The University of Colorado at Boulder’s College of Arts and Sciences dean said this week that he hopes to replace 50 tenured and tenure-track faculty members with 25 instructors who will teach more and earn less. His goal is to build more flexibility into the college’s post-COVID-19 budget. The faculty positions are hypothetical and the numbers are just examples, James White, interim dean, said in an interview Thursday. About 60 professors are taking incentivized retirement as part of an effort to cut the college’s budget by 8 percent. No one is getting laid off. But going forward, White believes that employing relatively more non-tenure-track instructors means the college can provide midcareer and other support to the tenured professors it retains.
