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[stringcheese]

What happens when a school in a university shuts down?  Does the administration give notice, so that faculty can find another job or does it close quickly?  Is the university required to find "places" for the tenured faculty or are they sunk as well?  Will the university provide a severance?  What happens to any students that may be working on a graduate degree?  What if you have grants and data? 

This is a serious question.  I am working in a school that is in deep trouble; it is a new school to the university, but terribly mismanaged and now...

Thanks for any insight.

[msparticularity]

First, I want to say I'm really sorry that you're dealing with this. The financial meltdown has hit education hard, and unfortunately, a truly remarkable number of educational institutions seem to be very poorly managed--including a lot in state university systems. In answer to your question: A great deal of this depends upon the institution's own internal procedures, and possibly state law if you are at a public university. You might checking to see whether there is anything on the website about financial exigency, program review, and/or retrenchment. You should also look at the faculty contract and/or handbook.

In some places, financial exigency can be declared for individual departments, programs, and schools, where in others it must be system-wide to trigger a RIF (Reduction in Force). Generally speaking, procedures call for moving tenured (and sometimes TT) faculty to other programs and departments if they are appropriately qualified. Sometimes a declaration of financial exigency trumps any other procedures for notification to faculty of their non-renewal, and in other places you still get a significant amount of notice--as much as a year in advance.

What do the applicable guidelines say for you? Are you tenured, or TT?

[ruralguy]

Yeah, if the entire place shuts down, you are basically screwed. Financial exigency probably would protect the college from having to do anything on your behalf at all, though most would probably try to give you as much warning as possible. Please keep in mind that under such difficulties, all the people writing to tell you of this would all be losing their jobs too.

If just bits and pieces close, then the first committment is usually to the tenured faculty (consolidate depts., or place  , say, a physicist in an applied math dept or something), then the TT faculty, and lastly, any other faculty.

Most handbooks say very little about this.

[seniorscholar]

If just bits and pieces close, then the first committment is usually to the tenured faculty (consolidate depts., or place  , say, a physicist in an applied math dept or something), then the TT faculty, and lastly, any other faculty.

in reverse order of date of hire (for any other faculty). It's in our union contract.

[zharkov]

For a private university, anything can happen, but one usually sees the ship sinking a few years before it goes bottoms up.  Sometimes the accreditors (or a state board of ed) will intervene and put a school on warning (owing to financial reasons), but not always.  One school I know that shut down lost a couple of big donors who stopped giving, which accelerated the closing.  Faculty basically had to start over elsewhere. 

By the way, it can get pretty painful working on a sinking ship, thinking mostly of my days in industry.  Obviously, there are no resources.  Benefits get cut, while people who stay do the work of others who got laid off or quit. 

[spork]

If you have grant money, you might be attractive to another unit in your university.

[cancom]

Though I am not nearly in the same position as you, the job I have is in a similar boat. We have a very poorly managed department (a whole whack of 'bad chair' stuff) and this poor management tied into the shrinking budget picture leads me to a partial layoff situation next year. In part this bad management has increased the workload for permanent half-time faculty (the reason we have so many half-time faculty who are permanent still boggles my mind), and caused seniority bumping to the advantage of the chair. This bumping and bad management is deplorable as is the poor management of schools in good times that can easily be taken up in bad times.

I don't know if you have a union in your university or not, but if you do, the Chief Steward would be my first call and as soon as you can. They may not have all of the answers but they can certainly give you some of the ballpark scenarios to consider. In my case I worked out some alternate plans (none ideal and really just enough to bide time to find something better), but this isn't always possible.

Best of luck in landing on your feet but keep in mind that you will likely be pulled between 'taking one for the team' and looking out for yourself. The bad management and bigger structural picture you paint suggests that you should consider yourself first and the team second in this instance.

[offthemarket]

Depending on your field, is it feasible to explore jumping ship to a different department in another school? It does sound rough and I wish you luck.  Yes, look out for your own interests in this situation.

[bevo98]

Agree with offthemarket, you are under no obligation to wait this out.  In fact, you can use this as a perfectly good reason for seeking another job. 

Good Luck!

[mleok]

Agree with offthemarket, you are under no obligation to wait this out.  In fact, you can use this as a perfectly good reason for seeking another job. 

Good Luck!

Indeed. In response to the OP's question, when the ship sinks, be the first one to the life boats...

[larryc]

OP, get your applications out! Good luck.