workloads, voluntary phased retirement, or the placement of affected faculty into suitable and available non-teaching positions within the institute. Voluntary reductions may include continuation of full benefits as defined by the dean of academic affairs.

            3. Visiting faculty will be laid off unless their departure would represent a serious and unresolvable distortion of the academic curriculum.

            4. Faculty will be considered for layoffs on the basis of lower seniority (ie the most recently hired) unless such considerations represent a serious, unresolvable distortion of the academic curriculum. A "serious and unresolvable distortion of the curriculum" is understood to mean any class required for a major, classes required for graduation, part of a required sequence of courses.

In light of these guidelines, we would ask the following questions:

- When did this hiring freeze begin, and how will it affect the curriculum in terms of class size and courses offered next semester, given that nine faculty members will not be teaching classes?

-Which voluntary programs were implemented and when? How exactly did this affect the school's economic situation? Where is this documented?

-Which, if any, visiting faculty were laid off before tenured faculty? If no visiting faculty were laid off, why were tenured faculty considered before visiting faculty, as this is a clear violation of the contract?

-If the curriculum was a significant criterion in the selection of faculty to be laid off, why were department heads not consulted as a part of this process? Additionally, why were students not consulted? What specific rubric did you employ for these layoffs, and where is that documented?

-Will these faculty have first priority for rehiring as per their contracts?

4. Since the faculty layoffs will not affect the budget for six months, there is still an immediate need to resolve the deficit that must be repaired by the end of the summer. In previous meetings you have set this number at 1.5 million dollars. What is on the table for resolving this? Does it include summer school closures?

OBJECTIVES

We wish to make these grievances and questions known to you and to the larger student body with the following objectives:

1. In the future, we would like to know about decisions of this nature and magnitude before they happen. In an effort towards this increased communication and understanding, the transparency of the administration and board's decisions and decision-making processes needs to be increased and communicated in an immediate and tangible way.

2. In the future, student involvement in matters of curricular significance and institutional solvency is absolutely necessary, and measures should be taken to determine the best manner in which to implement that involvement.

Lastly, and most importantly, we call for a return to the bargaining table to continue good-faith negotiations with the faculty, staff, and unions regarding these and any future policies proposed and implemented by your administration for the purpose of economic and curricular restructuring of the San Francisco Art Institute.

<Drafted by an independent group of Graduate and Undergraduate students, in response to declaration of financial exigency and layoff notices for nine tenured faculty.  No part has been omitted or altered, save formatting adjustments for readability on this webpage.  Please feel free to contact the administrator of this page with any questions or comments as to the contents herein.>