Comments

This evasive and weirdly robotic letter puts Andrew Abela’s cynical sophistry on full display. “Earlier this year, the Catholic University of America released a proposal called Academic Renewal…” No. “The University” did not; Abela did, and he ruled out all suggestions and alternatives diverging from his own until massive opposition from students and faculty pushed him to. From the outset, even before the town halls, he was adamant that terminating tenured faculty had to be part of the plan. That plan, however “neutered” in its later form, still countenances this. Enrollments are projected to be up–Good! But apparently Abela has forgotten the assumptions and arguments he relied upon to concoct the plan–though well he should, as they’ve been decisively and repeatedly shown to be inaccurate and fallacious. It’s as if he believes the plan has ALREADY succeeded in boosting enrollment! And the modest move to go back to the expectation of 3-3 loads “adjusted for research and other responsibilities” is a proposal to do… exactly NOTHING, as that’s how loads have always worked. We are to swallow the idea that a 9% reduction in an already reduced faculty is “limited.” (“This procedure is limited to chopping off one of your fingers.”) And it’s nice that that Abela considers the student and faculty input that undid (his word was “mutilated”) as much of the plan as possible now as having “strengthened” it. Weakness is strength. Love is hate. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia!

“Cost-Cutting Plan at Catholic U. Less Dire Than Portrayed”; The Chronical of Higher Education; 18 May 2018

Abela’s disingenuous letter implies that the current unrest at CUA is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. He even states that, “This fall, our undergraduate enrollment is projected to increase for the second straight year.” So much for his previous citation of demographics as the basis for his ill-advised proposal.

See https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/cost-cutting-plan-at-catholic-u-less-dire-than-portrayed/

It is inconceivable to me that presumably educated men like the Provost and the President who may be gifted in certain areas are not accountable and take responsibility for what their ‘leadership’ has created. Common sense dictates that if I gave someone a million dollars to go to a casino and he lost it all, would I give him 10 more million and face the same outcome or worse? Should the Abela plan be trusted? Someone defined Insanity as repeating the same action many times expecting a different outcome. Saving our beloved CUA and trusting the same ‘leaders’ is insane.

It’s a good school with strong faculty and excellent students. Let’s leave the question of preserving academic integrity distinct from perceived ranking.

The dance has been in full swing since 2013, by now to the tune of well over $10,000,000. And the pipers will be paid, one way or another.

Can Faculty at Private Institutions Unionize?

See: https://www.agb.org/trusteeship/2015/januaryfebruary/can-faculty-at-private-institutions-unionize-0

“Under the revised test, the NLRB will look at faculty participation in five discrete areas of institutional governance to determine whether faculty members exercise managerial powers that make them ineligible for collective bargaining. Three areas—curriculum, enrollment management, and finances—are given “greater weight” than the other two. The two areas of lesser significance are academic policy in areas such as grading, syllabus and course content, and research; and faculty hiring, promotion, and tenure—areas, ironically, in which faculty are traditionally accorded much greater managerial deference.”

Letters are a wonderful thing to voice opinions and grievances. At some point, however, the time my come that it is necessary to follow in the footsteps of WV, OK, AZ, and NC.

The proposal in its most current form still lacks any explicit protection for tenure. One reason this is a concern is that the proposal also discusses the exercise of administrative authority under extraordinary circumstances, which seems to suggest that tenure might be at risk in future times of financial or other stress.

The tiered teaching load system is probably not likely to be re-introduced, given that alternate mechanisms for evaluating faculty workload have replaced it in the proposal.

This is factually accurate, as far as I know. Right now, the university is being run by:

1) a provost whose prior administrative experience is serving as dean of unaccredited business school, and who does not have the academic credentials to be full professor at his university;

and 2) a president, whose prior administrative experience is solely in the area of law education.

James Brennan, who served as provost until he was dismissed, had been: provost at Towson, dean of arts and sciences at Louisville, and graduate dean at Loyola Chicago.

So what happened here? According to the update, the mentions of elimination of tenured faculty and a tiered teaching load system have been removed from the proposal. Are these proposals off the table, now, or have the power-that-be simply decided that they don’t need to ask the Senate for permission?

Hello, I have no connection what so ever with your great school but always new and remember how this well-established education Center (capital C ) worked. Was and hope will be one of few that does so much of useful and very practical research initiatives, supports great programs and truly educate young and talented to become great contributors and followers of the principles of faith and achievements of the institutions. When ‘proposals’ like this targets basic principle of the school i.e. simply sets the ticking mechanism to wipe off the years of success. That is the time to stand up and support the fundamentals.
Shame that the so called ‘proposal’ of cutting even in some areas where our foreign competitors invest: i.e. chemistry, biology etc. Shame to such board that manages this great school as a third world based corporation with just few primitive, dollar based narrow minded ‘principals’.
We should write a petition to stop the experiment: to US Dept. of Education and Congress to make sure it’s been heard at all levels of the society and not been hidden from anyone.

Reading all this Garvey-bashing prompts me to push back. In his personal style and presence, Garvey strikes me as a university president out of central casting, which is not a bad thing. His academic credentials are far more impressive than all of his predecessors except perhaps Pellegrino, who was a less engaging speaker; O’Connell had the most modest resume and couldn’t keep the university in the AAU despite its status as a founding member. Having fallen so far, the university perhaps needs a benevolent dictator with the professional cred that Garvey brings to external constituencies. Do you really want to replace him with another cleric from some unknown Catholic college of lesser rank than even CUA? Be careful what you wish for.

ad ho·mi·nem
adverb & adjective
1 1. 
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.”vicious ad hominem attacks
2 2. 
relating to or associated with a particular person.

To wit:

“Hi skills seem to be in blowing smoke (a ka marketing.”

“CUA is totally corrupt”

“And like-minded sycophants, like Abela,”

“They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything good” (Titus 1:16)”

Leonard Leo is a member of the CUA Board of Trustees.

I wonder how supportive he will be to the causes of savecatholic.com?

See https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trashing-of-george-mason-university-1526079531?emailToken=76258a43fba61b47b7c9559bbe573a5dXd59jLtqHHcLe1X279r8%2BrkETEsZdoIqNXAYEVTDkQPv11X2UZQSrFwtOPW9q6V2nXiS674icUvj%2Bnxs8TxsmLisSFdzISUHsg%2FgI3OLfrY%3D

It would indeed be vile to “throw a rock at a virtuous, decent man who is serving our institution through sacrifice.” That simply hasn’t happened on this forum, however. It’s an insubstantial, question-begging, straw man of an accusation. Does the poster even know the meaning of “ad hominem”? It’s absolutely legitimate to raise questions of motive, credibility, and temperament when a chief academic officer has been so unreceptive to views differing with his own, has refused any discussion of reduced executive compensation, has plainly misused data, and done much else to undermine his own faculty’s trust in him. The poster also seems not to be familiar with the fallacy of special pleading. Many, many staff and faculty sacrifice a great deal, including significant time away from their families, ofttimes families with small children, in service to the university. And they do so for far less financial reward than the extraordinarily over-compensated Provost.

Provost Abela experienced a meteoric ascent within CatholicU from a low-ranking professor to Chairman to Dean to Provost within a few years. Questioning the circumstances of his ascent is not an attack on his character or intellect. In the summer/fall of 2014, then-Dean Abela was selected to be part of the committee evaluating the performance of President Garvey in the face of an open-rebellion by the Faculty. Upon his re-appointment, President Garvey dismissed then-Provost Brennan and commenced a national search to identify a new Provost. The national search pointed that the best candidate was Dean Abela. All these events are public knowledge. We have the right to question how they are linked. Transparency is in the interest of all. Especially financial transparency. As to his presumed sacrifice, the Provost is free to resign (as we all are) and return to his teaching position. The reduced teaching load that he suggests will ensure that he will be able to spend more time with his young family.

I don’t know anything about Acton, but Heritage and Hudson are pretty reputable outfits, albeit on the right.

I am a graduate student at Catholic University and my own views and those I hear from my graduate student and staff friends reveals that there is a widespread distrust in both Garvey and Abela as honest brokers at CUA. When the president releases a statement, as he did the other week, congratulating himself and his administration for vastly increasing financial donations to the university, yet nonetheless arguing that faculty layoffs and buyouts are necessary, we lose faith in his forthrightness. When the provost tells the Washington Post “a small number of people are making a lot of noise” despite the large undergraduate, graduate, and faculty turnout at recent town halls, the results of the ad hoc committee’s survey, and the many conversations happening as people walk between classes, eat together at lunch, or meet over the weekends, we lose confidence in the provost’s trustworthiness. When the provost argues in his proposal that “there are no reasonable alternatives” to balancing CUA’s budget than laying off faculty, after his own salary has increased by more than $140,000 and the president’s by nearly $270,000 since 2009, we don’t believe him. When the entire premiss of the provost’s original proposal was found to be based on faulty or cherrie-picked data, and the revised proposal in some cases simply softens its language (but now without any citations whatsoever) and in other cases does not address the criticism at all, his intellectual honesty comes into doubt. And when the provost, in his response to the ad hoc committee’s report, lauds the Academic Renewal process as “unequalled in its extent of consultation and candor” we know he is wrong.

