Florida State University will layoff as many as 200 faculty and staff members, including 25 tenured professors.
 
The layoffs are part of $56.6 million that will be cut from FSU by June by the Board of Trustees and the Florida State Budget Crisis Committee.

Other schools have made similar cuts, but to a smaller extent. The University of Florida has reportedly let go 20 faculty members. The University of Central Florida has left vacant positions unfilled and drawn on savings as an alternative to cutting further programs and job positions.
 
The faculty union is calling these layoffs a breach of contract, and is considering legal action.

“Across the whole State University System, everyone was faced with the same budget cutbacks,” said Philip Froelich, a tenured professor of oceanography. “Yet FSU is the only one to fire more than just one or two tenured faculty, so there’s something really wrong with how it was done here.”
 
Froelich is one of the five faculty members in his department to receive a layoff notice. He was shocked to learn that three of the five faculty members were tenure-track professors.
 
“Something’s really wrong when you bring in highly recruited junior faculty on a tenure-track line and the unwritten rule is they’ve got six years to prove themselves to make tenure, but then you fire them six months later,” Froelich said.
 
Other departments such as the English department have lost a number of full-time teaching positions. Consequently, class sizes are expanding and faculty morale is low.

Eric Walker, president of the Faculty Senate and assistant professor of English, said he repeatedly warned the Board of Trustees that laying off so many tenured faculty members was unprecedented and would attract negative attention nationally and internationally.
 
Froelich added that the layoffs have “torn the fabric of the faculty,” will compromise students’ education, and breed mistrust. According to Austin Todd, a graduate research assistant in oceanography, many learned about the school's cost-cutting measures from the local newspaper before the administration.
 
The administration has even resorted to merging departments. Geology, oceanography, and anthropology will be combined into an Earth and Atmospheric Sciences unit. Todd said that students are now worried about the reputability of their respective departments and its effect on their degrees.
 
However, Assistant English Professor Ned Stuckey-French believes there is hope. He said that students, administrators, faculty, staff, and alumni must work together to pressure the Governor and Florida Legislature to do what is right, and defend higher education.

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