financial exigency

Financial Exigency, Academic Governance, and Related Matters

Report discussing  AAUP policies concerning the role of the faculty in budgeting in good times and when an institution must deal with a financial crisis.

Understanding Institutional Finances

Learn what role faculty can play in budgetary matters and how to obtain the necessary data.

Organizing the Faculty Response

Learn what a an AAUP chapter can do, how to engage the faculty and the media, how to deal with legislators, and how to use collective bargaining to combat financial exigency claims

Faculty Handbook Policies, Budget Committees, and Budget Principles

These samples comport with AAUP recommended standards as set forth in the Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure, Regulation 4c.  

Accounting Guidelines for Analysis of Financial Exigency

A comprehensive analysis of the financial condition of the organization is required in order to determine if an institution is in financial exigency. This must entail much more than a simple cash flow projection for the next few months. Though cash flows are certainly important, the conclusion of financial exigency is a major condition affecting the lives of numerous people. It must be made with care. Numerous metrics are described.

Review of Policies on Financial Exigency and Program Discontinuance

 Faced with a flood of program closings and terminations, the AAUP has established a subcommittee to review policies.

On Institutional Problems Resulting from Financial Exigency: Some Operating Guidelines

Report discussing role of faculty and best practices in determining where reductions should be made in times of financial exigency.

The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency

A report making recommendations on the faculty's role in financial exigency and proposing revisions to the AAUP's Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Program closures on the scale we have recently witnessed represent a massive transfer of power from the faculty to the administration over curricular matters that affect the educational missions of institutions, for which the faculty should always bear the primary responsibility. Increasingly, administrators are making budgetary decisions that profoundly affect the curricula and the educational missions of their institutions; rarely are those decisions recognized as decisions about the curriculum, even though the elimination of entire programs of study (ostensibly for financial reasons) has obvious implications for the curricular range and the academic integrity of any university.

Financial Exigency, Program Closures, and Faculty Layoffs

At its fall 2012 meeting, Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure approved publication of a draft report on program closures and resulting terminations of faculty appointments on grounds of financial exigency. The report, The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency, finds that recent program closures represent a massive transfer of power from faculty to administration over curricular matters for which the faculty should bear the primary responsibility.

Subscribe to financial exigency