As a graduate student, I knew virtually nothing of the AR proposal and its potential consequences before the documents were made public in the days leading up to the town hall meetings. Many on campus see the fact that public discussion of the proposal began only at the end of the semester, just in time for finals (the busiest time of year) and shortly thereafter followed by most students leaving campus for the summer, as a thinly veiled effort on the part of the administration to squash debate. Yet, despite its short notice and its occurrence just before finals, attendance at the town halls was remarkably large. Furthermore, the students in attendance were deeply read on the proposal and its supporting documents. I remember one undergraduate pointing out that the proposal was based on faulty data (and this was before Dr. Mack’s PowerPoint had been made public), another student, whom I believe was an undergraduate, stood and read the president’s publicly available income aloud to the audience. A third student questioned the proposal’s logic: how could CUA increase its teaching and research excellence, keeping a low teacher-student ratio, whilst cutting faculty and growing the number of students? All three of these individual’s showcased the exceptional education CUA students can receive as researchers and critical thinkers, and they also exemplified the deep anger and distrust this processes has instilled toward the administration leadership. After everything that has happened after the last two months, I have lost any confidence that the university will be able to heal and move past these events as long as John Garvey and Andrew Abela are leading it.

I attended the graduation ceremony, Baccalaureate Mass and athlete reception this weekend. CUA is a wonderful university with intelligent, engaged, athletic and accomplished students and caring faculty. I was proud to be a CUA parent.

This article from October 2016, entitled, “Koch Brothers’ Latest Target: Pope Francis” is worth a re-read to help put the current electro-political situation at CUA in some context.

The following observation from the article is particularly germane.

“The Kochs are influential and have money to throw around,” says Thomas Kelly, a Creighton University theology professor. “They put libertarian thought in front of young people, which is very attractive because it’s based on self-interest and individualism. Their dispersion of money into universities is part of a unified, effective political strategy. They want to form a generation that thinks they are only responsible for themselves. At a foundational level, this is the exact opposite of what Catholic teaching says about the common good.”

See http://prospect.org/article/koch-brothers%E2%80%99-latest-target-pope-francis

Provost Abela insists that a decline in the number of high school graduates has caused the university’s trouble. It has not. He insists that the only way to balance the university budget is to cut faculty. It is not. He insists that he is “unequivocally” committed to tenure. He is not. He insists that he and his Vice President peers are worth every penny they are paid. They are not. He insists that SaveCatholic is just a few people. It is not. How many strikes until you’re out at CUA?

I cannot believe that the Provost of CUA is at the rank of associate professor! CUA has lowered its standards for sure! As far as I know, at research universities, the provost should at least be at the level of Full Professor. This is embarrassing for CUA.

The Academic Senate is not a body that fully reflects the points of view of the the university faculty. It contains many members of the administration.

Opponents of the proposal to cut faculty and eliminate/redefine tenure face a serious possibility of retribution by this administration–much more serious than at tenure-compliant universities.

Fear is palpable in the anonymous comments in this forum, even among tenured profs.

The few who go on record, as one just did in Commonweal, are jaw-droppingly brave given the power they are up against. Not everyone is in a position to take that risk.

That’s why the rest of us raise our voices anonymously–it’s a political practice with a long tradition in situations of extreme power differences. Anonymous dissent is not illegitimate (however dismissive the provost chooses to be). It’s usually one of the only platforms to remain for loyal dissenters to contribute honestly and productively to a conversation dominated by the powers that be.

A lot of tenured faculty, and I think all of those invested in this site, have vehemently opposed ALL involuntary terminations, including those of contract faculty. The “selfish tenured faculty” narrative has no substance. Many senior faculty fought for staff who were cruelly terminated in 2015–with some success (but not enough against a leadership that brooks no opposition). They continue to fight for non-tenure track faculty. In short, you have not been abandoned. But if tenure is undermined, there will be no one to fight for you, as everyone becomes essentially an at-will employee under an administration that retaliates very harshly against its opponents. They want a docile, obedient faculty. So what may seem self-serving at a casual glance is anything but. This is a communitarian effort against an administration that seems to delight in exploiting division, and whose knee-jerk response to all opposition is to blame, scapegoat, and retaliate, and to imply, in a host of ways, that all dissent is anti-Catholic. It’s quite cartoonish. Unfortunately, the consequences for faculty who have dedicated their careers to CU are no laughing matter.

I am far from a “snarky adolescent,” and far from a “trusty pal” of the Provost. I don’t have tenure. I don’t see myself getting on the tenure track anytime soon because of our University’s financial situation, and I thought I could rely on those who have tenure to stand up for the rights of those like me.

Instead, I feel like my rights and my future have been abandoned by senior faculty members I once considered peers.

I talked to members of the CUA staff in my school, my dean’s office, and in other academic areas, including in “central administration” in McMahon Hall, and they warned me this would happen. One of the postings from yesterday said the same thing: the tenured faculty member who wrote the post had pangs of guilt when he/she came to “my gut-churning realization that this treatment had been visited upon support staff, custodial staff, and others right under my very nose over the last few years and I’d been completely oblivious to it.”

That’s the problem with this discussion: Unless you are tenured, you don’t matter to the tenured. Unless you are one of them, you aren’t anything, and your plight isn’t noticed. That is already the creation of a caste system, where tenure allows you to wear blinders to the realities around you.

Perhaps the “staff” had it right in their responses to our survey, because they saw what happened to them and their colleagues. It only mattered to the tenured when their tenure was under a perceived threat.

Now that this threat has passed, what will be the new rallying cry?

I say all of these things (respectfully and from the heart) in both frustration and fear, because where we were once standing together against the renewal, I am afraid that my tenured colleagues will be leaving me behind.

The new “Donor Influence” page under construction does not sound like a good idea. How can it possibly serve anybody’s interest to antagonize CUA’s donors? This site seems to be veering away from a core goal of protecting tenure (a truly worthy objective) and toward a kind of terrorism directed at the university administration. You can’t win that fight. Leave the donors out of it.

The snarky, adolescent tone of this post is like that of the Provost’s reply, and also typical of his trusty pals on the senate and scattered among the faculty. Apparently written by one of them. If the President or this anonymous poster thinks the Provost has been “diplomatic”, neither knows the meaning of the word.

How does “Save Catholic” respond to the fact that the Academic Senate voted 35-8 IN FAVOR of the renewal plan?

Was “Save Catholic” all smoke and no fire? Or are anonymous voices strong in the darkness, but when the light is shining, the voices turn into whimpers and whispers? Either way, it smells of cowardice…

On the Academic Senate website are 20 faculty members who are not deans(because I have to assume the deans were told to vote with the Provost), 5 student representatives, and 3 faculty members who represent the Senate to the Board of Trustees. From those, only 8 members decided to stand up against Academic Renewal????? WHY?

Perhaps President Garvey’s words should be posted here, so all of us who have been following “Save Catholic” can see what strength in numbers really means:

“I am happy to report that the Academic Renewal plan, which the Provost and the faculty have been working on for most of this academic year, was approved by the Academic Senate this morning by a vote of 35-8. The final plan will be posted on the academic renewal website in the coming days.

I want to thank the Provost for his thoughtful and diplomatic handling of this process. I also want to thank the Academic Senate and its various committees for the improvements they suggested to the plan; and the many members of the faculty, staff, and student body, graduate and undergraduate, who have studied it and offered their opinions.

The reforms the plan proposes will do a great deal to help us achieve our twin goals of academic excellence and financial sustainability. Its adoption is a wonderful way to bring the academic year to a close.”

This website should be closed too…for shame, all of you.

I’m a TT professor at another institution. It was one of the main reasons I moved here, to have the security that allows me to be able to stretch out, think, write, learn, and teach, without the constant anxiety of the search of learning being the undoing to my family’s livelihood. Tenure is absolutely critical for the existential well-being of faculty who are also in search of the Good, True, and Beautiful.

I might be missing something – but reading the Provost’s response to the Ad Hoc committee, it seems like the sole rationale for removal of faculty tenure is “to remove tenure for faculty”. It’s also not clear as to why some departments seem willing to give up their own tenure securities.

I am disappointed in several ways by Provost Abela’s reply, dated May 7, to the careful and thoughtful report of the Ad Hoc Committee.

