According to a November 19, 2013 letter issued by AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum, Albany Law School's "administration and governing board have announced that, because of serious financial difficulties, notifications of faculty layoffs will be issued shortly."
The newly-formed AAUP chapter at Albany certainly disagrees that "financial exigency" exists. In a letter dated January 11, 2014, that group states (here):
The Chapter maintains that there is no showing of a bona fide institutional financial exigency or of individual faculty incompetence. Accordingly, no justification for faculty terminations exists. Since no faculty terminations are justified, the Chapter takes no position on what the order of layoffs would be if terminations were warranted under a state of financial exigency. In the absence of evidence of anything remotely resembling a bona fide financial exigency, firing any faculty member would depart from nationally accepted standards of law school governance.
The Albany Law School Chapter of the AAUP has made various documents available here. This situation will be one to watch.
The financial data looks good: http://alsaaup.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/bunsis-financial-analysis.pdf
Didn't this blog report that Albany was in sound financial shape quite recently?
Yup, right here Dan Filler reported that Albany was stable: http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/12/sp-issues-negative-report-on-free-standing-law-schools.html
Contradictory data here: http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/12/sp-issues-negative-report-on-free-standing-law-schools.html
"Albany is stable."
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/sp_revises_outlook_for_albany_law_school_citing_enrollment_drop/
I wonder if Albany Law will pass some of their fired law prof savings onto their students and shave a couple bucks off their $43,248/year tuition.
http://www.albanylaw.edu/admissions/Pages/profile.aspx
A tuition cut may help their dwindling enrollment numbers:
2010: 236
2011: 235
2012: 196
2013: 187
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=albany
http://www.albanylaw.edu/admissions/Pages/profile.aspx
There is no financial exigency at Albany Law School. According to analyses done by the law school’s own faculty budget committee and an examination of public records by an independent expert, Dr. Howard Bunsis (C.P.A., J.D., M.B.A., Ph.D), the law school is in very strong financial condition. In fact, Dr. Bunsis found that the law school’s primary reserve ratio (the most important piece of data describing the financial health of an institution), is “off the charts high and healthy.” The law school has significant strategic reserves, low debt, and several years of profit. In addition, Standard & Poor’s credit agency rated the Law School as having a “stable” financial outlook due to its "still-strong financial resources" and "positive operating surpluses" (see Standard and Poor’s Dec. 5, 2013 Credit Analysis of Independent Law Schools).
Are there a bunch of folks on the Albany faculty that are deemed "expendable"?
As Paul Campos cogently suggested, "financial exigency" may be the AAUP's standard for firing of tenured faculty, but it is not necessarily Albany Law's. "Financial difficulties" might just mean they are losing money, and they suspect they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, so want to get ahead of that problem now, particularly since it is likely it will accelerate. Does anyone actually know what the actual contracts or university policies say regarding faculty firings?
According to the independent expert, only a third of total expenses are spent on instructional faculty. So why is the faculty being targeted for layoffs anyway? Even though the administrative budget looks rather bloated, the law school is still doing very well financially.
Also, apparently Albany's class size has effectively been halved in the past four years. Logically, you will need a lot fewer professors to teach a smaller class; I hope nobody here is suggesting that the position of law professor should become a sinecure?
Academic Freedom, the "independent expert" who prepared the report is the Chair of the AAUP Collective Bargaining Conference. Doesn't mean he's wrong but it sure means he's not independent.
There are far less draconian ways of addressing reductions in applications than firing faculty. Normal attrition works well. Buyouts might help. Implementing a hiring freeze is a common response. Getting rid of unnecessary administrative positions is an idea. Having deans and associate deans teach classes (if they don't already) might be of assistance. Robust and effective fund-raising efforts might bring some relief. Temporarily tapping into over-sized reserves should be considered – after all, a fluctuation in enrollment is one reason law schools have unrestricted reserves in the first place. Also, in order to make an informed assessment of appropriate faculty size, one would have to know something about how many professors have left/retired since enrollment figures have decreased. It would be a sign of incredible administrative ineptitude were the law school to be left with too few faculty members to provide the kind of education to which its students are entitled. And importantly, without a bona fide faculty exigency, firing faculty members whether tenured or not would no doubt require a law school to breach contractual promises. Clearly a law school should not run afoul of the very laws that it teaches students to respect and uphold.
