More Faculty Cuts Possible, Birx Says
By James Kelly
Published March 12, 2026
PSU is likely to offer another Separation Incentive Program to tenured faculty this semester, according to President Birx, but concrete information is sparse as discussions with the University System Board of Trustees and tenure-track faculty union progress. The SIP would probably be smaller than last semester’s but would be open to faculty from a broader range of programs, Birx said in an interview with The Clock.
In the fall, PSU opened a SIP to faculty in programs largely in the humanities, including Communications and Media Studies, English, History, and Music. Faculty who accepted the buyout terminated their employment in exchange for 18 months of pay and some benefits. Seventeen faculty from eligible programs took the SIP, many saying they believed leaving would prevent their programs from closing and faculty from getting retrenched. When Provost Nate Bowditch announced the result of that SIP in November, he said it had worked as administrators had hoped. “Because of this we will not need to announce curtailment of programs and retrenchment of AAUP faculty in January 2026,” he said.
Despite the possibility of another SIP, Birx said he still agrees that last semester’s worked. A 17-person SIP was smaller than he had hoped, but nonetheless allowed the University to avoid in January “a retrenchment process which would have been highly disruptive to both the students and the faculty,” Birx said.
Some faculty have argued that the threat of retrenchment was dishonest or hyperbolic. The SIP worked in the sense that PSU saved money, but many of the people who took the buyout now feel they were betrayed or lied to, said Elliot Gruner, who is President of the tenure-track faculty union. Faculty have claimed they were told 27 people would have to take the SIP in order to avoid retrenchment, though administrators have denied those claims. For there to be no retrenchment after all reflects a bait-and-switch of sorts, those faculty say.
“Retrenchment didn’t happen, which I am glad of, and I applaud the administration for not applying that measure,” Gruner said. But had faculty known in advance that 17 SIPs would be sufficient, many may have decided to stay at PSU, he said.
In addition to the potential for another SIP, Birx and Bowditch have discussed contract nonrenewals for Professors of Practice. “This is not unusual but happens from time to time and involves the number of incoming students in an area study,” Birx said in an email. Though he would not commit to a specific number, Birx estimated that nonrenewals would be in the low single digits.
In a typical year, there might be a single PoP nonrenewal, and those nonrenewals tend to be related to performance, Rebecca Grant, who is president of the non-tenure track union, said in an interview. PoPs are employed through one-, two-, or three-year contracts. And while tenured faculty can only lose their jobs under specific circumstances, non-tenure track faculty may be nonrenewed for essentially any reason at the end of their contract.
For Grant, the lack of severance or a SIP-like buyout for PoPs is particularly concerning. Pushing for severance in the event of nonrenewals has been an important mission for the non-tenure track union, she said.
As programs lose full-time faculty positions, the teaching burden shifts towards part-time teaching lecturers. That has a negative impact on PSU, Grant said, since teaching lecturers are paid less, have fewer protections, and don’t make curricular decisions. “It also shapes and impacts our ability for agency and shared governance, because there are fewer people to engage in that work,” she said.
At a certain point, which Birx said is not yet here but is “coming up close,” PSU will run out of faculty to cut. “I don’t think we can do it much longer, to be honest with you,” he said. Still, Birx pointed to the University’s restructuring into six schools, which he said he believes will allow PSU to be successful in the future. “I admit, if I had the dollars, I would love to have kept every one of those faculty,” he said. “But I’m also saying what we’re building, I think, is not going to disadvantage the students the way [faculty] are thinking right now.”
Regardless of the way they are organized or labeled, though, classes ultimately need professors. The notion that a University can be rightsized or retrofitted for faculty cuts is puzzling, Gruner said. “I do not understand how that vision is going to unfold if we keep cutting faculty from the same set of programs or allied programs, while we are promising to offer the number of majors and the kind of general education that I think we should provide to our communities.”
No matter what, PSU will continue to struggle if the State House continues to cut the university system budget. Last summer, the New Hampshire Legislature approved a $35 million, 17% cut to what is already the least-funded higher education system in the country. “If you continue this policy approach of reducing state funding to the universities, you’re obviously going to get to the point where all the things we do are just not going to be enough,” Birx said. Nonetheless, he believes things will change course soon in Concord. “Things tend to swing from one end to another. I think this pendulum’s swung about as far as it can go,” he said.