Faculty cut at hurricane-hit Texas university - December 02, 2008
Last month the University of Texas Medical Branch announced that 3,000 of its 12,000 employees would lose their jobs after Hurricane Ike devastated its facilities.
Now the Galveston Daily News is reporting that 127 faculty members will be among the casualties.
The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that the Texas Faculty Association is not happy. A post on the association’s blog says, “Of the 127 names listed, a mere 44 were non-tenure track. That means, gentle readers, that UTMB used Ike to further weaken tenure by running off tenured and tenure track faculty at a rate of almost twice that of non-tenure track faculty.”
The Daily News says:
Among those given their pink slips from UTMB were Dr. Frank “Marty” Ivey, who was the chief of sports medicine for the medical centre. Ivey, an alum of the UTMB medical school, is a published expert on knee and shoulder surgery and is sought after by athletes of all levels of their sports careers.Within the same orthopaedic department, an expert on spinal injuries and rehabilitation, Dr. Lilly Chen, was also let go. As an assistant professor, she lectured often on rehabilitation for those suffering from back pain.
The battle against cancer at UTMB also took a hit in the layoff announcements. Dr. Lee-Nien Lillian Chan has been heading studies on using vitamin A analogues to inhibit the growth of several cancer cell lines.
Research professor Wayne Bolen, who was heading a laboratory that focused on the physical chemistry of proteins, also is among those who will no longer conduct his research in Galveston.
“It saddens me to see the list of great faculty gone,” says one commenter on the faculty association blog. “I trained under a lot of them, and they were fantastic physicians and great human beings in general.”
Images: before and after Ike photos from the Bolivar Peninsula, near Galveston Island / USGS (click to enlarge)
Comments
Thank you for bringing this issue to the attention of your readers. UT has pleaded financial emergency although the school has one of the richest endowments in the world. UT system failed to adequately protect or insure the facility. The state of Texas also has a budget surplus, yet the health care of Southeast Texas is being put at risk as well as the economic recovery of Galveston and adjacent communities. The methods employed in these dismissals deserve investigation.
Posted by: UTMB faculty member | December 3, 2008 03:06 AM
I agree with everything my colleague commented on above. UT is more concerned with putting money into football rather than helping to provide care to not only the residents of SE Texas, but Texas as a whole and people from all over the world who depend on UTMB. It's a very sad situation, and I hope UTMB realizes how much damage they have caused.
Posted by: UTMB Former Employee | December 3, 2008 03:40 PM