Last December, eligible faculty and staff were given 12 days to decide whether to accept “voluntary separation” or “voluntary early retirement” offers, or buyouts, sent by administrators. Now, months later, and after a second round of buyouts sent to members of Local 1205P and Local 1205C in February, the New School community still knows little about the results. 

“On a personal level, it feels a lot like Vegas because I’m thinking, all right, I’m not taking the package, but I could live to regret this,” Robin Lynn, director of marketing SaaS platforms, said. Lynn received a buyout offer but did not take it.  

University administrators have not shared how many eligible faculty and staff declined, accepted, or expressed interest in the buyouts with the TNS community . University communications declined to share numbers or results with the New School Free Press. 

The New School Free Press confirmed that TNS will lay off approximately 15% of its staff and faculty this spring. This would put the total workforce reduction at 22%.

According to documents obtained by the New School Free Press, the university administration is discussing a 20% reduction, through buyouts and layoffs, of its total employees. This decision is likely to counter a 20% drop in student enrollment. So far, buyouts will result in a 7% cut to employees by the end of the spring, according to an email sent by President Joel Towers on March 3. 

It’s unclear whether the first and second rounds of buyouts that resulted in a 7% reduction of faculty have been factored into the university’s internal goal of a 20% reduction. If it has been factored in, then this could suggest 13% of employees will be laid off. 

“I think that’s a reasonable inference, but I don’t have confirmation that’s what’s going to happen either;, it’s just a reasonable inference from Joel’s email,” executive dean of Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, said.

According to the Gothamist, 40% of TNS full-time faculty, or 169 individuals, received voluntary separation or early retirement offers. Eligible staff and faculty who received the buyout offers, which were sent on Dec. 3, had until Dec. 15 to make a decision. On Feb. 24, buyout offers were extended to Local 1205’s professional and clerical units. Their deadline to make a decision was March 10. 

​“I think there are two tracks… [Faculty and staff] have experienced the ups and downs [and] they’re feeling a little bit vulnerable, and they’re gonna either take their chance out there… or they’re close enough to retirement,” Lynn said. “I’m not there yet, so I didn’t take it.” 

​Lynn’s department, Online Marketing Platforms, is set to lose seven of the 40 employees, including two vice presidents, Lynn said. 

​“I have a couple of colleagues that took it for a variety [of reasons], some are very well positioned to get another job after this, and they’re too young to be retiring,” she said. “Someone on my team is old enough to retire, and it’s like maybe I should hang it up and save somebody else from losing their job.” 

The voluntary separation program offered six months’ salary in a gross lump sum and, if faculty members are enrolled in the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), continued payment of the employer portion of benefit premiums for up to 12 months according to The New School Full-Time Faculty Voluntary Separation Program Document and Summary. 

Layoff packages are expected to be less substantial than buyout packages, according to an FAQ document given to faculty and staff in December.

“Anytime [layoffs are] announced, that hovers over people in a really powerful way and makes it harder for them to, not surprisingly, be optimistic about the future of The New School,” Cox said.

​Jeremy Varon, professor of historical studies at The New School for Social Research (NSSR) and Eugene Lang College, and president of The New School AAUP chapter, said many faculty were opposed to taking the “voluntary separation” offers because of the attachment they have to teaching at TNS. 

“Professors love being professors. We’re committed to our students, we’re committed to education, and we’re committed to research and writing,” Varon said. “We chose this career for a reason, and why would we voluntarily give up a vocation, an avocation, the thing that we do, and a big part of what defines us in the world?” 

Following the buyout deadlines, amid vague and contradictory information from administrators, the faculty have been left to speculate about the buyout results.

“The problem with all this is that it’s hearsay, and this hearsay may be true, but it’s hearsay. You have to, at best, read between the lines of the official communications to find out whether some gossip you’ve heard is true or not … so it’s probably true, but no one will confirm it,” Nikolaos Chatzarakis, assistant professor of economics, said. 

With the number of those who declined or accepted buyouts still unknown, staff and faculty are wondering whether to take what is being offered now, or hope that they won’t be laid off. 

​“Accepting the [buyouts] might represent professional and financial suicide,” ​Varon also said.

“The academic labor market is unlike other labor markets. If you’re a doctor and you get fired, you can pick up the phone and work at another hospital; a lawyer can pretty easily find another lawyer job, but in academia, basically nobody is hiring,” Varon said. “The more senior you are, the higher your salary, the less attractive you are to other employers.”

​“Many of us are grown-ups with tuition to pay, aging and sick parents, mortgage payments, auto payments, other kinds of debt, and the administration does not seem to appreciate that firing people in academia has devastating consequences in the lives of those people,” Varon said. 

​“There are people working behind the scenes trying to make this happen in a way that is the least painful possible way,” Lynn said. “It’s gonna hurt, no matter what.”