BATON ROUGE La. – The Southern University Faculty Senate has voted to oppose a proposed agreement to voluntarily accept furloughs and shorter job termination notices.
The Advocate reports ( https://bit.ly/nRMCrY) the vote came a day after new Southern Chancellor James Llorens said he “likely” will ask to declare a financial emergency next week unless nearly the entire faculty voted to agree to the two key requests.
Declaring a financial emergency, called exigency, allows the administration more leeway to lay off tenured faculty and axe academic programs.
“We’re standing the line on both of those,” Llorens said again Thursday, before hosting a faculty forum to discuss their concerns.
“I wanted to avoid any type of financial emergency at all costs. It is the last choice. It’s the last resort. But that’s where we stand,” Llorens said at the forum after the Faculty Senate vote.
Llorens said he understands faculty frustrations and joked that he was told he should get a bodyguard on campus.
After the vote, Southern Faculty Senate President Sudhir Trivedi said more cuts can be made in administrative expenses and that the maximum $2.2 million that could be saved through furloughs should not be the dividing line on declaring exigency.