Could this be a harbinger of tensions between law professors and administrators? Maybe it's already (been) occurring, but kept confidential up to this point.
Hey Academic Freedom, you know what else could be done besides firing faculty? Cutting the outrageous faculty salaries. The admin could cut faculty salaries in half and not one professor would leave.
Academic Freedom fails to acknowledge that the so-called independent financial expert is a hired gun for the AAUP who is trotted out with the same responses when schools are threatening to cut faculty.
Academic Freedom:
I don't think you understand the situation; the law school is intentionally shrinking its classes, which is frankly a prudent move that more schools should carry out. It is neither rational nor ethical to keep professors on the payroll who are not actually needed to teach, if you do not plan on raising class sizes anytime in the foreseeable future.
It would be misusing tenure to protect those redundant faculty. Tenure was created to protect teachers from job loss due to school politics, or because they expressed unpopular views. All tenure mandates is that a professor cannot be fired without cause and due process. If the school is becoming one that does not need as many professors as it employs, it is entitled to fire some as long as those firing decisions are carried out through a transparent, defensible process.
It is especially egregious to keep underworked faculty on simply because they think they are entitled to indefinite employment, when students are paying enormous tuition to attend.
Apparently the number of faculty members has shrunk by more than 20% over the past two years and several more are now on phased retirement. If faculty salaries and benefits account for only a third of the budget anyway, it is unclear why Albany Law School would resort to such extreme measures, apparently including threatening to fire tenured faculty without cause or financial exigency. In anticipation of lower enrollment, a hiring freeze, attrition and buyouts of senior faculty would seem to be the more prudent approach and would not result in nasty litigation.
Again, perplexed, I just don't think letting go of unneeded faculty is "extreme." It's what happens in every other enterprise, both for-profit and non-profit. Tenure is not some mystical higher power, it's just a way to offer a certain minimum protection but universities are not required to keep people on the payroll just because they are financially able to.
Perplexed – Why buy-out senior faculty who are productive and not the deadwood?
It is extreme in any context to threaten to break contracts and fire faculty without cause or financial exigency. Period. As for buyouts, no one is obliged to take one, and they could be offered to anyone. And who says the faculty to be fired are unneeded or deadwood? If the law school can't demonstrate either cause or financial exigency but won't wait for normal attrition (already well underway) then this would appear to be about something else.
TWBB I agree that tenure protects faculty members from dismissals without cause and due process. That's exactly right. Just cause requires universities to establish legitimate grounds for dismissal – financial exigency would be a valid ground. But again, it appears that Albany Law School is not in a situation of financial exigency. If it argues otherwise, then it must prove it and not use bogus financial concerns as a pretext for firing faculty. There are effective ways of dealing with anticipated lower enrollment (whether lower enrollment is by design or not) that would not require breaches of contract, lawsuits, and bad publicity. And to be clear, if a tenured faculty member is satisfactorily performing his or her duties (i.e. there is no "just cause"), then whether you like it or not, a university IS required to keep that person on the payroll if it is financially able to do so.
Remember, "financial exigency" is a requirement that the AUUP has tried to put on universities, but that's just because the AUUP's job is to attempt to maximize the privileges enjoyed by its members. I don't think anyone would argue that every single one of a union's demands should be automatically met.
As uncomfortable as this fact makes law professors, downsizing a department has long been established as just cause to eliminate even tenured positions. The idea that someone is entitled to be paid even if their position is no longer needed is a little bizarre, and I think there are very few courts that will order schools to support a faculty twice as large as is needed for the student body because of "tenure."
As for breaching contracts, I would be surprised if the vast majority of law professor contracts did not contain a clause allowing termination in the case of financial difficulty (not necessarily "exigency"). Anyway most law professors I would suspect have long adhered to the principle of efficient breach as lacking moral approbation would not suddenly reverse this position because they are personally disadvantaged by the notion?
I would imagine that most law school handbooks incorporate just cause/financial exigency language. If financial difficulties were the standard, then tenure would be meaningless… and I think that law professors would have noticed that a long time ago.
I'm sure whatever language they incorporate, it doesn't require law schools to run a perpetual loss and burn through their assets to support unnecessary faculty members for decades. And as a practitioner, I can pretty safely assure you that no court is going to require them to.
BTW, this was discussed over on Lawyers, Guns and Money (http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/01/albany-law-school-to-fire-tenured-faculty-based-on-merit-evaluations/comment-page-1#comment-901606).