1. I am disappointed that Provost Abela continues to insist he can dismiss tenured faculty contrary to our Faculty Handbook and to the norms and law of American higher education. Whatever happens to the rest of the Provost’s proposal, I hope the Senate will go on record, clearly and emphatically, rejecting the Provost’s mistaken interpretation of tenure and upholding the Handbook’s explicit provisions—as have the faculties of the Schools of Theology and Religious Studies, Canon Law, Philosophy, Architecture and Planning, Arts and Sciences, and NCSSS.

2. I am disappointed that Provost Abela offers no meaningful response to a part of the AHC’s work that strikes at the basic premise of his proposal. His logic runs thus: undergraduate enrollments are shrinking; this is the result of demographic trends affecting higher education generally; we must shrink our faculty to accommodate the shrinking number of students. The AHC gives reasons to question the Provost’s cherry picking and misrepresentation of data to show this purported decline. (He accepts some but not all of their amendments to the sections of his proposal making those assertions, without seeming to grasp their significance.)

Nor can Provost Abela’s premises be squared with what Faculty heard last week from Pres. Garvey, who told us that “In the big picture our undergraduate enrollment has been fairly steady”; that we have met an enrollment target for the Class of 2022 that exceeds the average of the last 5 years; and that undergraduate retention is rising. Where is the crisis?

3. I am disappointed that Provost Abela insists that faculty cuts are the only way to meet a budget deficit. Even if the “crisis” in enrollment is really no crisis at all, there is still the question of next year’s budget. According to the Provost, a shortfall of roughly $700K remains, and in a section on “Termination of faculty,” he writes that “The undeniable fact is that there are no other sources for funding this remaining shortfall.”

Actually, this is nothing like a fact and is easily denied, in several ways. Here are two. First, this is a projected, not an actual, deficit; it is educated guesswork, subject to any number of assumptions and conditions that could easily change. In the budget year just ended, the university reportedly found itself with a *surplus* of roughly the same amount. In other words, the Provost demands that faculty be fired to avoid a deficit that hasn’t actually happened, and may never come to pass. Second, this is a small amount in an operating budget of more than $200M—less than 3/10s of one percent. In a budget that large, a good manager could find savings that small in any number of ways, not—as the Provost claims—in one way, and one way only. A good manager would also ask if firing faculty—a permanent action—is the right solution to what may be only a one-time deficit.

4. I am disappointed that both Provost Abela and President Garvey chide the faculty for proposing no alternative cuts. That is their job, not ours. But if their challenge is genuine and not merely rhetorical, then I look forward to their throwing open the books to scrutiny, so that we can look for the needed savings across all areas of the university budget, not merely from faculty salaries.

I have read Dr. Abela’s response to the report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Renewal. Make no mistake: this is an attack on tenure, plain and simple.

Dr. Abela’s analysis relies upon the AAUP’s language regarding tenure, which describes it as “an indefinite appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency and program discontinuation.” Dr. Abela would have us believe that that “extraordinary circumstances” can be pretty much anything that a university want them to be. “Higher education is a highly competitive market, which is extraordinary, ergo we can terminate tenured appointments at will. Sorry.”

The AAUP goes into great detail regarding program discontinuation and financial exigency, spelling out how such circumstances should be handled. The only other reason cited by the AAUP for terminating a tenured appointment is cause: moral turpitude, incompetence, etc. While the AAUP does not necessarily exclude other “extraordinary circumstances,” it is hard to see how CUA can claim that they need to cut costs while such claiming cost cutting does not amount to “financial exigency.” What is financial exigency, other than a need to cut costs? To say that an institution is on solid financial footing except that revenues exceed expenses is absurd and positively Orwellian.

When you combine the notion that “extraordinary is whatever we decide it with” with “we get to decide which units get cut,” tenure becomes essentially meaningless.

Why don’t you take a position elsewhere, then? Everyone makes choices; you are free to stay at CUA, and you are free to go elsewhere. There are benefits and drawbacks to both. Similar positions elsewhere won’t necessarily involve the same amount of time off (2 plus weeks at Christmas, half a week Thanksgiving, another half week at Easter, plus all federal and major Catholic holidays off). If you have the skill, talent, and educational background to succeed elsewhere, then you should take advantage of that. Don’t complain about your “modest” life in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country.

How do I join you guys?

The school where I am teaching is experiencing the same thing. I just saw the article in Chronicles. I am curious about the president’s comment that “no one has come up with reasonable alternatives” and his disregarding the idea that marketing was being done the wrong way. This sounds too familiar – although members of our faculty HAVE laid out alternatives to firing faculty, but the administration will not even look at them. And yes, marketing IS the issue. The message given is that faculty members are idiots who do not know what students in their disciplines look for in a college. People who have not a clue are making the decisions. The president is aggressive and threatening to fire for cause anyone who speaks out against this. Even students who speak out are being pressured or threatened with comments like, “You would not want your name in the media, would you? That might ruin your future job chances.” The board of trustees is behind it all, backing the cuts and unwilling to listen to faculty.

Where is the Provost’s response to the Ad Hoc Committee? Seems if you are honest you post it in a tab of it’s own. Tell all sides to this story.

That accusation — “CUA is totally corrupt” — is false and degrades the legitimacy of this forum.

I could not agree more! There has been a provocative thread throughout these comments which becomes obvious to anyone who searches for the word “ideological:” hiring based on “ideological positions;” the pursuit of “ideological objectives;” the desire to make the University “ideological pure;” and the preference for “ideological scholars rather than accomplished ones.” What is happening to the School of Music is but one example. A closer look at the School of Theology and Religious Studies which was considered to be the premier school of The Catholic University has also suffered from this preoccupation. Together with the other two Ecclesiastic Schools, Philosophy and Canon Law, seem to be struggling to survive. CUA’s Founders would be dismayed at this loss of its identity.
It seems that our desire to be “Catholic” has made our catholicity narrow-minded. This is a sad phenomenon that has spread like a subtle dust that blinds our vision of our true Catholic heritage!!! We are suffering from it and, sadly, will suffer more.

It is announced on the School of Music website that they have temporarily stopped accepted applications for the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Sacred Music. This is the terminal degree for church organists, choirmasters, and sacred music composers. This a saddening turn of events and embarrassing for what should be the major center of church music in the USA.

Thanks to all those who are leaving comments on the site. It would seem from reading the posts in the past week or so that both President Garvey and Provost Abela have lost the confidence of the faculty, staff, students and alums. Can leaders lead when they have lost the trust and support of their constituents? Clearly the direction these men are taking the University is in a downward spiral. Perhaps it’s time to start talking about a “vote of no confidence” and time for new leadership.

It was indeed painful to this long time faculty member, but even more it was simply surreal to listen to such sophistry. A telling aspect of these bizarre luncheon events is that Mr. Garvey refuses to take any questions. He did it once, years ago, and was pressed on his facts, so he decided, clearly, Enough of that. This from a man who, upon his 2014 reappointment despite overwhelming opposition from faculty, promised greater openness and transparency going forward. He made this pledge in the presence of a large gathering of faculty; then he promptly receded behind his curtain even further than before, pulling levers, issuing pronouncements, making dishonest statements like these remarks, and pouring Kool-Aid for our Trustees. Mr. Garvey seems to prefer his own alternate reality, a universe in which he, of course, is the center, where he seems adept at keeping certain Trustees in happy and unknowing orbit.

I am in a position in academic support that requires two masters degrees. I live a modest life, with a modest apartment in Montgomery County. Yet, my salary still has me living paycheck to paycheck. Similar jobs with *less* responsibilities around town all pay $10-$15k more.

So when I am asked to “give back” to the University…laughable and insulting. I am not paid enough to be charitable! I want the University to succeed, but I also need to take care of myself.

Dear Friends of CUA –

If you have not already read it, I thought that you would be interested in the transcript of the talk that President Garvey gave to the CUA faculty yesterday – it is appended below.

Given all the turmoil that exists at CUA these days, I can’t imagine how painful it must have been for many CUA faculty members to sit through Garvey’s dreamland talk.

Garvey painted such a rosy picture that it seems clear that he either doesn’t read what the Washington Post, numerous Catholic publications, the CUA Tower student newspaper and NPR are reporting about Provost Abela’s so-called “Proposal for Academic Renewal” and its impact on faculty morale – or maybe, God forbid, he just doesn’t care.

If you can reach President Garvey and Provost Abela directly, please do so and suggest that he visit the “Save Catholic University” website (https://savecatholic.com/) with the hope that they review what the loyal opposition are saying.

I was especially struck by Garvey’s comment that, “The Board of Trustees (which approves both tuition and budget) has insisted that CUA behave in a fiscally prudent manner.”

Fiscally responsible? Seriously?

In that regard, the same someone should ask Garvey if it Is it fiscally responsible to:
(1) Increase the UG acceptance rate to 80% and still claim that CUA is a “selective” university – goodness, who do they reject?
(2) Increase the tuition discount rate to something on the order of 42% – is this a business strategy designed to make it up on volume?
(3) Grossly over-pay CUA’s senior administrators while way under-paying the faculty?

