We--the below signed students, staff, and faculty at the University of Arizona--acknowledge the unprecedented challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to higher education. We also understand that difficult decisions need to be made for this coming year. However, we have grave concerns about the furlough and layoff plans that have been proposed by President Robbins and his Executive Administration Team. Our primary concerns are listed below:

1)     Unprecedented Damage to our Core Teaching and Research Mission.

These furlough and layoff actions will devastate the quality of instruction and research at the University of  Arizona on numerous fronts.

They will obviously undermine work in the classroom and demoralize staff and faculty who spent much of this semester struggling heroically to take care of our students and maintain our mission under trying circumstances.

Addressing the university’s fiscal challenges by cutting salaries and firing instructors sends exactly the wrong message to the admitted students we are trying to attract.

We will lose some of our teaching faculty and encourage top research faculty to leave the university.

Finally, without an equivalent workload reduction, the furloughs will cause a work speedup that will dilute the quality of instruction.

2)     Lack of basic transparency about the crisis and basic shared governance for developing a response.

The proposed furlough and layoffs are based on budget projections that few members of the university have seen, outside of the executive administrative team. Is their analysis accurate? What assumptions and forecasts are they based on? How were they calculated?

The most destructive budgetary contingency plan in the history of our university has been imposed overnight with insufficient review, input or collaboration by faculty, staff, or graduate students, those of us who actually serve the core mission of this university.

Shared governance in higher education is important because faculty and staff bring to the table a rich understanding of the academic implications of administrative actions. We cannot  imagine a crisis more in need of full shared governance review than the one we face today.

What other responses might be possible that would be less damaging to the academic integrity of teaching and research at our institution?  Faculty, staff, and graduate students should help answer that question using all pre-existing organs of shared governance as well as the new ones developed for this emergency.

In light of these two fundamental concerns, the faculty, staff and graduate students of the University of Arizona demand immediate action be taken by President Robbins and the Executive Leadership Team:

1)     Seek input from deans, faculty, staff, and students to develop a furlough plan that protects our university’s core mission, including its commitments to the HSI initiative, Indigenous students, and first-generation students. This plan should be developed in two steps.

2)     Release a comprehensive financial report for 2019 with full documentation detailing how the COVID-19 response emerged from that data (https://www.fso.arizona.edu/financial-management/annual-reports).

3)     Submit that report and documentation to a robust shared governance review. This reviewing process should include greater representation of faculty, staff, students, deans, department/unit heads, and supervisors, and it should be inclusive of those who are minoritized and under-represented in decision making.

This shared governance review should assess the scope of the crisis as well as explore every possible avenue for developing a less damaging response, including such steps as:

1)     Seeking federal funding from the $1 billion higher education loan program and any available state funding (e.g., Arizona’s “Rainy Day” Fund) and provide a public outline of the request.

2)     Considering alternative rollouts of a furlough that would be more progressive and not exclude sectors of the university such as athletics.

3)     Ensuring that any furlough includes a clear plan for a commensurate workload reduction so that the university budget savings plan does not inadvertently turn into a work speedup, thereby reducing academic quality of instruction and research.

We, the undersigned, believe that this crisis should be addressed with compassion and respect for those among us who are the most fragile socially and economically. We call for these actions not only as UArizona students, staff, and faculty, but also as alumni, parents and family of past, present, and future Wildcats, Tucsonans, and Southern Arizonans.  This petition is not personal; it is about an effort to take action before the university that we all care about is irrevocably harmed.

We ask that you please respond to our petition within 48 hours of receiving this letter.