Ball State held a Town Hall meeting last Thursday, in response to roughly 200 of the over 3,000 staff members’ questions related to returning to campus and work. The school year is set to begin on campus August 24. Woof Boom Radio news reached out to President Mearns, and asked two questions. The first, “was the local newspaper story accurate, in your eyes.”
Mearns responded, “The newspaper story was incomplete in several important respects. For example, one of the main complaints from the relatively small number of faculty and staff who signed the letter was that they hadn’t been adequately consulted during the planning process. At the beginning of the town hall, Dr. Tarek Mahfouz, the president of the University Council, spoke at length about the planning process. During his opening remarks, Dr. Mahfouz described in great detail about how faculty and staff were actually deeply involved in all aspects of the planning process. I think it’s quite unfortunate that the reporter, who personally observed the town hall and was also given a recording of the event, chose to completely ignore this important point.
Similarly, in his article, the reporter quoted the faculty member who organized the drafting of the letter saying that there are still more unanswered questions than answered questions. In fact, in advance of the town hall, the provost and I received a list of nearly 100 questions that Dr. Mahfouz organized into several categories. For nearly 90 minutes, the provost and I answered all of the questions in great detail. And during the session, we were asked an additional 10 questions. There were only two questions — only two — where I said I didn’t know the answer. The reporter failed to report these important facts.”
The second question we asked was, “Is the assertion that staff ‘fear for their jobs’ accurate? And is accurate, is that a well-founded fear?”
Mearns wrote, “During the town hall, I acknowledged that these are extraordinarily uncertain times and that uncertainty begets anxiety. I appreciate that. It’s human nature.
But there are some important facts.
Last Spring, in the midst of the outbreak of the pandemic, when other institutions were instituting furloughs and layoffs, we didn’t do so. To the contrary, we created an extraordinary leave plan so that, even if our faculty and staff weren’t able to work remotely, they wouldn’t have to exhaust their normal leave. As I mentioned during the town hall, the financial benefit to our employees of this decision is $3.1 million.
To prepare a balanced budget for this academic year, we did have to eliminate several vacant positions and we did have to eliminate approximately 40 filled positions— that’s less than 2% of our full time employees. Those actions were necessary, because our state appropriations will be reduced this year by nearly $10 million.
But as I explained at the town hall, if we maintain our current enrollment projections and sustain our planned on-campus instruction, I don’t presently anticipate additional layoffs this year. That’s why it’s so important that, while make extraordinary investments in our safety precautions and protocols, we also retain our focus on our core mission: providing a high quality, distinctive educational experience for our students. Geoffrey S. Mearns, President, Ball State University,”