Given (3), it takes a lot of gaul for Garvey to refer to CUA’s tenure track faculty as “CUA’s most precious resource”. He went on to say that the “faculty are the most important people in our students’ lives; ultimately they stay because you are teaching them.”

Garvey should have added, “And in recognition of your essential contributions to CUA, we plan to over-work and under-pay you and to give you a medal and maybe a luncheon for your contributions.

On the one hand, I am happy about CUA’s plans for a new student dining facility and improvements to dorms and athletic facilities and new walkways and flowers.

But in the context of being fiscally responsible, I was very disappointed to not read anything specific about how CUA plans to invest in its revenue-generating schools and departments.

In that regard, I certainly hope that the Engineering and the Nursing buildings do not collapse in old age while Nero fiddles with the Koch Brothers and their focus on the Business School…..

Bottom Line – If Garvey’s presentation is the story that CUA’s Board of Trustees will be hearing in June, then, in my opinion, it does not bode well for the future of CUA.

However, I am not giving up. I feel a great debt of gratitude for what I gained from my CUA experience and I really want to help the organization prosper and help others.

Helping CUA in a responsible way is sure not easy. But I don’t want to keep making annual donations that are wasted.

Bottom line – if you really care about CUA, let your voices be heard – contact CUA’s Board of Trustees (BOT) members directly.

Don’t just complain to the BOT about Garvey and Abela.

Instead, offer some quantitative suggestions that will enable CUA to reclaim its lost reputation as a leading research university in spite of Garvey and Abela.

(1) Show a business plan that demonstrates the potential revenue gains that CUA could achieve by adding (not removing) tenure-track faculty that have the time and capability to win Government-sponsored R&D grant and contracts.

(2) Suggest that the top 25 highest paid CUA administrators be put on performance incentives – 50% regular salary and the other 50% depending on their achieving their specific goals.

By the way, Joe Carlinni is the current Chairman of the CUA BOT and he is a graduate of CUA in Mechanical Engineering.

He can be reached at jcarlini@mckean-defense.com.

Sincerely,

Jude Nitsche, Private Citizen and CUA Alumnus
BSME, 1963 and MME, 1965
__________________________________

President Garvey’s Remarks at the
May 1, 2018 Faculty Luncheon
INTRODUCTION
This has been a year of significant growth and change. For the third year in a row our Advancement team has had a banner year. Today is the May 1 deposit deadline and Undergraduate Admission appears to be closing in on its first-year enrollment target of 835 students. Graduate enrollment, though it continues past May 1, is well ahead of last year. We have in progress, or in view, about $200 million in construction and reconstruction. And you and the Provost have been working at an important plan for Academic Renewal.

ACADEMIC RENEWAL
Let me begin with the last project, since it is on many people’s minds. I would like to make two points, one about the genesis of the effort, the other about the design.

In the big picture our undergraduate enrollment has been fairly steady. The 15-year average is 832 students. The 5-year average is 825. Last year we enrolled 831. This year we are closing in on a target of 835. In recent years graduate and Law School enrollments have been falling. While our undergraduate enrollments have been generally steady, our costs have gone up. We compensate somewhat with tuition increases and unrestricted giving. But in the long run we need to grow our population.

While we work at this, the Board of Trustees (which approves both tuition and budget) has insisted that we behave in a fiscally prudent manner. In 2014 the Finance Committee asked me to make $10 million in cuts in the academic area by 2018. We are still $3.5 million short of that goal.

Other parts of the University have borne their share of the burden. You will recall the staff layoffs we made three years ago. In the three most recent fiscal years my office and the VP for Finance have reduced our budgets more than any other sector of the University. This has paid off. Current projections for FY18 indicate a slight positive margin. We have drafted a balanced budget for FY19.

I don’t want to get too far afield from Academic Renewal, but I need to add one more point. The board and I agree that in addition to reducing expenses we need to make investments that grow our revenue. No one ever cut themselves out of a financial bind. In the last three years we have made significant investments in Enrollment Management, Advancement, Graduate Enrollment and Recruiting, and initiatives to improve retention. These are starting to pay off.

Let me return now to the second point I want to make about Academic Renewal. I am pleased and proud of the spirit in which the effort has been pursued. And I want to compliment the Provost on the thought that has gone into it. The board’s Academic Affairs Committee is fully apprised of the plan and shares my good opinion.

The plan has three features that make us better, not just more prudent. First, it finds the necessary economies without cutting any school, department, program, or course. The Faculty Handbook would permit that sort of amputation (along with the attendant faculty layoffs), and we have done so in the past. But this plan is more tailored and modest. I have heard some concern about the effect even this focused plan will have on tenured faculty. But in the proposed reduction of 35 faculty, as of this morning only 5 or 6 are tenured positions, and we are working to get that to zero if at all possible.

And best of all, from the students’ perspective, this is actually a change for the better. The second feature I like about the plan is that it puts our best teachers in front of students more often. The proposal to meet the Faculty Handbook’s 3-3 norm for course loads in undergraduate and professional schools and departments means that we will devote our most precious resource, our tenure-track faculty, to educating our students. As a parent, I can’t think of a better reason for enrolling my child here.

Third, the plan calls for enhancing our research reputation as well as our teaching — by growing grant funding, renovating laboratories and performance spaces, and improving support for faculty and student research.

I know that the Senate’s Ad Hoc Committee and the Provost continue to meet, in the strong hope that we will come to a consensus on the plan to bring to the Senate on May 9. I want to thank the members here for their work.

ADVANCEMENT
I said that in addition to reducing expenses we were investing in several parts of the enterprise that generate revenue. Let me speak first about Advancement, where the results have been particularly gratifying.

Here is a look at the University’s fundraising results over the past dozen years.

As you can see, we were fluctuating in the $12M-$18M range when I arrived in FY11.
We began to get on our feet in FY14. In FY16 we made a major investment in our operation, and began planning a comprehensive campaign that will run through FY22.

We are still in the quiet phase of that campaign, and are off to an excellent start. The Advancement team is working with the deans of our schools to refine their priorities and build their prospect pipelines. This year we will be wrapping up the messaging and case development for the campaign, and getting a more refined sense about what our goal should be. This fall Advancement will convene a faculty working group. We plan to launch publicly in 2019.

People often ask how these efforts relate to the operating budget, and with projects like the Academic Renewal, which seem concerned with economizing at a time when our fundraising is growing. Here is a picture of the money we raised this year, and where it goes.

Notice first that most of the money goes to support the academic enterprise — endowed chairs ($13M), scholarships ($17M), programs ($7M) — and another $10M is unrestricted. This is why we are working with deans and faculty to prepare for the campaign, and the result of that work. Theology and Religious Studies this year raised more than $10M to endow professorships and academic centers. Nursing got a gift of $13M for scholarships.

So why doesn’t all this money relieve the strain on the operating budget? Two reasons. First, gifts for endowments and capital projects can’t be spent in the operating budget. Endowments give us 4.5%/year to spend once they are up and running, and on a $1M gift that’s $45,000. $6M given for a new dining hall has to be spent on the dining hall.

Second, gifts are counted in a campaign in the year they are pledged, but we don’t have all the money in hand yet. So a five-year pledge of $250,000 for a scholarship or a particular program gets counted this year, but only gives us $50,000 to spend. Advancement results are significantly better than they have ever been, and are a good picture of the future, but alone they don’t solve all of the current budget issues.

Speaking of the future, I want to say a last word about annual giving this year. My thanks to those of you who participated in the Founders’ Day Challenge. 1,786 people gave that day, and we raised $726,702 in one day. 200 of those were University faculty and staff, 10.5% more than last year. Our annual fund is now approaching $2M, and our participation rate has finally climbed into double digits. The most enthusiastic participants have been our students. More than 40% of them have made a gift to the University. By commencement we hope to reach 50%.

Our investment to increase outreach and giving opportunities is building a larger base of annual donors and a culture of giving (especially among our younger alumni), which will help build revenue for our operating budget over time. While we still have a long way to go on alumni giving participation, the percentage point increase over the past three years is an encouraging sign.

ENROLLMENT
For all the success we have lately had in advancement, we are still largely a tuition-driven university. Two-thirds of our annual operating budget comes from tuition and auxiliary services. We watch enrollment figures very carefully. So does the Board of Trustees. The Finance Committee gets regular reports from our VP for Enrollment Management. Last fall the board created its own Ad Hoc Committee on Enrollment to study our performance.

There are three important things to look at in measuring enrollment: new freshmen, retention (freshman to sophomore, and sophomore to junior), and graduate enrollment.

1. Let me begin with new freshmen, since that’s the number everyone focuses on. As I said earlier, our target this year is 835, and we appear to be closing in on it. So far, we have 6% more deposits from honors students than last year. Quite a few students have extensions as they try to make finances work. The counseling staff is also managing our wait list. We are also on track with our financial aid expense target.

