University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee rejected this week a proposal to lay off 35 tenured faculty after the closing of two suburban branch campuses.
The university’s faculty senate voted 24-11 Wednesday in opposition to the plan that had been advanced by UWM Chancellor Mark Mone earlier this year.
The next step for the controversial is not clear. The plan must be approved by the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents. In a statement reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a UWM spokesperson said that the process was still underway.
The Wisconsin conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) on Friday called on Mone and the UWM administration to change course.
“We call on the chancellor to slow the process down and reconsider his proposal in light of the serious reservations that led the Faculty Senate to reject it,” AAUP-Wisconsin President Nick Fleisher, who teaches at UWM, wrote in a statement posted on the group’s website. “Under no circumstances should the current proposal be submitted to the Board of Regents at its August meeting.”
The board’s next scheduled meeting is August 22. Meeting materials have not yet been posted.