Four Md. Universities To Furlough in Spring
At least four of Maryland's public universities will furlough their faculty and staff for as many as three days this spring in an attempt to balance their budgets after deep state funding cuts.</br></br>The furloughs, authorized by the state Board of Regents yesterday, will be staggered across the workforce so that no classes will have to be canceled and other campus services will suffer only minimal disruption, officials said.</br></br>University leaders said the furloughs -- the first since the early 1990s -- are the only way to prevent layoffs in light of a $67 million cut from the current academic year's appropriation. The university system earlier imposed a hiring freeze and the first midyear tuition increases in more than a decade.</br></br>"Every institution has taken a deep breath and decided this is what we have to do," said Calvin Lowe, president of Bowie State University, one of the furloughing schools. The others are the University of Maryland Baltimore County, the University of Maryland- Eastern Shore and Frostburg State University. A fifth campus, Salisbury University, will probably furlough employees next academic year, system officials said.</br></br>Employee unions vowed yesterday to fight the furlough, while faculty complained they could have lasting effects on staff morale. "The long-term effect of furloughs is to destroy collegiality and educational quality," said David L. Parker, a mathematics professor at Salisbury and president of the Council of University System Faculty.