In my first four years as President we devoted our attention to shrinking the admit rate (which meant denying more applications). We wanted to get down into the 50’s, and by 2013 we were nearly there, at 60.1%. The long-term strategy was to improve our perceived standing, student quality, and market position.

We altered that strategy when the market changed four years ago. In 2015 we hired Chris Lydon and since then we have focused on growing our pool and our class. I mentioned earlier that we have invested in Enrollment Management over the past three years. These investments, like those in Advancement, take time to mature.
We began reaching out to high school sophomores. This will have its first impact in Fall 2019. But through April 1, interest among these students (now high school juniors) looking at Fall 2019 was 20% ahead of last year.
We began bringing school guidance counselors to campus, 135 so far. In November we will host our 5th event in three years.
We expanded our travel to Latin America. This year we got 98 applications, a 30% increase in two years.
We expanded recruitment in the south and west to connect with Hispanic/Latino population, and added 2 bilingual professionals. Applications from Hispanic students are up 20% from three years ago.
Perhaps most important, we created a division of Marketing and Communications, developed a new website, created a social media strategy, and grew media relations activities.
2. One of our successes that has been sneaking up on us since 2010 is the growth in our retention rate. Only 79.83% of the freshman class returned in 2010 as sophomores. Our most recent freshman to sophomore retention rate was 86.58%, the highest in more than 20 years. And our freshman to junior (78.65%) and freshman to senior (76.51%) rates were the highest in our history

Here’s an idea of what this means. The difference between a 79% and an 86% retention rate is the same as the difference between a class of 850 and a class of 900.

Mike Allen and our Student Affairs staff contributed a lot to this improvement. We are intervening earlier with students who have difficulties adjusting to college. We offer more and better programs and activities in the residence halls and across campus. We are facilitating earlier and more frequent career guidance which has a positive impact on the value proposition for students. We have created the Center for Cultural Engagement to support underrepresented minority students. We now do a freshmen exit survey that allows late intervention for students who are considering not returning. And we have a talented and engaged coaching staff that supports our student-athlete population.

3. Among our graduate programs, master’s level enrollment is most significant for revenue purposes. This has gone up and down, but since 2014 it has trended down. That year we had 659 new students. In 2016 we had 483. But we have been steadily improving and I’d like to recognize Steve Brown for his excellent work in this area. Compared to this time last year we are up 51% in deposits (74 more), led by Metro, Business, and Canon Law.

CONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION
I want to say a few words about construction projects. Let me begin with why we are focused on the things we have chosen. There is a lot of building and rebuilding we need to do — far more than we can afford. We ask two questions to help us set our schedule of priorities. First, how will we pay for it? Second, what will it contribute to growing enrollment?

Here are some examples of the first. We are spending $60M in borrowed funds to rebuild out utility system and improve HVAC, waterproofing, and fire safety. We chose this project because careful study by Constellation Energy showed that we could save more than $2M a year by making the improvements and pay back our loan in 23 years.

We are rebuilding Maloney Hall because we raised $18M of the renovation costs in gifts from the Busch School board.

We ask the second question because the thing we need to do most urgently is grow our enrollment, particularly our undergraduate enrollment. Over the past three years we have invested a good deal in professional advice about several facets of this — our price elasticity, student housing and dining, and sports and recreation. All our studies have told us that we are not competitive in the things prospective students look at: especially housing, dining, recreation, common space, and laboratories. Improving our marketing is important, and we are working on it. But at best that gets students to campus. It doesn’t help improve our yield.

I don’t want to review everything we are working on. Let me just mention a few that may be of interest to you.

1. Inhabitants of Caldwell will have noticed the foundation work we did this spring ($1M). We have put back grass because this summer we will begin design for restoring and replacing the windows ($2M-$2.5M). We’ve restored the wainscoting and floors on the first floor, and the Happel Room is about finished ($.5M). Caldwell is the last stop on Phase 1 of the new utilities system. We won’t reach it until 2019.

2. Speaking of the new utilities system, you will notice one immediate aesthetic benefit this summer. We are going to grade and landscape the entrance from the Metro and the road up past Gowan and Pangborn. It will be permanently closed to vehicular traffic.

Go online some time and have a look at the campus Master Plan (http://masterplan.cua.edu/). It calls for making the campus more walkable and beautiful. In time we want to close most of the interior roads and parking lots to cars, make the roads narrower, with paving stones rather than asphalt and concrete, and shade them with trees. This is a first step.

3. In December we will finish renovating Maloney Hall, the new home of the Busch School. The renovation will remove a lot of interior walls and low ceilings, and give us about 60,000 square feet of new academic space. We are adding an extra floor on top by doubling the number of dormers. Here are some artist’s renderings of gathering and classroom space, and the renovated auditorium, which we have not been able to use for many years. This building, like the other academic buildings we hope to bring online during the campaign, will be heavily funded by philanthropy.

4. At the end of January we announced an anonymous gift that will enable us to build a new dining hall. We have chosen an architect (Perkins Eastman). It will go on the north end of the quad defined by the Pryz and the Law School. Here is the idea.

As you can see, the plan will require the removal of Magner Hall. One benefit of doing this is that the new dining hall will solve the problem of getting up and down the hill from Centennial Village. Design, permitting, and construction will probably take about two years. Construction next spring, open fall 2020.

There are other projects that our campaign planning will undoubtedly add — a science building and labs, a new athletic field, a recreation building, a new residence hall. In moving on each we will be asking the same two questions I mentioned at the outset — how will we pay for it, and what will it do to grow our enrollment?

CONCLUSION
I want to close by thanking you all for the parts you have played in all these efforts. Each of you is an ambassador for the University, a recruiter, a spokesperson, and an advocate. Many of you have been actively involved in the Academic Renewal project. Many of you have given generously to the Annual Fund for Catholic University and encouraged your former students to do the same. Others of you hosted students visiting on Odyssey Day. Still others have helped develop a much more efficient system for processing graduate applications. I mentioned the work Student Life has done to grow our retention rate. But faculty are the most important people in our students’ lives; ultimately they stay because you are teaching them.

Thank you all very much for what you are doing to make this a great university.

As a two-time graduate and former employee, this situation breaks my heart. CUA gave me an excellent education and helped me to form lifetime attachments, both personal and professional. The proposal will only further damage the University until it’s beyond redemption. Please save our beloved CUA

As a former faculty member, this breaks my heart. I believe that much of the responsibility, here, lies squarely with John Garvey, who turned the University into a self-serving ideological experiment, and with the sycophantic administrators who surrounded him.

Ironically, when Garvey came, he seemed focused on improving academic quality. At some point early on, he apparently decided that academic excellence was out of his reach, and so he focused his energies on culture war issues–especially “pelvic issues.”

Administrators would do well to take their advice from the hippocratic oath: “first, do no harm.”

As admin support staff, I could barely pay rent! And, no TIAA match for employees under the age of 26. It was unfair and eventually, unsustainable.

I was not given an approx 1% merit raise b/c I happened to go up for promotion the year we received the pay raise. The Provost refused to give me the raise even though it was a merit raise and it amounted to about an extra 40 dollars a month for me. Of course in the years prior people in my dept were promoted, and b/c it wasn’t the year we received the 1%, they got the raise. I’m already paid at below market rate, and this man makes a great deal of money. 40 dollars a month!

This is very true! The faculty here are paid much lower than those in comparable institutes (with little or no raise in recent years) but the earning of CUA higher administration is jumping and now well aligned with peers. The fact is that the failing performance comes from the higher administration but not faculty. The faculty is stretched to do multiple tasks with minimum staff. In peer institutes they have strong staff team so faculty can focus on research. Sad.

I am a law grad from the mid-1970’s. I haven’t had much contact with the law school in decades. The articles and this web site remind me why that is so.

When I attended, the law school under Dean Clinton Bamberger took some very progressive positions. For example, Bamberger encouraged women applicants. It was was one of the first, if not the first, to equalize men and women in is student body.

The student body was very eclectic,and certainly no more than half Catholic. There was an emphasis on clinical work, legal aid and public interest law. One third of the graduates in my class went on into these areas of practice.

Some years later, the law school publicly began describing itself as a “Catholic” Law School. Well of course, it is. But from the names of invited speakers and from hires, it became clear that this meant “conservative, Republican,” and most definitely not the “Catholic Worker” kind of Catholic.

Needless to say, a lot of us lost interest. We don’t visit, we don’ give money. Not arguing with the school’s right to set its agenda, but I’m just making a point: if the Provost’s current plan is motivated by a desire to make the University ideologically pure, and to move it further into an ultra-conservative mode, don’t expect to retain the loyalty of those of us who cherish other Catholic traditions and a public interest that is not always in line with the Bishop’s or Opus Dei.

