Tulane and NYU

It's a truism--but one that we sometimes forget nonetheless--that the purpose of universities is to educate students, and that without the tuition payments that students or their families supply, professors would need to find other employment.

Yesterday, at Tulane, the decline in student enrollment following Hurricane Katrina had its first dramatic impact: the university is eliminating 230 tenured faculty positions. Most of the cuts came in the medical school, though 50 engineering positions were eliminated. The university's engineering and overall graduate programs also will cease to exist as a distinct entity. Implied but not stated is that more cuts might yet occur: the university is anticipating that 85% of the pre-Katrina student body will re-enroll in January, but admits that it lacks the facilities to house these students. According to the Times-Picayune, the university plans to accomodate students through a combination of temporary housing and placing 1,000 students on a"Greek cruise ship."

As Tulane pleads for more students, a group called"Faculty Democracy" is doing everything possible to drive undergraduates away from NYU. With a membership of more than 200 professors, the group recently passed a resolution condemning NYU Pres. John Sexton's demand that all spring TA's actually agree to show up and teach their sections before being hired. (An"undemocratic" requirement indeed, fumed the FD.) According to the resolution, unless Sexton bows to the group's demand that NYU recognize a graduate student union, the faculty will consider such" consequences" as"withholding grades, implementing a moratorium on the graduate admissions process," and canceling all discussion sections, so that such a section could not"legitimately be held to have failed to meet owing to the absence of a TA or preceptor."

This set of demands suggests that a good portion of the NYU faculty has lost its way, substituting the mission of educating students with a vision that urges faculty to hold undergraduates hostage to the professoriate's ideological whims. Having declared war on their undergraduates, the members of"Faculty Democracy" might want to reflect on the Tulane experience, and remember that faculty at a university with no undergraduates will need to find other lines of work.

Update, 2.03pm: To answer a reader question, Inside Higher Ed reports that 65 of the fired profs were tenured.