University of Akron proposes cuts to polymer program

Faced with a budget shortfall, the University of Akron (UA) is proposing to merge its department of chemistry; department of chemical, biomolecular, and corrosion engineering; and School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering and to cut up to 15 faculty positions across these disciplines.

If the the Ohio public research institution moves forward with the proposal as is, 10 of the cuts are slated to come from the polymer school, says Toni Bisconti, president of the Akron chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the union that represents the university’s full-time faculty. The school currently has 19 full-time faculty members.

The planned cuts, first reported by Signal Akron in November, are being proposed through a process known as retrenchment, which allows the university administration to eliminate faculty positions in the event of a significant financial crisis. The retrenchment follows several other cost-cutting and revenue-generating measures that the university recently implemented to reduce the $27 million deficit it expects to carry into 2025.

“We, like many other universities, are in some financial trouble,” Bisconti says.

In choosing departments to be affected, the university considered factors such as operating costs and enrollment trends over the past five semesters, she says.

Decreased enrollment makes it harder to fund research—one of the main activities of the School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering. Since its inception, the internationally known polymer program has contributed to the growth of the local industry, according to a history published last year. The American Chemical Society’s Divison of Rubber—ACS publishes C&EN—is based in Akron, as are major polymer-related companies like Goodyear Tire & Rubber.

Proposed cuts to a program that is held in such high regard has prompted backlash. Mark Soucek, the polymer school’s interim director, declines to comment on the impact a retrenchment would have on the program’s reputation, but he told Signal Akron that even discussing cuts has severely damaged it.

And chemistry department chair Christopher Ziegler says, “Anytime the university has to go through a process of eliminating positions, this generally does not look good on the university.” Undergraduate enrollment across US chemistry departments is down, though UA’s program is not expected to face faculty cuts. The five other faculty positions set for elimination are in the chemical engineering department.

A Change.org petition protesting the retrenchment proposal says that eliminating polymer faculty could harm UA’s ability to continue cutting-edge research and may encourage remaining faculty to seek employment elsewhere. It also argues that the cuts might make it harder to attract students to the polymer school’s new bachelor’s degree program, which launched in 2022.

Matthew Szigeti, a polymer science and engineering PhD student who created the petition on Dec. 4, says he has received strong support from students, researchers, and professionals in polymer-related fields. The petition has amassed over 1,000 signatures.

Brandon McReynolds, another PhD student in the polymer program, worries what the cuts will mean for grad students like him. “Are we just going to be advisorless?” McReynolds wonders. “Where are we going to be at if they just lay off 10 of the faculty?”

Bisconti says she understands that uncertainty surrounding the proposal can be distressing for students and faculty, but she emphasizes that UA is only at the beginning of the retrenchment process, which can take upward of 18 months. “No one is being retrenched yet. There’s still lots of conversations and counterproposals that we’re being asked to make,” she says.

Impacted departments have until mid-January to propose alternative cost-cutting measures. The university is also seeking voluntary departures to reduce the number of positions that need to be eliminated through retrenchment.