A good case was made that Albany has moved from $3.5 million profit to $3 million losses, sufficient to burn through their reserves within three years.
Given that law school class sizes will not rise any time soon, it makes sense to cut now.
The AAUP document linked in comments appears to seriously understate the extent to which tuition revenues at the school are falling. It's possible to calculate precisely how much (pre-discount) tuition revenue Albany is getting in FY2014, and to make a close estimate of how much the school will bring in next academic year. The latter figure is likely to be around $5.3 million lower than the FY2012 figure. The AAUP document characterizes a $3.5 million decline in tuition between FY2012 and FY2014 as a worst case scenario, but this is actually a slight underestimate, and doesn't take into account that next year will likely feature another severe decline. (Applications to Albany have fallen by nearly half over the past two years).
This means the school is on the verge of running a substantial annual operating deficit. On the other hand:
(1) The percentage of Albany's operating revenue that goes to compensation for faculty seems to be lower than average. This suggests the operating budget is poorly managed.
(2) In that vein, per the hiring thread at Prawfs, Albany appears to have been interviewing at the meat market this fall. That seems like a remarkably poor decision under the circumstances.
(3) The board's suggestion that firing tenured faculty is on the table smacks of posturing, designed perhaps to squeeze a couple more buyouts out of the senior faculty.
The, or at least a recent, Albany Law School Faculty Handbook is at http://intra.albanylaw.edu/faculty/fac-handbook/Part-I.pdf It says, at 14, "A tenured faculty member may be dismissed only for adequate cause or financial exigency." There's more about cause and procedures, as well.
Assuming Campos' research into Albany's financials is correct:
1. Albany derives 85% of its revenue from tuition.
2. In 2009, Albany had a payroll of $18M and $35M in total revenues, but an operating surplus of only $3M. $30M of that revenue came from tuition. In 2012, Albany reported only $28M in tuition.
3. In 2009, Albany had a 1L class of 255; in 2013, it was 187. For unstated reasons, Campos believes that there will be about 50 fewer matriculants this fall than there were last year. In light of the overall decline in law school applications and Albany's status in the hierarchy of law schools, it doesn't seem implausible to assume.
4. Historically, Albany offered about a third of its students 50% discounts on tuition, and there will likely to be pressure to continue offering that many discounts or more to attract students to Albany over its competitors.
5. Albany will probably be operating a couple of million dollars in the red this year. While it has substantial assets ($90M in assets and $24M in liabilities), it is not clear how readily Albany can convert its assets to cash and thus cover an expected operating loss.
Albany Law may not be actually insolvent as yet, but I have a hard time understanding how the above does not constitute a state of financial exigency if true.
I'm going to guess that apart from any claim of financial exigency, there are likely many opportunities for the law school to remove people due to cause. It's regrettably a persistent problem that tenure is treated not as a safeguard of academic freedom but of laziness and incumbency. It's hard to account for 40 hours of work a week without engaging in scholarly publication, especially when a faculty member has been teaching the same courses for decades and prep is therefore not as demanding. Faculty salaries are typically the largest fixed cost of any law school, and this tenured faculty member would not shed many tears if the university decided to enforce the "for cause" provisions against laggards.
It doesn't seem that Albany's budget situation as based on the 2012 Form 990 is in extreme condition, but there's been significant deterioration since then. As a standalone university, Albany can not wait to be in as bad a situation as law schools that are part of a larger university. I think Paul Campos' conclusion, that this is being thrown out to the faculty as a first offer in order to make them accept some combination of pay cuts and retirements is the most likely explanation, as Seton Hall did when it said it would lay off untenured tenure track professors, then withdrew that threat after several senior faculty members agreed to retire.
Whether the faculty handbook is considered binding in a contractual sense is not necessarily a settled matter in New York. In this case, reliance may be misplaced because the introduction notes that "nothing in this handbook constitutes a contractual obligation solely because of its inclusion herein." It also notes that the trustees can change the manual.
I will also note that "financial exigencies" is not defined in the manual, but running a multimillion dollar loss with no relief seen in the future would likely qualify as a financial exigency.
