Central State sends layoff notices to professors

Genevieve Ritchie-Ewing, the president of the Central State chapter of the American Association of University Professors and CSU associate professor of sociology and anthropology, said this means the university will have lost a total of 36 faculty within the last three years.

Central State’s Board of Trustees approved a plan to cut staff in early February. University administrators say these layoffs are coming from a combination of financial struggles the university is facing and a need to align faculty with what students are majoring in.

Ritchie-Ewing said there are about 109 faculty at Central State, but some of those faculty are on one-year contracts, she said.

She said it puts a bigger burden on all faculty when there are fewer, especially at a small university like CSU.

Erin Smith Glenn, an associate professor of art, was one of the people who received a letter of layoff. Smith Glenn, just three days earlier, was approved by the Faculty Senate as a full professor before she received a layoff notice.

“The stress I have endured at this institution that I love is so paramount that I have developed a whole series of works based on mental health,” Smith Glenn said.

She worried about the future of the program and said the art program has been growing in the past few years.

Last year, 33 staff members and seven faculty members were cut as part of a cost-savings measure.

Morakinyo A.O. Kuti, the CSU president, said during a February board meeting that almost half of faculty are teaching in “low-enrolled programs,” and 29% of faculty members are teaching in “sustainable programs.”

Under Ohio’s Senate Bill 1, passed last year, all Ohio public universities must review their programs and eliminate those that have had fewer than five graduates per year over a three-year period.

The majors that had produced fewer than 15 graduates over three years were:

Central State did not immediately respond to a request for comment.