As colleges across the country contemplate how to navigate the recession, the Faculty Senate at Brandeis University is testing a more unusual response to belt-tightening: It’s asking professors to take a salary cut in order to preclude layoffs.

An e-mail message to faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences on Monday informed them that they could volunteer to take a 1-percent pay cut, a step that would forestall two to three layoffs stemming from a projected budget shortfall in the 2009 fiscal year, reported The Justice, a student newspaper. Thirty percent of the arts-and-sciences faculty must conditionally agree to the cuts for the plan to take effect, and a decision is required by Friday.

“Some of us felt that, given Brandeis’s traditional, historical commitment to social justice, those faculty members whose jobs were secure might want to take a little bit of the burden for balancing the budget off the backs of staff members whose jobs aren’t [secure],” William Flesch, the Faculty Senate chair, wrote in an e-mail message to the newspaper.

Some senior administrators will also take voluntary pay cuts, according to The Justice. Among them is the university’s president, Jehuda Reinharz, who has said he will take a cut if the 30-percent participation goal is met. Several other university executives have volunteered to accept salary cuts in the past month, including the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis and the presidents of the University of Washington and Washington State University. —Caitlin Moran