VCU Faculty Reject a Pedagogy of Austerity
Dean Relihan’s resignation following the proposed termination of 14 Focused Inquiry faculty shows that administrative austerity is a failed governing strategy.
For the past year, the faculty of VCU’s faculty have fought the unjust and harmful terminations of 14 of their coworkers in the Department of Focused Inquiry. Last week, in advance of a faculty-led vote of no confidence, the Dean of the University College issued her resignation, effective December 2023. This resignation comes after months of organizing and a prolonged push to hold Dean Relihan accountable to the eroded job security and climate under her leadership. The conditions of the University College today are those of persistent under-funding, extreme faculty precarity, and the intensifying pressures of compounded austerity. As VCU’s executive administration has increasingly sought to gut student supports in the name of efficiencies, VCU’s faculty and staff remain committed to the mission they were contracted to serve: the success of our students.
In the coming months VCU’s Provost will act to appoint new leadership for the University College. In doing so, our faculty demand leadership that prioritizes student success over unnecessary cost cutting or corporate “disruption.” Our faculty unilaterally reject a pedagogy of austerity. Faculty terminations, reduced mental health supports, unsustainable advising workloads, technological surveillance of students — all of these austerity measures treat our classrooms as markets where students must compete, and those who succeed do so at the expense of others. Our classrooms cannot be governed by the principles that govern Wall Street. Our students deserve small, learner-centered classrooms. They deserve adequate mental health staffing. They deserve accessible, supportive advising. They deserve a chance to succeed.
This fall VCU welcomed one of the largest student bodies in VCU history. This historic class also pays the highest level of tuition ever at our institution. The debt our students will face upon graduation would have been unthinkable even 20 years ago. Despite this looming crisis, our executive administrators have awarded themselves annual raises that exceed the salaries of some of our lowest-wage workers. These same administrators waste tens of millions of dollars on poorly negotiated rental schemes and overbid on land acquisitions that strain our relationships with our neighboring community. We will not accept austerity and precarity in our classrooms while VCU leadership cashes monthly paychecks in the tens of thousands of dollars and wastes millions on real estate gambles. At a federally-designated Minority Serving Institution and an institution that educates the largest number of first-generation college students in the state, funding allocations directly impact our ability to fulfill our commitments to racial and economic justice in our classrooms.
The next leadership for VCU’s general education courses must reflect the mission of the University College and of the broader institution. They must govern in a manner that asserts the right of all of our students to just and equitable outcomes in their education at VCU. They must be responsive to the demands of our students and our community that VCU reinstate the contracts of faculty who are facing termination. They must act such that the future of our classes is determined by student need, not a manufactured budget crisis.
Like our colleagues across VCU, Focused Inquiry faculty are fully committed to our mission of providing ensuring our students receive a world-class education where all students have a fair chance to succeed. We know our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions, and we will continue to fight for our students and our communities at every stage of the changes ahead.
We are VCU.
