Emporia State cut tenured faculty as part of a controversial workforce-management policy. Officials promise a reinvestment of resources, but critics distrust leadership and fear the worst. The cuts at Emporia State have been a long time coming. In January, a university leadership team began considering how to respond to the financial and enrollment challenges facing the university. Then, in May, the Kansas Board of Regents extended a workforce-management policy that it had introduced during the coronavirus pandemic to allow cash-strapped institutions in the state to quickly terminate employees. Suddenly, ESU leadership had a new mechanism to eliminate jobs, pending approval from the Kansas Board of Regents, which signed off on the plan on Sept. 14.