Firing faculty to make up for a loss of enrollment strikes me as a poor way to solve a larger problem.

Thank you, faculty and students, for this web site. It is in the best tradition of a good liberal arts education. I hope you can right the ship before she founders.

The Administration pay scale in 2016 shows a further break from the faculty pay scale, a trend that can be seen to a lesser extent in the 2011 pay scale. This is happening across all of higher education, where the Administration are no longer seen as academic colleagues but as managers as a business providing a product to the university customers—its undergraduate students.

Another lesson can be drawn from the $1.3M increase in Administrative pay and the $45,000 that President Garvey cites as the contribution to the operating budget from a $1M gift to the University. That $1.3M pay increase requires a roughly $30M increase in university fundraising. A graph Garvey used in discussing fundraising with the faculty shows an increase of roughly $40M between 2011 and 2016.

While I appreciate the gravity of the situation, and I think it is a great service that the academic faculty and the staff, students and alumni joining them are doing by actively engaging and countering the proposed changes, it is disappointing that the bad press will negatively affect the school further. The same people whose salaries are posted on this site won’t suffer (Persico is retired so theres no consequence there..) But, the students who are trying to study for their exams, the professors who are now afraid for their status as employees, and the alumni who worked hard and DO give back will suffer. I do hope for a solution. I am a young alumnus and really worry that the quality of my degree will be decreased (long before I pay my student loans off) because of what is happening right now at the University, and enrollment will continue to decline. I love my school, it made me the person I am today, but this is just incredibly sad.

The elephant in the room is that the Koch Brothers have promised CUA tens of millions of dollars if the university changes its mission. And the university is dramatically changing its mission.

I am a 2013 graduate of Catholic University. I now work in academia as tenure-track faculty in a faith-based four year university in California. I am invested in academia in general, in Christian education in particular, and in CUA as an alumnus. I vigorously reject the principles and actions of the current administration. I will continue to vocally and unflinchingly support the faculty and students of CUA, who truly make up the heart of the school and who in fact carry out the education and spiritual mission daily. I will vote against administrators who do not respect that constituency and who act in their own interest against the interests of tenured faculty. I will vote with my money–of which CUA will not see a dime while this kind of anti-faculty sentiment continues–and I will vote with my voice. I hope that the trustees and stakeholders of this school see the importance of rejecting the so-called “renewal” currently proposed. I’m praying for CUA.

Call For Action: The president made references to the tenured faculty “layoffs” as well as the faculty handbook during his speech May 1.

Provost Abela, President Garvey–please share with us the loophole you found in the faculty handbook. Transparency is key.

What is the loophole? What page in the Faculty Handbook can this loophole be found?

Research, as the previous commenter pointed out, is an explicit job requirement, not a “passion.” But in terms of the division of time and energy, one of the issues at stake at CUA is that the institution’s research aspirations outstrip its infrastructure. At a well-endowed R1 university, regular teaching loads might be 2-2 or (more likely) 2-1. But that R1 is likely to have larger staff, more tech and office support, and more subdivided student services. At CUA these functions tend to overflow from one job description to another, which means that basic DIY workflow eats up a good deal of faculty time.

Catholic University has failed to broaden its customer base beyond a narrow spectrum: Catholic high school students in the north eastern United States. The reason for this is unclear though many speculate that it is either ignorance or a deliberate decision to recruit only a specific Catholic demographic. Colleagues of mine at other similar sized universities across the country have expanded their recruiting efforts in Asia and South America. The faculty asked the president to do this several years ago but apparently it was ignored. So like any CEO who did not anticipate and plan for new markets and new products, our Provost and president are responsible for the lower enrollments. At Ford, Apple, or other businesses, low sales, no new marketing initiatives and no new products would result in the CEOs removal.

Clearly you have never taught a college course if you are deluded enough to think one can teach three and do research. My experience is teaching one course detracts greatly from research productivity.

As I am reading these posts, I am still attempting to understand the idea of tenured faculty being fired.

On the CUA website, the faculty handbook (2016) still states that “tenure” means job security unless a department is abolished. Has the policy been changed legally? If so, can someone post the new CUA policy that would allow for tenured faculty to be fired.

I loved going to school here as an undergraduate many years ago. I am now an academic at another university in the area. My co workers are gossiping about the sad state CUA has found itself in since the leadership change several years ago. Our reputation as an institution of higher learning will be in taters before long. I hope we can stop this decline before it’s too late.

I am an alum and very disappointed to hear this news. I don’t have the time or energy to prepare a fuller response, but top officials should be ashamed if they are focused on enriching themselves over the mission, other staff, and current and prospective students. It is not following in the example of Jesus in the least.

The education I received was excellent. May this academic tradition be able to continue under leadership worthy of the institution.

Catholic University of America is where I founded my purpose in life and my husband. Here I am, 12 years later, using my education to reach and teach the students America.

As I was leaving CUA I was already appalled at some of the things that were occurring. During my tenure at CUA my tuition was raised 4 to $5,000 per year, while my living quarters were torn apart due to asbestos. Somehow the Financial aid I received my first few years went “missing” a number of times, until I produced paperwork to prove the mistakes of the office. It was obvious thrn that CUA didn’t care about their students, only the bottom line.

When I graduated I had $120,000 worth of debt. I still have 80,000 of that debt to be paid, and I wonder what did they use that money for?

They didn’t put that money back into the school I attended as the building is still falling apart with rooms that are in such disrepair they are un-usable while students and staff members get increasingly sick every year because of exposure to dangerous molds and toxic materials.

Based upon what I’ve heard from recent graduates, and for my own experience, I have no desire to put any more money into the school until they fix the problems that they themselves have created. At this point if I won the lottery I would give all of my money to Hood graduate school because at least I see they put their money where their mouth was.

Has anyone divined what a “global Catholic research university” is even supposed to mean? If anything at all? The university has been courting students with a promise of elaborate study abroad opportunities while simultaneously making massive cuts to the available programs. They seem to want students to do (cheaper for CUA) exchanges with other Catholic universities, whether or not these foreign universities have a designated office/staff to welcome students, help advise and place them in classes, and/or offer them the appropriate ongoing support during the semester.

As a PhD candidate who did his MA here, I’ve been disheartened to see CUA transition away from a Catholic institution that valued research, debate, and diverse positions.

The Administration, and Garvey in particular, espouse a strange Evangelical-like Catholic fundamentalism that is antithetical to the faith’s tradition of inquiry and study that stretch back well over a millennium.

A fundamental Catholic drive, the search for the truth, was a foundational value for the University. The transition to a virtue-signaling cultural Catholicism and the preference for ideological scholars instead of accomplished ones is a radical departure from our history.

If I had chosen a graduate school in 2014 instead of 2010, I would not have attended CUA. Catholicism is not a fundamentalist, anti-intellectual religion. Of course our take of the higher ed market has collapsed, because Catholics value intellectual pursuit and the truth. The strange, disturbing ethic being pushed (anyone else see the giant banner in the Pryz that was Jesus’s Tinder profile?) is not the kind of Catholicism I — or most Catholics — grew up in, identify with, or want.

Thank goodness I’m almost out, though the value of my degree, and the years of my life spent earning it, have been almost thoroughly ruined by the Administration’s ideology-over-scholarship marketing and policies.

Thanks for the clarification. Makes the whole situation even worse.

I have served on the full time faculty of this university for over 10 years. I strongly oppose this “academic renewal” plan. I fear that it will significantly increase the institution’s existing problems. As Michael Mack has illustrated in a series of PowerPoint slides posted on this site, the justification advanced by the Provost relies on flawed data analysis. The plan is being rushed through without adequate or sufficiently transparent deliberation. Firing tenured faculty without cause or financial exigency is likely to have severely adverse effects on the university’s reputation and drive students and faculty away, including productive scholars and teachers. This is already happening. The administration appears to be completely out of touch with millennials and fails to foster a culture of inclusion and respect. The fundamental Catholic value of human dignity is not being served. I am grateful to those who have created this website. I hope the administration wills respond to the outpouring of opposition by rethinking this proposal. But I am not optimistic and I am looking around for other job possibilities.

I think you hit the nail on the head–CUA is a tree that needed to have its branches pruned long ago, but never did and now must endure a more-painful pruning so that leaves return to its branches and it regains the strength to not be toppled in the wind.

I was under the impression everyone was welcome at this school not just Catholics . My child certainly is not Catholic and has no plans to become one, but has chosen this school. I expected the faculty would come from all walks of life as well. Sounds very discriminatory to want to hire mainly catholic faculty. Is that even legal?

Something else that should be made clear– the university counted women on maternity leave in its evaluation of “surplus faculty.” This ostensibly pro-life university’s Academic Renewal program actively harms departments with young mothers.

You don’t need to assume. CUA has received a number of controversial donations from the Koch brothers in recent years– donations criticized specifically because they seem to *oppose* CUA’s Catholic identity.