Finally, I will note that the kind of extremist rhetoric utilized by the AAUP chapter here is exactly why so many of us in the legal field are fed up with the law professorate. The idea that faculty, many of them minimally qualified to teach law (a non-research degree like a JD and a year should have every single prerogative, privilege, perk, and advantage two decades of USN&WR gaming has got them in perpetuity undiminished, and that everyone else — administrative staff, students, taxpayers, alumni — should face the sacrifice to insure this, is profoundly abhorrent on an ethical and moral level. The kind of insular, echo chamber mentality in a lot of law schools is indicative that a lot of professors don't realize how they come off to everyone else, and are due for a rude awakening when they appeal for sympathy from the public or the courts.
Can someone explain in more detail the idea of 'buyouts' in a law school context? Obviously, faculty aren't equity partners in a business.
At the same time, to get them to leave if they're entitled (by tenure) to stay may sometimes require a carrots of sorts.
Are there any more nuances to the idea that this?
Are there constraints places on this idea by the non-profit status of schools or anything else?
"Buyouts" are like severance pay; just a way to get them out the door gracefully without causing the time and expense of litigation or endless administrative hearings.
perplexed – As for deadwood, how about those who don't publish, don't participate in any scholarship and are on the law school premises for a few hours a week? certainly even you would have to agree that is deadwood.
The predictable charge of AAUP extremism rings hollow. The AAUP standards do not require anything like maintaining "every prerogative, privilege, perk, and advantage" of academic employment. Recognizing the importance of academic freedom and the too-common assaults of administrations upon it, they simply insist that a university administration respect contracts and due process, and utilize every available means short of dismissal (notably hiring and salary freezes, attrition, or enticements to retire) to address bona fide financial crises. Many schools like Albany have had salary freezes in place for years (and did not have high salaries to begin with)–indeed as has been noted here and elsewhere, Albany devotes a smaller proportion of its budget to faculty salaries than most schools, suggesting administrative bloat rather than a pampered professoriate. Faculty associations often offer concessions such as reduction in benefits during these situations and may have at Albany too. And let's not forget that administrations control admissions numbers and can create their own financial crises if they choose to impose arbitrary admissions caps in a down admissions market. Where is Albany's dean in all this?
twbb – one might add those who practice law full time. If faculty rules define those failings as cause, and there is due process in establishing them in a particular case, then you've got cause. No one is disputing that faculty may be dismissed with cause.
Good question.
It's too bad that this situation has surfaced in such a manner. But it's time for this conversation. Let's make one thing clear: there is NO fiscal crisis at Albany Law School. There is a management crisis. This storm is about the Dean, not about the faculty, the finances, or the future. All of The "f-words" are just fine. Really.
Disclosure – I am not a faculty member – nor am I currently affiliated with the law school – but I have given money to the law school for decades, and I live in the region. I know many people in higher education in the region – including ALS alumni, board members and faculty. I've heard about all of this for months. It's time to set the record straight in an open, honest, thoughtful manner.
a) It is no secret that many law schools are having financial challenges. Fewer applicants = smaller pool of qualified applicants. Reducing the class size is smart. The school needs to maintain an academic standard and that was the right decision – made several years ago at Albany Law School. They have good faculty, good students, and by all measures – their graduates fare well in the marketplace and are well prepared for successful careers. Albany Law School (ALS) is not Harvard, but it's a good school and will remain so.
b) The conversation about "Financial Exigency" is a distraction. A distraction because it was never a viable option to solve a problem – but it has been floated, rumored and discussed. I suspect that this is because the Dean didn't know how to manage a faculty that didn't respond to her "command and control" leadership style and she saw no other arrows in her quiver.
What was the problem she was trying to solve? I think that she wanted to get rid of overpaid, "dead weight" and/or insubordinate tenured faculty.
Nobody would argue with this intention. Yes – one can argue with how certain faculty members might be identified for inclusion in these categories or even argue with WHO is characterized as meeting WHICH criteria for "overpaid," "dead weight" or "insubordinate." Such people exist in every institution – and it is well established in academia that this is an unintended consequence of the tenure tradition. When finances abound, a certain level of this is tolerated and even celebrated as maintaining the unique flavor of an academic institution. As finances become more carefully managed, it's a proclivity that no institution can afford. This is not unique to ALS. Students know it, faculty know it, and alumni know it. Some "culling" in this form is always a good thing, if done carefully and thoughtfully. Indeed – it can be done in a way that preserves the integrity of the individuals and by extension the institution. Every academic administration does this. It takes finesse, vision, and a clear definition of goals and criteria – so that the faculty understand how they are being measured. The last thing that a Dean wants is a group of paranoid faculty who don't feel that the administration understands them. Such a faculty will race for greener pastures (you lose the good ones) and a union (you keep the bad ones). This is predictable, obvious, and preventable.
