With a grim budgetary outlook and sagging faculty morale, Chancellor Michael Martin said retaining and recruiting high-quality faculty is the biggest challenge for the next 10 years.The University’s budget outlook is uncertain, prompting administration to begin the process of sending out more than 450 termination notices to non-tenure and non-tenure track faculty. The notices give the University the legal right to end faculty employment in a year’s time. These notices can be revoked as the University gains a better idea of its budget situation in the coming months.”Faculty morale is down,” Martin said. “Administration morale is down. I suspect the Board of Supervisors morale is down and the legislature morale is down. This is as close to the worst downturn we have had in this country since the 1920s and ’30s.”Most deans said the problem of faculty leaving because of the budget situation hasn’t been widespread yet, but the potential for flight is evident.”The good news is that the best people are always being recruited because they are good,” Christopher D’Elia, School of Coast and Environment dean. “The bad news is we are vulnerable.”D’Elia said his school has only seen normal attrition of faculty leaving during the budget crisis.”Some schools like Kentucky have put recruiting and expansion into a prominent position during the recession instead of treating it as just another part of the recession,” said Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope.College of Education Dean M. Jayne Fleener said the budget crisis keeps colleges from matching the offers of other schools, which will hinder the retainment of faculty in the future.Many faculty positions were lost with the elimination of vacant positions when the last series of cuts were implemented.The University eliminated more than 60 educational positions during the last series.”At the moment, I don’t think it is the quantity of money that is an issue. Rather it’s fear and anxiety about what will happen next,” Cope said. “The faculty are clever. They think about the future and see what the prospects are, and so they begin to look around.”Cope said he hasn’t personally heard of many faculty members looking at other schools or being recruited elsewhere. But many faculty members who are considering moving will not admit it because they don’t want to lose their negotiating position, Cope said.It would be difficult for the University to combat faculty flight if the movement gains momentum, Cope said.”The University can come up with some sort of short-term rewards,” Cope said. “That is a good stopgap measure that can keep someone for a year, but in the long term, one has to compete with the salaries.”Gaines Foster, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said he hasn’t had serious faculty loss, but he has heard indirect reports of some tenured faculty seeking other options.Foster said he’s particularly concerned about the faculty morale and said the administration showing more appreciation for them will help build confidence.”Clearly, I am concerned about their morale because of what we have done to them,” Foster said. “The amazing thing to me is the instructors — from everything I hear and to the best of my knowledge — continue to do a wonderful job of teaching.”Foster said administration making it clear that faculty are appreciated will boost loyalty to the University and help alleviate some of the potential crisis.- – – -Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]