By Roger McKinney
news@joplinglobe.com
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Three Missouri Southern State University faculty members have been informed that their contracts won’t be renewed, but faculty senate President Cliff Toliver on Friday said he expects no further faculty cuts.
Toliver, an English professor, said that two of the faculty members whose one-year contracts won’t be renewed are in his department and one is in the social sciences department.
Toliver said A.J. Anglin, MSSU vice president for academic affairs, told the faculty senate during a recent meeting that balancing the budget would require no further faculty cuts.
Toliver said Friday that based on statements by MSSU President Bruce Speck and others, he had feared that the faculty cuts could be much worse.
“At a certain point I had anticipated a larger number would not be back,” Toliver said.
He said Anglin’s announcement was well-received and is good news for the immediate situation, but that doesn’t help the three whose jobs have been cut.
“There are still three people who have served our institution well who will be without jobs,” Toliver said.
Anglin couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Friday, but he had said last month that the decisions to cut faculty members would be based only on financial considerations, not personalities. He said only those faculty members with one-year contracts who weren’t tenured or on a tenure track were being considered. He said the decisions would also need to go through President Bruce Speck and the Board of Governors.
Rob Yust, MSSU vice president for business affairs, at last month’s Board of Governors retreat, announced that he would present the board with a balanced budget in May. He said that involved finding $4 million, including $800,000 to negate a deficit in the current year’s budget and an expected $1.7 million reduction in state appropriations.
A tuition increase approved in February is expected to raise $600,000. The university will budget $2 million in building projects instead of the $5 million budgeted this year, for a savings of $3 million.
Search for savings
Rob Yust, MSSU vice president for business affairs, last month said suggestions from faculty and staff were used to find another $150,000 worth of savings.
