Course Cuts and Faculty Layoffs Threaten Student Success and U-M Dearborn’s Future
Dearborn Campus LEO Communications Committee Dearborn Campus LEO Communications Committee

Course Cuts and Faculty Layoffs Threaten Student Success and U-M Dearborn’s Future

UM-D faculty and students are facing unprecedented course size increases, course cuts, and section consolidations, resulting in full and partial layoffs of LEO non-tenure track faculty just weeks before the start of the Winter semester. Another round of course cancellations and layoffs is expected in early December. Changes, implemented by the Dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters (CASL) without warning or faculty input, have bypassed established faculty governance, ignored the Union contract, and hurt students. 

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Dearborn Faculty Congress rejects proposal to add a voting lecturer seat to Faculty senate
Dearborn Campus LEO Communications Committee Dearborn Campus LEO Communications Committee

Dearborn Faculty Congress rejects proposal to add a voting lecturer seat to Faculty senate

On March 29 on the Dearborn campus, all governing faculty were invited to attend the Faculty Congress meeting via Zoom, and vote on a number of bylaws proposals. One Proposal, in particular, was important to the recognition of lecturers as members of the faculty, and for expanding voting rights to eligible lecturers. The proposal sought to add one seat to the Faculty Senate for a governing-eligible Lecturer to also be able to vote as an elected Senate member.

Unfortunately, the proposal did not pass (50 Yes votes and 64 No votes with 3 abstentions), but it has opened a conversation about lecturer governance on campus that we haven’t seen previously. And although only 117 faculty were in the meeting to vote, out of over 300 governing faculty, it was nonetheless historic in terms of attendance at a Faculty Congress meeting. So the failure of the proposal also marks an important potential for lecturers and Tenure-Track (TT) faculty to move further in conversation about Dearborn campus and UM-wide issues.

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