Chancellor Kent Syverud responded to criticism of Syracuse University’s layoff process at an open University Senate forum Wednesday.

Last summer, nearly 200 SU community members signed a petition criticizing the university’s restructuring of the Division of Marketing and Communications. Eric Kingson, a professor of social work, said at Wednesday’s forum that long-time staff members were either laid off or forced to apply for another position as a result of the restructuring.

“Faithful employees for many years were laid off rather unpleasantly,” Kingson said.

He asked what the university could do for employees who lost health care and tuition benefits for their children when they were laid off.

Syverud said he would look into possibly returning benefits to those staff members. The restructuring was necessary because the university needed different marketing and better internal communications, but the way it was handled was wrong, he said.

“That’s one thing I learned that should not be repeated,” Syverud said. “People who have worked here a long time deserve a lot of respect.”

Syverud said many staff members stay at the university because of benefits, including those for their children’s tuition, which makes it “particularly cruel” when those benefits are taken away from a long-time employee.

The chancellor said he does not want staff members who have spent most of their careers at SU to feel they “could put the wrong word on the application and then it’s all over.”

In 2015, the university offered buyouts to employees whose combined age and years of service were higher than 65. Ultimately, 254 staffers left SU through the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program, which was intended to help cut costs.

At the Wednesday forum, SU community members were able to ask questions on any topic to both Syverud and Vice Chancellor and Provost Michele Wheatly. Staff layoffs was just one of several issues discussed at the meeting.

Janice Dowell, a professor of philosophy, asked Syverud if the university’s Board of Trustees could be more transparent in its decision-making process about SU’s divestment from for-profit prisons. She also asked if Syverud was confident that the Board can make fair decisions when there are conflicts of interests, such as a trustee being involved with a for-profit company.

“The current method by which we arrive at such decisions and broadcast such decisions are so shrouded in secrecy that we really haven’t reached that standard of transparency that we as a university community would want,” Dowell said.

Syverud said the Board oversees the management of the endowment with assistance from the Office of the Treasurer, and the chief financial officer, who’s currently Amir Rahnamay-Azar. The endowment was $1.3 billion for fiscal year 2017, according to an SU financial report.

“In this case, the board has established very fair policies both for socially responsible investing and conflicts of interests,” Syverud said.

In March 2017, the Senate called on SU to promise not to invest the university endowment in for-profit prisons. SU’s Student Association and Graduate Student Organization also called on SU to commit to divestment.

Syverud announced in September 2018 that the board would not make a commitment to divesting from for-profit prisons. He said in a letter to Dowell at the time that the university does not currently have any investments in for-profit prisons or their suppliers.

At Wednesday’s forum, the chancellor said he has been monitoring the endowment to ensure that his statement is still true. Syverud also said the Board considers socially-responsible investment more than the maximization of profit.

Obi Afriyie, a graduate student and senator, spoke after Dowell. Afriyie, who also attended SU as an undergraduate student, said he has seen a “disproportionate amount of resources” given to undergraduates.

He said the university has put efforts into revising the first-year experience for undergraduates without addressing that graduate students don’t receive any first-year forum. Many graduate students didn’t attend SU as an undergraduate, and the university has a large international student population, he added.

Graduate students need resources to help them figure out how to get summer research stipends, how to file their taxes and where to vote, Afriyie said. He also said graduate students were not notified about the Feb. 18 forum where administrators addressed students’ concerns about the assault of three students along Ackerman Avenue.

“I see so much focus being put on undergraduate students, who are very important, but I don’t see why that means graduate students have to suffer,” he said.

Syverud said during his 16 years as a law school dean, he noticed that administrators often forgot about graduate students. Staff and administrators focus on undergraduate students because they represent the majority of students, he said.

The chancellor also said SU rarely discusses the experiences of transfer students and part-time faculty.

“The tendency is to immediately go to the subset of the population you’re familiar with and forget how broad this university is,” he said.

Wheatly said SU has tried to address major concerns of graduate students in the past few years, including housing, health care and child care benefits.

“There’s a lot of student experience things that sometimes fall through the cracks … we address the issue for undergraduates and forget that graduate students need a seat at the table,” Syverud said. “We’ll work on that.”

Published on February 27, 2019 at 9:55 pm

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