It’s no secret that Seattle University has been experiencing financial hardship over the current academic year. In a town hall meeting earlier this year, University President Eduardo Peñalver reported a $7.5 million deficit in the expected budget, leading to cuts and adjustments being made to numerous aspects of campus life.
Measures, including academic program cuts and a campus-wide hiring pause, have been implemented in recent months with the goal of reducing this deficit to a manageable amount. In a November email to The Spectator, Chief Financial Officer Chris Malins stated that the university was “confident that plans currently in place will yield the necessary savings.” However, a recent email sent to faculty suggests that this may not be the case.
In late April, Seattle U faculty received notice that certain faculty would be invited to participate in a “Voluntary Retirement Incentive” (VRI) initiative. The email, signed by Provost Shane Martin, Malins and Vice President of Human Resources Jerron Lowe, explained that a one-time offer would be extended to “tenured and tenure-track faculty, excluding those in the College of Nursing and the School of Law—who meet the “Rule of 70,” meaning their age plus years of service at Seattle University equal 70 or more. This offer would grant eligible faculty a financial bonus if they agreed to retire at the end of the 2024-2025 academic year.
“This is a rare and carefully considered initiative. The university has not offered a program of this nature before,” Lowe stated in an email to The Spectator.
Due to the uncommon nature of these offers, professors have expressed that they felt surprised upon receiving them.
“It felt very abrupt and very much like a shock,” one anonymous professor (referred to here as Professor A) said in reaction to being offered a VRI. “Frankly, I felt pretty sick. It seemed to me that [the offer] was more of an afterthought rather than something that people could really think about during the year.”
The rapid turnaround required for this decision discouraged this professor from accepting the offer. Faculty were given roughly three weeks to decide whether or not to accept the VRI and would be expected to empty their offices by the end of August. For Professor A, the expected timeline was unrealistic both logistically and psychologically.
“Retirement is a very personal decision, and it’s one you need time to make,” Professor A stated. “There are so many components that go into retirement, it’s very complex.”
This sentiment was echoed by Professor Rick Malleus, who has been teaching in the communication and media department at Seattle U for nearly 20 years. Though he qualified for and was offered a VRI, Malleus considers himself far from retirement and didn’t find the offer enticing.
“They essentially offered a year of salary, and 30% of your yearly salary on top of that. And then the benefits, [such as health insurance], stop on your last day of work. To me, anticipating working probably another 10-ish years, that just didn’t make sense,” Malleus said.
Professor A shared similar concerns regarding the financial aspect of the offer.
“The problem with the amount of money they were going to give you in August is that it would boost us up so high into an income bracket that we would be paying all of the bonus in taxes. So it’s not really a great deal in that way,” Professor A said.
Both professors expressed that this decision seemed to be aimed at saving money for the administration. However, they could only speculate on this topic as they were not given a full explanation as to why the university had decided to move forward with these offers. As far as either was aware, discussions regarding VRIs earlier in the year had not included perspectives from professors.
“I would suggest that this move demonstrates the administration is looking for ways to save money,” Malleus said. “If I’m understanding how the budget works, a big chunk of every college budget is salaries and benefits for faculty and staff. So it would make sense that that would be a place to look.”
Lowe explained that the decision to offer VRIs was related to the decline in undergraduate enrollment seen by many institutions in recent years. The university attributes this to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the delays in 2024’s FAFSA rollout. Though student enrollment has decreased, Lowe stated that faculty numbers have continued to increase, resulting in a “need to align the size of our faculty with the size of our student body.”
“This one-time, voluntary option will help with our plan to align our student-to-faculty ratio with our peer institutions, which we have been consulting and working with deans and faculty to address over the past couple of years. The most recent data showed that our student-to-faculty ratio was significantly out of sync with our peers, with a ratio of 11 to 1 compared to 13 to 1. The gap equaled about $15 million in additional yearly costs compared to our peers,” Lowe wrote.
Currently, the Seattle U website’s “Who We Are” page lists small class sizes as a core aspect of the university, citing the 11:1 faculty ratio. For many students, this is a major draw of the university.
“When I started looking into Seattle U, I kept seeing words like ‘small class sizes’ and ‘one-on-one connections.’ This was definitely something that convinced me to apply,” First-year Psychology Major Maya Stefanovic said.
Others, like First-year Humanities for Teaching Major Austin Woolley, aren’t opposed to slightly larger class sizes.
“I think the biggest class I’m in is around 19 [students], and the smallest is about eight,” Woolley said. “I think most humanities classes specifically are driven by discussion, and it’s hard to do that with such a small group.”
As the faculty hiring pause remains in effect, any professors who choose to accept a VRI will likely not be replaced. Both professors explained that this has the potential to place increased pressure and work on the remaining faculty, as plans for the next academic year are already in place and would need to be adjusted to account for the sudden loss of a professor.
Additionally, Malleus believes that these offers may not reflect the contributions that longtime professors make to the culture and structure of the university.
“If a lot of people were to take this offer, we would be losing quite a lot of institutional memory about how things have been done. You’re not an official historian, but if you’ve been here for 20 years, you know how things have been here for 20 years. So you can have a different perspective on things like five-year plans and strategic direction for things based on previous experience,” Malleus said.
Malleus did express, however, that these concerns are largely hypothetical as neither professor was aware of any faculty member who has or is planning to accept a VRI. Lowe confirmed that if this is the case, offers will not broaden or increase but are instead intended to be a “one-time, targeted opportunity.”
“This initiative is part of a broader strategy to thoughtfully steward university resources while remaining true to our values of cura personalis and community,” Lowe wrote. “It is designed to support both the university’s future and the individual needs of our faculty, and it reflects our appreciation for their deep commitment to Seattle University over many years.”
The impact this decision will have on the financial and cultural future of the university is currently unclear. However, it remains clear that the university is continuing its search for solutions to its current financial deficit. The faculty’s reaction to this choice reflects the importance of communication between decision makers and those who are impacted going forward.
