Yesterday afternoon, Ohio University administrators released a proposal for faculty and staff buyouts in order to fill next year's budget hole.
About 1,119 OU employees are eligible for the buyout. Of those employees, OU officials expect 20 to 22 percent to take one of the proposed options. If the expected number opt for the buyout, Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding projected the up-front cost to be about $9.7 million.
The university has purported a stance of maintaining academic quality while taking measures to control spending. But the loss of a few hundred experienced employees would be seriously detrimental to academic quality.
Even worse is the possibility that a higher percentage than anticipated could take the buyout plan should the Board of Trustees approve it during its meeting this Friday. If that occurs, the university could not prevent a degradation of academic quality.
In order to fill some of the possible vacancies, OU plans to bring in professors despite the current hiring freeze. Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit said that although the new faculty members would have lower seniority, that does not mean they would be unqualified.
Though Benoit's statement rings true, those teachers might still be inexperienced. By replacing veteran employees with newer ones, the academic quality will assuredly deteriorate. New instructors would not have years of student feedback on what works and what does not.
On top of that, the university is seeking to increase enrollment. More students will burden those employees left after buyouts. Bigger classes mean less individual attention and more work for teachers.
Benoit and Golding stressed the silver lining in a letter to the Board of Trustees.
"While departures of personnel under these programs will pose challenges, they will also introduce opportunities for faculty and staff to exercise creativity in how we teach our students and carry out our operations," they wrote.
Although Golding and Benoit may downplay the likely problems, students are the ones who will have to deal with the repercussions.
Editorials represent the majority view of The Post's executive editors.