Unfortunately, many among the university’s administration seem to be so uncatechized that they cannot understand that Catholics and Right Wing Protestants do not perfectly align.

The important numbers aren’t the salary of the presidents in isolation, but their salaries compared to their faculty’s and to their overall budget.

The pages here seem to rely pretty exclusively on objective facts. There’s the actual Renewal Proposal (which by itself should be alarming to anyone at all involved in higher education) and then there’s the data which contradicts many foundational assumptions in the proposal.

Unless those who have published this cite have fabricated data (which you can easily check) or have access to some reality-warping abilities, *all* their complaints seem to be justified. If some are not, please specify which.

1. Your current happiness isn’t really relevant. You see, the individuals making these changes are human beings bound by the ordinary forces of time. These changes actually effect the *future*, and so it’s entirely reasonable that in the *past*, before the Academic Renewal Program was even conceived, your son had a great experience!

2. It is bizarre that you’d prefer a school were major decisions effecting the entire faculty, decisions that are so extreme that the Chronicle of Higher Ed is crying out, were made behind closed doors. It is strange that any parent would prefer opacity over transparency.

Part of why I chose CUA was because of the great faculty, along with being able to participate in athletics. If CUA moves along with this proposed agenda, while all of the administrations salaries still remain high, and they choose to release faculty, it contradicts the mission of this institution.

I am a faculty felt compelled to say one analogy. CUA is a patient with tumor (look at the expansion of vice/assistant presidents and vice/associate provosts in last several years!) and under the flu (failing performance by mismanagement for low enrollment), but now we are scheduled for open body surgery to disarm body parts (firing tenured and tenured-track faculty) but not treating the cancer. Can the patient survive???

The salaries paid to CUA top administrators is egregious. Why isn’t a reduction in administrative salaries part of the plan?

According to the administration, the budget of the next FY will be balanced with the elimination of 35 faculty: 21 through early-retirement and 14 through involuntary dismissals. Currently, the university is seeking 16 professors (https://provost.cua.edu//positions.cfm) with the majority of the positions being tenured-track. Has anyone inquired why the administration is hiring new faculty at this rate amidst a budget deficit? How do they plan to fund these positions? Are all of them necessary? If the faculty elimination does not take place because of budgetary issues, what other reasons may exist for it? Maybe the answer can be found in the President Garvey’s words in his keynote address in the recent Humanae Vitae conference: “For my money, the most important sentence in Ex Corde Ecclesiae and in the application is the one that says that Catholic universities ought to have on their faculty a majority of Catholics committed to the witness of the faith.”

I have heard students over the last few years say some version of “If I had known what it was actually like here, I wouldn’t have come.” That’s not the fault of some website.

As a CUA faculty member and the parent myself of a child soon bound for college, I sympathize! Let me say two things by way of explanation:

1. The Faculty here are committed to giving your children the best education we possibly can. Our devotion to our students will never waver.

2. As to why we’re doing this now, and doing it publicly: please understand that the administration chose the timetable. They dropped this plan on us two months ago (during spring break!), and are demanding that the Senate approve it in the next week. They’re refusing to listen to input internally or to provide more time for review. They’re refusing even to correct obvious factual mistakes in the data on which the plan is based. This was a last resort, adopted when all other means were exhausted.

Thank you for creating this website. I hope many of our colleagues will express their judgments on the deplorable situation in which we find ourselves. Morale has never been at such a low level.

I saw the storm warnings become more menacing when President Garvey was re-appointed without any faculty consultation or, if there had been, it was secretive.
Please keep the conversation going!

The Academic Renewal Plan is the latest in a series of spins that the Administration has presented to divert attention from the University’s other significant issues, including failed leadership, decreasing enrollment, weak fundraising, deferred maintainence of facilities, and, perhaps, fiscal mismanagement.

The Plan, if implemented, posits that the Catholic University will become a global research university. Without a diverse population that supports the free expression of ideas, without a well-funded University Libraries, without a robust infrastructure (Human Resources, Technology Services, etc.), without shared governance, without a creative and committed enrollment plan, without fundraising benchmarks, without fair and equal support for faculty research across disciplines, the Plan will not succeed in its stated mission.

To date, the Plan and the way in which it has been introduced (lacking supporting data, limiting substantive discussion to a few hour-long sessions at the busy, end of the semester, and requiring quick turnaround for any questions or critiques) to the campus as a fait accomplii under the advice of consultants, has resulted in low morale and a hostile environment.

I share the belief of others that the Plan does not make sense. Where is the monetary savings, if the 35 faculty– voluntarily or involuntarily separated from employment at the University–will continue to be paid full salary with benefits for 18 months? The faculty who remain will need to take on additional responsibilities and/or adjuncts will need to be hired in order to offer the same courses and programs and faculty research time will, inevitably, be impacted;doesn’t this undermine one of the Plan’s goals to transform the University into a global research institution? Why has the University withheld the data that has been requested by various Academic Senate committees?

Accountability and responsibility lies with leadership. A starting place for “fixing” what is wrong in the University is looking there.

I spent a minor fortune on my CUA education which, as I later learned, was clearly superior to that obtained by many of my colleagues who attended vaunted Ivy institutions. Credit goes to CUA’s exceptional and superbly dedicated faculty.

Unfortunately, the marketplace value of my degree has been impaired by what is aptly described as CUA’s low-energy image and its luke-warm lip service to academic freedom and tenure.

At times, honest and harsh self-assessment is needed. CUA’s reputation, both in and out of academic circles, is that of a stodgy, mediocre, overpriced third-tier institution. Their is good reason to be concerned about the University’s ability to “hold its own” in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

From the vantage point of a self-exiled observer, CUA’s academic reputation is stuck in an unhealthy rut. Three decades after the second firing of Fr. Curran, CUA still hasn’t found the balance necessary to be both an exceptional Catholic institution and an exceptional educational institution. Such a balance is not only possible, it is vital to the University’s future. The failure to achieve the balance rests entirely with CUA leadership.

The communities which matter most to many graduates and institutional recruiters (i.e., employers and academia) tend to know little about CUA, or they tend to harbor poor conceptions of the University fed by years of low, almost stealth visibility punctuated by periodic bursts of negative publicity. Responsibility for the University’s failure to reform its public image (an image which hampers its ability to recruit students and faculty), rests entirely with CUA leadership.

If CUA is to fulfill its mission statement, it has to do better. “Better” doesn’t start with gut-punching already low institutional moral, further harming the University’s ability to recruit/retain top-notch faculty, or giving the shrinking pool of qualified students more reason to look elsewhere.

A better approach would be to reduce salaries of top administrators and offer those same administrators incentives to recover the reductions (and more) by returning the University to a sound financial footing without further harming the University’s reputation by separating tenured faculty.

If the salary reductions are not sufficient, the Board should look to loans to bridge the gap while the University commits resources to reform its image from lack-luster, urban campus, to national center for training diverse, ethical future leaders who will return to their communities with the goal of improving the quality of life for other.

I’m extremely upset that the day my child committed to this University you put this website up. So now it’s too late to go back to any of the other choices she has declined, given it is now April 30th. I now feel like we have made a terrible decision choosing CUA based on this website, and am going to likely spend the next year preparing her to transfer out, based on the grim picture this site paints of the school. This is the last thing we needed to see after celebrating a very difficult decision to choose a college. Feels like we’ve fallen for a scam.

Applicants actually should know that CU is not a place that makes much room for open discussion, especially where any criticism of the administration is concerned. Critics are tracked and subject to retaliation. This kind of forum is more of a last ditch effort to prompt freer discussion, one that has been necessitated by the administration’s own communication and management style. In harmony with the mission of CU, this is about getting at the truth. It is the case that this risks some immediate negative consequences, but it actually demonstrates the commitment of the faculty to teaching and serving students–the very reason the university exists in the first place. The actions of the administration, unfortunately, stand to do both short-term AND long-term harm.

Amen. This is a vendetta by disgruntled former administrators against the current administration. While some of the complaints here are perfectly justified, the site admins are ensuring that further harm will come to CUA, making their dire prophecies self-fulfilling.

Well have the open discussion within the university community, not a public forum that high school seniors can find with one Google search and deter them from applying.

My concern with this website, which is public, is that it will do more harm than good to current students and deter future students from choosing CUA due to the issues you outline. I have a child graduating this year and one starting in the fall. This was posted on the CUA 2022 Facebook page and I have to tell you, I immediately said to my child that maybe he should pick another school. If you have a problem with CUA or President Garvey keep it in house or you will hurt enrollment as much as the perceived issues you mentioned above. This will prove more damaging than the internal workings of the university.

A serious problem with the structure of the university is that, unlike at most prestigious universities, the faculty at CU are FORBIDDEN to speak with Board members without permission of the President. The have a quite filtered understanding of the actual state of the institution.

