The Academic Senate will spend the majority of October determining which open positions from faculty taking early retirement at the end of the school year will need to be replaced.

“I literally have no idea how many faculty we’ll be hiring next year,” said Academic Senate President Priscilla Butler. “It is still very uncertain.”

Beginning next week, each faculty member taking an early retirement through the supplemental early retirement program, who wants their position to be replaced will spend 15 minutes explaining to the senate the importance of their replacement.

Because the program is being used as a method to eliminate full-time faculty positions, not all open positions will be replaced. The program requires that some will not be filled in order for it to be successful in saving the college money.  

The presentations will help the senate understand each retiree’s job when they rank them on Oct. 26. Each position will either replaced by another faculty member or a new-hire, or be eliminated completely.

A report from Executive Vice President Paul Jarrell will show the positions that will be open. It will also include a list from the dean’s stressing which positions from their departments should be replaced.

“I know enrollment is declining, but whenever a person leaves it really hurts their department,” said Sen. Patricia Stark, representative for the fine arts division. “The ranking really matters.”

Butler stressed that no senator will be allowed to lobby any position from their own division to avoid bias in the ranking process.

The senate will also address two recently opened positions left from faculty who have quit, and agreed to require them to go through the same ranking process as the retirees.

Each position will be ranked separately, even if more than one is coming from the same department. Positions from the same department will be ranked by priority. Butler said the one with most priority should be ranked for replacement by current faculty, and the second by a new-hire. However, they can also be ranked equally.

The senate will refine the criteria that will be used in the ranking process before Wednesday’s meeting on Oct 12.