Point Park won't renew 17 faculty contracts

Point Park University will not renew the contracts of 17 non-tenured faculty members, the university announced this week.

A university spokesman did not answer questions about what specific academic departments would be affected in the Downtown institution, which serves around 4,000 students. The change was allowed through a collective bargaining agreement with the faculty’s union, the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh/Communication Workers of America Local 38061.

“Point Park University has notified 17 nontenured faculty members that their contracts will not be renewed for the 2021-2022 academic year,” spokesman Lou Corsaro said in a statement.

The agreement between the union and the university allows Point Park to not renew appointments of non-tenured faculty based on the university’s needs, Corsaro said.

Universities nationwide have faced financial difficulties due to the covid-19 pandemic, which Corsaro alluded to, as well.

“We are nearly one full year into the covid-19 pandemic, which has created significant disruptions in higher education,” he said. “This has led many universities to readjust its operations to ensure the fulfillment of the biggest priority – providing a high quality education to students.”

Corsaro declined to comment on what specific revenue sources have been reduced at the university during the pandemic, or whether the university is considering any other cost-saving measures at this time.

Amid the pandemic and its disruptions to higher education, colleges across the U.S. have experienced a total enrollment decline amounting to about 2.5% in Fall 2020, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center — nearly twice the rate of decline in the year previous. Duquesne University in December informed some full-time, non-tenureed faculty that their contracts would not be renewed, citing the “financial realities” of the covid-19 pandemic as well as long-term declines in enrollment.