Evidence points to the opposite, and this evidence has been presented to the Senate. Every competitor has an increase in students except for Catholic University. The premise for removal of tenure at the university begins with false data.

I am deeply grateful for all the thoughtful work that has gone into this. I taught at CUA for nearly three decades, now Professor Emeritus. I’ve been troubled for many years by the management problems. Firing staff and faculty is a good way to destroy an institution. That should be obvious. Doing that while giving raises to the senior management is outrageous. Our fine university has been so damaged by pursuit of ideological objectives to the detriment of open inquiry and diversity. Time for a management overhaul.

Just some small cuts to the highest salaries would save the 3.5 million and result in no lowering of academic quality and output. Sounds like a win-win situation to me and every other faculty I have spokeb with.

Most of the faculty at Catholic are paid between $30,000 – 49,000, which is hardly a living wage in DC and the surrounding affluent suburbs. If these are indeed desperate times in the budget, it is time for the administration to suffer along with faculty instead of further lining their

I’m disappointed in the lack of critical thinking in this website. You rail against administration and call for heads on spikes. Yet, you offer no solutions despite all faculty knowing we are in an era of serious decline in the demographics of college bound teens. 18 years ago, enough children weren’t born to sustain all the universities now competing for their matriculation. What is the correct size for our faculty? Should we completely ignore the downward trend in national demographics? Should we ignore the realities that private institutions of higher ed must right-size or be doomed? We are far too large a university for the number of students we educate. And we are far too strained in our resources because of our outsized faculty. Academic renewal is about retargeting those precious resources to give our faculty the tools to compete on the global stage. Borrowing from the endowment, running a deficit, and hoping for a miracle in enrollments is no way to run a top class university. I applaud our administrators for “biting the bullet” and doing what is tough. It’s why they get paid the not so big bucks (compare them to other provost and presidents). You write of collaboration. Where is your collaboration? All I see are stones flying. I also see the not so thinly veiled assault on Catholic identity, while standing behind a smokescreen of Catholic identity.

Whatever may be at the root of the proposal, “academic renewal” is not it. There are plans for cuts, not for initiatives. I see nothing that is bold, innovative, or forward-thinking. It is a plan for academic stagnation, or even decline.

These cuts will not benefit either the school or the students. If they are being made at the behest of outside parties—e.g., in return for donations to favored causes—then the outside parties may be exposing themselves to lawsuits for tortious interference.

The implication in this exercise is that a $225 million budget is in deficit by $3.5 million and the only remedy is termination of employment of 35 faculty. For all the reasons cited elsewhere in these postings, these terminations are at an extremely high moral price to solve a problem that is less than 2% of the budget. It is incredible that $3.5 million of excesses cannot be lurking elsewhere in the university’s expenses with or without some of the blood of its excessive senior management. This matter cannot be all about the money. There must be another agenda being served.

If the university is compelled to act more like a business, it should understand that the terminations compromise its customers. Students and parents will be delivered less than full value for the tuition they pay, and THAT is all about the money.

As a CUA alumnus, it is highly discouraging and heartbreaking to see that a university I spent four years at is failing so tremendously. During the four years as a student at the School of Architecture and Planning, I saw the favoritism of schools that were misplaced and that the Architecture department suffered greatly from. Long-term professors who came from esteemed backgrounds left in favor of Howard University and other universities in the DMV, and at the middle of the year, our advisors were let go due to budget cuts. The infrastructure of Crough was and is falling apart and many times it was embarrassing to go into the building because of the cracked walls and falling debris. The School of Architecture is the result of bad management and I pray that as we begin to move forward to saving CUA that this school will not be forgotten.

As a CUA faculty I must say that, beyond what the document says, there is an incredibly low morale among faculty and staff. You feel it all over campus! If this is bad as it is, I can’t imagine what it will be like if the ‘academic renewal proposal’ takes effect. The down spiral will be unavoidable and bring along recruitment which will make things worse, and there you go again! Who wants to join a place shrinking and full of negativity? Additionally, there has been of total breach of trust between upper administration and the rest of the community. The executive leadership doesn’t seem to listen or care about what we, the people with expertise in teaching and research, have to say. Perhaps most debilitating is the hypocrisy between the actions being taken and where the Catholic teaching of the Church tells us where we ought to go.

May God help The Catholic University of America.

Very enlightening, clearly the correlation to the downward trend in enrollment occurred with President Garvey coming to the helm. How can a group tasked with maintaining the well being of the university ignore this obvious connection? It is time for a new direction President Garvey took the university in the wrong direction (while pocketing more and more money) and the data proves it.

Local area college presidents’ salaries are listed in this article: https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2017/06/29/here-s-how-much-d-c-area-university-presidents-are.html
I don’t think we should be firing faculty but I also don’t think President Garvey’s salary is out of line.

The most telling page is this one:

https://savecatholic.com/financial-data/

How dare the president, provost, and other executive administrators suggest firing full-time faculty to “save money” when their own salaries, combined, have raised 54% since just 2009?

Meanwhile, for years the same administrators have pretended that there is a “salary freeze” and provided almost no raises to any staff.

It’s interesting how in the “academic renewal plan,” which is more like an “academic reduction” or “academic purge,” these administrators never considered for a second how much money we could save – and lay-offs we would avoid – if they took a simple pay cut for a few years. They never contemplated for a second whether they should suffer along with the rest of the professors, most of who have been just barely hanging on.

It appears the rules don’t apply to this administration. The only way to make them apply to all is to strike, unionize, or organize another collective action that shows these administrators that we, the faculty, are the heart and blood of this university; we can bring its life to a halt if need be. Without us, there is no service to provide. We have been sucked nearly dry for the past decade and can’t take it anymore.

As a professor, I have heard directly or overheard more than a dozen of my students talk about transferring to other universities at the end of next year. Students are particularly outraged and disgusted by cuts to the political science, anthropology, modern languages, and media studies programs. These are some of the most popular programs on campus. Many of the classes offered in these departments already have significant waitlists that prevent students from being able to take their required courses. These and many other departments need more faculty and support, not less. They are already operating on shoestring budgets with an insufficient number of teaching and research faculty.

This “academic renewal” will not only destroy the fabric of academia at the Catholic University as we know it, but it will cause a huge outflow of students and deter future recruitment efforts. It is a disaster waiting to happen, on the brink of being realized. If professors and students don’t join efforts to do something about it now, then we are doomed.

Once even one tenured professor is fired, tenure will effectively have been removed from the university.

Once tenure is removed, we will lose our accreditation as a research university.

Once accreditation is lost, our graduate students will be unable to find jobs at reputable schools.

I argue in favor of remembering what’s required to promote student flourishing, and investing in the university’s legacy.

Thank you for this initiative; it is long overdue. It is heartbreaking,
CUA needs an ombudsman to investigate President Garvey for financial mismanagement and abuse of power.
Can he be sued?

Three years ago, a jury found CUA and a Dean guilty of harassment. This is in the public record. President Garvey continues to endorse an inept, abusive, sycophant and to dismiss the jury’s decision. He has shown no respect for the law.

The current financial distress offers a convenient justification for regime change.
Under Garvey, CUA has become an intolerant Inquisition. There is no freedom of speech and no room for dissent

President Garvey has been reappointed by the Board of Trustees.
Good luck.

Attacking tenured faculty and embracing a culture of “temps” aka adjuncts and visiting positions is not unique to CUA, but it is uniquely bad. An institution whose mission is led by spiritual principles needs to operate with a moral center. After seeing CU’s magazine the last decade, I’ve been appalled by Garvey’s subtle and polished tilt to right wing politics (& I assume donors) which seems to be his comfort zone. CU was literally transformative for me during the Pres. Byron years because, not in spite of, its radical Catholic identity. Part of that was tension among competing “camps”, as well as the institutional Church, but there was a conversation happening. Thanks for those with the courage to do this. If you created an alternate fundraising structure, I’m sure many of us would support you!

Teaching faculty and staff, including graduate students, should be allow to unionize and undergraduate students need to be paid higher wages, including some form of compensation for RAs. Furthermore, the university’s free speech and expression policies should change to invite any speaker or discuss any topic or issue on campus. Equal funding for all student organizations too.

What a God-send, this website. Keep up the good work.

It appears that the chief administrators of the Catholic University of America are giving priority to personal profit and the corporatization of education. This is reprehensible and contrary to the historic way CUA has been operated. The salaries of president John Garvey and the other administrators whose salaries have skyrocketed should be immediately reduced to their 1986 levels. They should not be raised again until they have reaffirmed their commitment to not destroying the academic integrity of the university and to not attempting to destroy tenure. I do not want the university where I earned my Ph.D. to turn into a shadow of what it has been throughout its remarkable history.

We need a capital campaign that raises non-earmarked funds for improved infrastructure and faculty support. Other schools do this pretty routinely.