Edgewood College laid off several professors this summer in a move that some instructors on campus see as an eroding of academic norms, in violation of the instructors’ contracts and part of a pattern of poor decision-making.
Several of the terminated faculty members are fighting the decision, bolstered by an internal faculty committee’s determination last month that the professors should be reinstated. A national organization representing faculty members also warned that the terminations appeared to go against the college’s own policy.
The college leaders have not declared financial exigency, which appears to be a requirement to terminate tenured or tenure-track professors for financial reasons, according to the faculty handbook.