Let's be clear: the Dean is a smart, charismatic, accomplished leader.
She is not the right leader for the law school right now.
She abhors the processes that are in place at the law school (yes – this is ironic for a lawyer), prefers to define and dictate rather than discuss, and when she met resistance, works to find a way to punish those who resist, rather than leverage other leadership levers toward the shared goal: success of the institution in its primary mission: educate students.
This is not easy for me to say publicly – as I want the best for the school. I have met her and I like her. But she doesn't have the management skills to help the school through this transition. She seems to make decisions emotionally and reflexively – and while the Board APPEARS to support her (as any board will/should do – since they MUST publicly support their leader), I am hopeful that they understand that the faculty are the more important asset to protect and maintain – and this Dean has burned too many bridges in her short time in Albany.
c) What needs to happen next?
– Someone from ALS needs to say out loud that there is no "Financial Exigency" and that tenured faculty are safe from unprincipled dismissal. I'd be surprised if we didn't see a formal statement to this effect within a week. This will calm the faculty – who have been living for months under a shroud of fear that some number of them would be fired. The Dean's inability to understand the fear (and its consequence – unionization and wasted energy/time/emotion) is a key component of why it is so clear that she is unqualified to manage this school at this time of its life-cycle. Another time? Perhaps. As I said above – she is a good person. She's not the right hand at the tiller for this phase of the institution's development.
– The Dean needs to announce her resignation – effective immedately. This is what's best for the institution, and will go a long way toward reestablishing a collaborative relationship between the faculty and the Board, which is essential. She should stay and teach and continue to offer her knowledge and insight to the students and the local community until she can find another opportunity. Nobody wants her to suffer. Indeed, we should hope for her success – and this time at the helm of this flailing ship has been terribly painful for her, I am sure. Successful leaders find "flow" with their teams, align with them through shared vision, shared goals, integrity, honesty and (yes) kindness. It must be hard (and lonely) for her to be so disconnected from her team. Time for that to end. This is about what's best for the institution, and not the ego of one person. I challenge her to demonstrate the integrity that I know she has and do what's best for ALS. Step down. This isn't a good fit and everyone knows it. Delaying the event will only prolong the suffering on both sides.
– The school needs to heal. This means that the Administration, the faculty, the students and the Board must join together, forge a clear, structured, SHARED strategic vision for the future of ALS. This is not only achievable, it is self-evident that this will happen! Legal education is at a crossroads: after decades of massive growth, followed by a few years of consolidation, the future is bright. With healed relationships, a re-energized team, and (yes) some of the bad, lazy or overpaid actors finessed out the door, Albany Law School will flourish. I look forward to witnessing this Phoenix. Let's shift the conversation away from rumors and ugly accusations – and toward the brilliant future that will be.
Willy Wonka: This is clearly a heart felt post. However, you are blaming one person for a problem that you don't seem to admit exists. As such, I would say the "brilliant future that will be" can only come about when there is recognition of the sentiments expressed in part by TWBB above, which stem from the recent folly in law school administration and hiring.
You say "Legal education is at a crossroads: after decades of massive growth, followed by a few years of consolidation, the future is bright."
Truly, this is sort of absurd happy talk.
Saying I told you so is actually very enjoyable. I repeatedly in the past pointed out the entire financial exigency issue and many of the points professors are now making about AAUP contracts, handbooks, etc. and was roundly mocked, insulted and called ignorant. And here we are…. the very points I made coming to be those bring explored here.
@anon – please forgive my optimism! I suspect that we agree more than you know. I don't disagree that there is:
a) fiscal pressure
b) some fraction of the faculty who abuse the privilege of tenure and/or are not pulling their weight – and need to be removed
But these variables exist in every institution – and existed before this Dean joined ALS. They have never caused such chaos as the institution is now enduring. I suspect that you are not aware of the internal chaos that has been ongoing since the early Fall in this institution.
The fraction of faculty who are bad actors does need to be managed in some way – yet the Dean's actions have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. She treats the faculty as a whole as if they are the enemy. They are not. Faculty success is the only path toward institutional success. Alienating them as a whole (as she has) was a strategic error from which she will not recover.
