In a Thursday email to faculty and staff, President Vincent Price announced that eligible faculty members across the University will receive voluntary retirement incentives. He also said the University will “likely” have to engage in involuntary reductions in staff.
The announcements come about five weeks after Duke introduced a voluntary separation incentive program (VSIP), offering eligible employees the option to receive compensation in exchange for leaving the University for at least three years.
Departments and unit leadership had until May 21 to extend offers through VSIP and employees were given 45 days to accept or decline. The Chronicle has confirmed reports of staff who have already accepted VSIP offers in Alumni Engagement & Development and Communications, Marketing & Public Affairs.
“We will, for the foreseeable future, have to be smaller — and do our work with fewer people,” Price said. “I sincerely wish that were not the case, but the harsh reality is that reducing our spending by the scale required means that Duke will have to employ fewer people.”
In the email, Price prefaced the announcement of the voluntary retirement incentives by noting that, amid “a landscape of significantly reduced funding,” academic leaders “will also need to give thought to the future shape of our faculty.”
The email did not include information on the timeline for involuntary staff reduction notices or decision-making. However, in an April 30 webinar, Antwon Lofton, vice president for human resources and chief human resources officer, said University leadership will know how many employees have accepted the VSIP buyouts by July 14 and will decide thereafter whether involuntary separations are necessary.
The University has already frozen most faculty and staff hiring and suspended capital spending on new projects. The School of Medicine, for example, recently announced that it will decommission the Jones Building as part of its cost-cutting efforts.
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| Editor-in-Chief
Ana Despa is a Pratt junior and editor-in-chief of The Chronicle’s 121st volume.