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Wayne State University is trying to shed medical faculty members it views as “underproductive or unproductive,” The Detroit News reported. In a letter to faculty members that followed an earlier announcement about faculty productivity, Jack Sobel, dean of the School of Medicine, said 37 faculty appointments may be terminated or lost to retirement. Some 18 professors already have agreed to retire, accept phased retirement or received notice of nonrenewal of their contracts, Sobel wrote, while eight additional professors have agreed to separate from the institution. Another 11 faculty members will be recommended for dismissal. Sobel assured due process for tenured faculty members.
Charles Parrish, president of Wayne State’s faculty union affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, said all of those affected are researchers in the basic sciences and clinical departments. He said decreased grant funding by the National Institutes of Health has affected some faculty members’ ability to do their work. “This will have an impact on what the medical school is able to do in terms of moving forward in research and teaching,” Parrish told The Detroit News.
A university spokesperson declined comment. Wayne State’s medical school reportedly said last year that it was dealing with a serious budget gap that would take three years to close. Sobel said in his letter that the cuts are a “critical and necessary step toward allowing our many productive faculty members to thrive, and will result in our emerging stronger as one of the nation’s most robust urban medical colleges and centers of research.”
