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)