To cut costs, the university offered a Voluntary Retirement Plan in May 2024 to all employees who were at least 59.5 years old and had been in service at the university at least five years as of June 2025.
The retiring employees would receive a year’s worth of salary and those who are between 59.5 and 65 years old can still participate in the university’s health insurance plan.
This would cost the university $4.2 million for salaries and payroll taxes and is expected to save $2.8 million annually. This savings strategy is common in higher education.
This retirement incentive will not apply to Kaufman, who will be retiring at the end of the semester, as he has not been at the institution long enough to qualify.
This action is in response to the university’s increasing financial stress that is both caused and worsened by decreasing enrollment rates.
According to Bill Mea, vice president for business and finance at the university, of 86 eligible employees, “53 (61.6%) agreed to retire, 28 faculty and 25 staff.”
The university expects to replace 26 of those positions (12 faculty and 14 staff).
Jody Fournier, university provost, said the incentive was offered “to match the employment base with the student body that’s currently here at the institution.”
This echoes the warning given by university President Dave Kaufman in an interview with the Chimes in October 2023, where he said they planned to determine what the university might look like at a smaller size.
“So [we’re] kind of creating like a sliding scale,” Kaufman said. “If we’re going to be… 1200 [full-time undergraduate students], we can slide down to replicate other institutions that are that size. And if we’re successful and grow, we can do the opposite.”
To replace the departing employees, the university has initiated several searches with plans to start several more over next year.
Fournier does not expect the university will be forced to rely on bringing in adjuncts, as the new employees will be full-time and “will be able to teach the students we have.”
Part of the savings derive from replacements entering at lower salaries and the implementation of a new benefit plan.
“When you bring in a new faculty member, it’s a lower price to the institution than a person that’s been here a while,” Fournier said.
In a previous interview with the Chimes, Mea said a large goal of the university’s budget cuts was to preserve the student experience.
This is something Fournier is hoping to do by working with the departing faculty.
“We have enough lead time with those individuals leaving that we’re hoping to glean as much information from them to reinvest in the departments that they teach in so there’ll be continuity,” said Fournier.
“You’ll have faculty members with full teaching loads and really no difference for the student,” Fournier said.
The turnover leaves some faculty members asking how to preserve the current environment at the university.
At a presentation entitled, “It’s about the students: Reflecting on my Philosophy and Practice of Teaching,” by E. Wray Bryant, assistant professor of religion and philosophy, this discussion was held.
As one of the retiring faculty, Bryant shared how his student-centered approach affected him and his students. Bryant said this approach taken by him and many of his peers is a large contributor to the community and environment currently at the university.
A younger faculty member asked about how to keep the same approach present at the university, a curiosity shared by others that displayed the desire to preserve the student experience.
“CapFam is real,” Bryant said.
