Pay cuts for faculty and staff at Quinnipiac University are another effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an email sent by QU president Judy Olian, she announced that the university will be cutting all faculty and staff members’ pay.
“Because of the unprecedented magnitude of the impact,” Olian wrote in the email, “we will need to make budget cutbacks, and even sacrifices.”
Employees earning less than $50,000 a year will see a 3 percent reduction, while those earning more than $50,000 a year will see a 5 percent reduction. The reduction in pay is currently set to only apply through June 30, 2020.
The university management committee, which includes Olian and five vice presidents, are taking larger pay cuts. Vice President for Public Relations John Morgan, himself not a member of the management committee, would not disclose the extent of those cuts.
Olian wrote that the pay cuts are due to additional expenses caused by COVID-19, lost revenue from canceled events, and uncertainty over future enrollment numbers.
Other universities and colleges in Connecticut are making similar decisions. In an email to faculty, staff and students, University of New Haven president Steven Kaplan announced pay cuts. These cuts were in $50,000 intervals.
Employees, “will have the first $50,000 reduced by 3 percent; the next $50,000 reduced by 5 percent; the third $50,000 reduced by 7 percent; and all earnings beyond $150,000 reduced by 9 percent,” Kaplan wrote. His email did not include a scheduled end date to the pay cuts.
Professors at QU have mostly accepted the pay cuts.
“I’m not actually too upset by them,” David Tomczyk, an associate professor of entrepreneurship & strategy, said. “I knew QU would need to ‘tighten its belt’ to accommodate the changes and loss of revenue. That’s understandable and expected. The fact that it affected pay was always a possibility, and I’ve seen other companies have to do similar things during this time.”
Students are somewhat concerned with the effect faculty pay cuts will have.
“On the one hand it doesn’t seem fair,” Greta Stroebel, a fourth-year Quinnipiac student, said, “because teachers are still expected to teach and from home over video chat with likely a bunch of distractions so it’s probably really hard. But on the other hand these are crazy times and people gotta move money around.”
Students, administration, faculty and staff all agreed that they saw these changes as temporary.
“This also isn’t an on-going thing,” said Tomczyk. “It’s for this year, and next year we should be back to normal.”