Why wouldn't ALS succeed in the future? Why would you hope for anything else? Do you – Mr/Ms Anon – hope for the demise of the institution – or its success? If it's the latter (as I certainly hope) – what do you believe to be the best path ahead? You are challenging my assertion that success is possible yet offer no expression of your own view of what should happen next, or what the critical elements of this success might be. I am (as are others on this thread) interested in your view. Is it possible that I am missing something? Sure! Please educate us. Through open dialogue – we will learn a great deal from each other – and my mind is certainly open to listening to your views with both ears.
I'll reiterate that I have no dog in this fight. I want what is best for the community and for this institution – and I have no personal vendetta against the Dean. But I have seen and heard enough of this story to know how all of this fervor was preventable – and she could have prevented it. I am certain of that.
Enrollment numbers at Albany Law have decreased the last couple of years (similar to most schools nation-wide), but are fairly strong as compared to other second tier schools. That said, I have heard from a reliable source at Albany that Dean Andrews arbitrarily decided –without faculty knowledge- to not take a single student off the waitlist last year- despite the fact that taking 40 or so additional students from the waitlist would not have changed their median LSAT or uGPA numbers! Apparently the Dean is attempting to artificially shrink the size of the law school by any means necessary. Dean Andrews even stated in a Business Review article last year that the incoming class would only have 130 students (even though they actually fielded a strong class of 187 without taking anyone off the waitlist last year).
@TWBB, with the exception of Phoenix and other for-profit law schools, the vast majority of law schools (such as Albany Law) are not for profit educational institutions. Applying a rough market mentality to running a school whose primary mission is not money by providing a sound educational experience for students is misplaced.
In any event, it seems certain from the Albany AAUP website that faculty (tenure-track and tenured) are protected by significant internal employment provisions, as well as ABA and AALS regulations and standards. The only way to fire such faculty is by showing either adequate cause (which requires faculty approval and due process protections) OR a formal declaration of financial exigency by the law school. It doesnt look like Albany Law school has or is able to declare financial exigency, given that they have a significant endowment and unrestricted reserves account. As such, it looks like the Administration is trying to do an end run around by the faculty by trying to fire people illegally for unclear "financial reasons." If the Board and Admin of Albany Law was reckless enough to start firing people without cause, it would subject the law school to horrible press (likely reducing enrollment further), lead to costly litigation which the school would lose or settle, and violate a number of ABA and AALS accreditation standards.
@anon2:
The non-profit aspect of most law schools doesn't really change the dialogue as much as you think. If the ACLU shrinks its workforce to deal with less donations, I don't think anyone would bat an eye despite its nonprofit status. Nonprofits should not be subject to pure market forces but that doesn't mean they can ignore any financial factors they want to.
I also would not too much credence in the "bad press" aspect of faculty firings. Law students look at a specific set of criteria when deciding on a law school, and the fact that a school streamlined/got rid of its less able faculty would not necessarily be a negative. And again, there is little sympathy for a group that gets so many privileges yet refuses to take any meaningful sacrifice while calling on everyone else to do so to support them.
None of the defenders of the law school status quo here have really addressed the point of what do you do with excess professors when you're shrinking overall class sizes, or how much a school is supposed to shrink its endowment to support a small group of faculty.
I certainly have some sympathy for at least a portion of the law faculty, and think maybe individual course size reductions coupled with salary cuts would be a more equitable way to relieve financial issues. Perhaps the excess professors could then be assigned several students for in-depth independent reading. But frankly, the current system is not sustainable, and the professorate is just not going to be able to enforce their demands in the long term.
Also, long-term I think what will best suit students is to only hire professors who have either a research degree (PhD, SciD, SJD), or significant legal practice experience. I think this will undoubtedly improve teaching quality at the same time introduces academics into the system who have not been coddled since childhood.
"@TWBB, with the exception of Phoenix and other for-profit law schools, the vast majority of law schools (such as Albany Law) are not for profit educational institutions. Applying a rough market mentality to running a school whose primary mission is not money by providing a sound educational experience for students is misplaced."
This is one of the most unintentionally hilarious statements I have ever seen on this website.
Albany Law School had $47 million in investment securities at the end of 2011 and $43 million catergorized as "unrestricted net assets." Given the run up in the market since then that is likely a substantially larger sum. Clearly there is NO financial exigency although there may be a mismatch in their annual revenue to cost structure given the cyclical decline in enrollment.
