Univ. of Akron cutting 215 jobs, baseball program

By RICK ARMON

Beacon Journal staff writer

AKRON

The University of Akron is cutting $40 million in expenses, including eliminating 215 positions and dumping the baseball program.

The massive cuts – coupled with $20 million in revenue from increased graduate tuition and undergraduate fees, and hopes enrollment will increase – are part of a three-year plan to repair the public school’s troubled finances.

“The University of Akron’s future is bright, but first we need to fix its finances,” President Scott Scarborough said in a prepared statement Friday. “Our review indicates UA has a $60 million financial problem, and we have developed a three-year plan to solve that problem.”

Lawrence Burns, UA vice president for advancement, said the $60 million financial problem is the result of neglected repairs, unsustainable administrative expenses, the need to invest strategically and annual debt payments of $38.6 million, including $4.3 million to finance the nation’s lowest attended football stadium.

In a mass email to the campus community, Scarborough said: “We know that the next few weeks will be tough. After that, we will refocus our efforts on the mission ahead – to become a great public university for all of Northeast Ohio and the world.”

The $40 million in cuts over the next two years include:

Reducing 215 positions, which will be announced directly to employees this month. No faculty layoffs are planned, Scarborough said.

Eliminating nonacademic programming in E.J. Thomas Hall, except for rentals.

Outsourcing dining services.

Renegotiating health-care plans.

Increasing the cost share of retiree dependent coverage.

Changing the university’s retire/rehire policy.

Centralizing course scheduling under the Office of Academic Affairs.

Reducing central costs, such as legal fees and university memberships.

Eliminating the baseball program, which requires “substantial and costly renovations” and costs $700,000 to operate annually, or 1.4 percent of the budget. Burns said player scholarships will be honored.

The official Zips baseball Twitter account tweeted: “We would like to thank everyone who has ever supported Akron Baseball. Please keep our players and coaches in your thoughts.”

UA said it expects to bring in $10 million in additional revenue through increases in graduate tuition and undergraduate fees. Another $10 million is expected through growth in enrollment.

Relying on his parents, students loans and whatever he can afford, civil engineering student Braden Kline, 20, a sophomore, considered the fee increase he would pay next year an additional cost by another name.

“They’re just calling it fees, but it’s really tuition. The more credits I take, the more I pay,” Kline said. The additional $50 fee per credit for juniors and seniors would increase college costs despite state lawmakers’ attempt to curb student-loan debt.

“The new fee comes directly following the passage of the state budget, which featured a tuition freeze and other efforts to prevent significant increases in the cost of higher education,” state Rep. Greta Johnson, D-Akron, wrote Friday in a letter to Scarborough after hearing from concerned constituents.

“The most painful but necessary reduction is the abolishment of filled positions,” said Scarborough, who earlier this year re-branded UA as “Ohio’s polytechnic university.”

Affected employees will be notified this month as UA complies “with all applicable government regulations and contractual agreements.”

Laura Monroe, a 28-year employee, retired from the university last month after running the library’s writing center. She said many “longtime, hardworking people are terrified for their jobs and their futures.”

“My last week there, it was so tense on that campus you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife,” she said, adding that reductions should start with upper administration.

Monroe also questioned some of the university’s other expenses, noting that UA spent $50,000 to hand out T-shirts during the NBA Finals.

John Zipp, president of UA’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said he was not prepared to comment Friday afternoon.