While many schools will use this kind of cyclical mismatch to carry out reform agendas of one sort or another (in the mode of Rahm Emanuel's theory that one should not waste a crisis) – some of which may have value while others likely the result of bureaucratic dreams – that is very different from concluding there is a genuine financial exigency.
Of course, logic does not stop the scammers and it is no surprise that these opportunists waste no time in attacking the AAUP and other efforts of faculty and staff to defend their civil liberties.
Perplexed – Deadwood can readily be determined by NO productivity over a period of years.
Many of these comments are missing the point by focusing too narrowly on the pros and cons of tenure. This is a distraction. Many faculty members at law schools are non-tenured (either tenure track, or long term contract). The problem is that Albany Law School has threatened to fire faculty members (whether tenured or not) in violation of its own contractual commitments as contained in the faculty handbook and in individual contracts of employment – i.e. in contravention of contractual provisions that require that dismissals can only be for cause or for financial exigency. Even if one were to agree that breaching contracts makes good financial sense, it is still undeniably against the law. And a law school that has undertaken to uphold and promote the rule of law ought to be careful of the message it sends with its willingness to break the law as a cost of doing business.
I don't think anyone is arguing (and I am certainly not) that the law school DOES NOT have the ability to dismiss faculty members for cause or for financial exigency. It is essential to this conversation to underscore the point that Albany Law School, as an ABA accredited law school does not operate in an at-will context. In fact, in order to maintain ABA accreditation all law schools must offer security of position to its professors (either through tenure or through some form of security of position similar to tenure). A law school that treats its faculty as at-will employees runs afoul of ABA accreditation standards. In addition, ABA accreditation standards require law schools to ensure a significant faculty role in determining education policy and admissions and also requires faculty to play a primary role in "selection, retention, promotion, and tenure (or granting of security of position) of the faculty… " If a law school actively prevents faculty from participating in the governance of the law school and fires its professors at will (without cause, without financial exigency and/or without academic due process) then it runs afoul of ABA accreditation standards. So, whether one supports tenure or not, there are structural limits placed on a law school's ability to fire faculty members at will. These structural limits operate within the larger legal system that deems breaches of contract contrary to law.
So, the situation, as I understand it is this – The law school is currently in good financial condition. Enrollment numbers will go down either by design or because of circumstances. The law school faces some serious choices. It could choose to fire faculty, probably prematurely and contrary to the law, in anticipation of future financial downfalls (and remember, this particular law school has seen a more than 20+ percent reduction in faculty at the same time that it has seen a 20+ percent reduction in enrollment – figures that are not terribly disproportionate, I would argue). Or the law school could anticipate future financial shortfalls by doing what other law schools are doing and what I understand the Albany Law faculty has already proposed – that is, reducing salaries, health and retirement benefits, reducing or eliminating travel and research stipends, instituting rotating furloughs, unpaid leaves, etc. It appears that the faculty has been rather too receptive to the administration's claims of financial difficulties considering the only financial information available reveals that there is no financial crisis. In addition, hiring freezes and buyouts would seem to make sense if there were a bona fide financial exigency – something I understand the faculty already proposed, perhaps prematurely. So, this is not a matter that can be reduced to the rather simple proposition that law schools should be free to fire professors at will or whenever it has anticipated financial concerns. Good financial planning would take account of appropriate, available and effective alternatives to firing faculty. A law school should not break the law under any circumstances even if it makes financial sense to do so.
Anon2: "I have heard from a reliable source at Albany that Dean Andrews arbitrarily decided –without faculty knowledge- to not take a single student off the waitlist last year- despite the fact that taking 40 or so additional students from the waitlist would not have changed their median LSAT or uGPA numbers! Apparently the Dean is attempting to artificially shrink the size of the law school by any means necessary.
Maybe she put the employment prospects of these 40 on the wait list over the employment of her professors – oh the evil b****, how dare she! Another 40 would have had an even harder time finding a job – but Anon2 and his pals on the faulty think that was "artificially shrinking"
Any wonder why, when comments like this are made, so many lawyers and law graduates contempt for professors soars?
Perhaps we should help this dean, and deans at every American law school, with thinning her faculty by creating a list of law faculty who have not published in 5+ years at every American law school. It could be the starting point for "for cause" dismissals. Of course, failure to publish is just one piece of the puzzle and poor teaching, service, etc., could also be grounds, but failure to publish is an easy one for an outsider to spot.