Before the Provisional Plan

A Comment on PIVOT, Article 22, and the Limits of Shared Governance

What follows is a formal comment I submitted today to President Ann Cudd’s office pursuant to Article 22 of the PSU-AAUP Collective Bargaining Agreement, which governs the retrenchment process currently underway at Portland State University. The comment period runs through April 15. Article 22 requires the Administration to present a full analysis of the University’s financial condition and to receive faculty input before issuing a provisional plan identifying positions and departments targeted for elimination. I am submitting this in my capacity as a Faculty Senator representing the College of Education. I am publishing it here because the questions it raises about transparency, methodological accountability, and the limits of shared governance under conditions of institutional austerity are not internal matters. They concern the faculty, students, and communities that Portland State is obligated to serve.

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I. The Financial Analysis Presented on March 16 Does Not Satisfy the Requirements of Article 22

Article 22 of the PSU-AAUP Collective Bargaining Agreement requires the Administration to present a “full description and analysis of the financial condition of the University” before issuing any provisional plan for retrenchment. The March 16 presentation outlined the E&G structural deficit and projected an approximately $35 million shortfall by FY28. However, the presentation addressed only one funding stream—the Education and General fund—while explicitly excluding auxiliary and restricted funds.

The University’s 2025 Financial Profile reports a Primary Reserve Ratio of 0.44, well above the Board-mandated minimum of 0.25. When Faculty Senator Kinsella raised the question of whether excess reserves above Board-mandated minimums could be used to mitigate layoffs, President Cudd’s response was that “best practice” precludes such reallocation. That answer is insufficient on its face. The Faculty Senate’s Question for Administrators, submitted for the April 6, 2026, meeting, appropriately presses this point: the campus community deserves to know whether the Administration’s position reflects a legal or regulatory requirement, a binding Board policy, or an internal administrative judgment that is, in principle, revisable. Until that question is answered with specificity, the claim that all available avenues have been exhausted cannot be accepted.

I urge the Administration to provide, prior to the issuance of any provisional plan, a clear written response that distinguishes between legally binding constraints, Board policy-imposed constraints, and discretionary administrative choices. Faculty have a legitimate governance interest in knowing which limits are fixed and which are chosen.

II. The PIVOT Methodology Has Not Been Made Sufficiently Transparent to Permit Substantive Faculty Evaluation

The March 2 Faculty Senate meeting led to an extended discussion of the criteria and processes used to determine PIVOT classifications. President Cudd identified five domains of evidence — student success, graduation rates, market demand, mission fit, and organizational vitality — and described the process as iterative and collaborative. When pressed to explain how programs that fell below the 77% contribution margin threshold were nonetheless permitted to continue, and how those determinations were reached, the Administration acknowledged that no formula or transparent scoring rubric governed the outcome. The recorded answer was that “there comes a point where formulas are unavailable” and that the decisions involved “lots of discussions.”

Faculty are not asking for algorithmic certainty. They are requesting a reconstructible record: who participated in the evaluations, at which stages, with what information, and according to what criteria. The minutes of the March 2 meeting document that units received data, wrote vitality reports, and that deans conducted conversations in ways that differed “in their own way” across colleges. That description is insufficient as an account of a process that will determine which faculty positions are eliminated and which programs survive.

I request that the Administration make available, before a provisional plan is released, a written reconstruction of the PIVOT evaluation process at the college and department level, including the dates of key deliberations, the parties involved, the role played by each domain of evidence in final classifications, and, where classifications were changed from initial recommendations, the stated rationale for those changes. The Faculty Senate’s capacity to provide substantive consultation, which Article 22 explicitly anticipates, depends on having access to this information.

III. The Entanglement of PIVOT, Article 22, and the General Education Review Requires Explicit Acknowledgment

The March 16 meeting minutes record President Cudd’s statement that maintaining a separate General Education unit, University Studies, “is no longer financially viable.” This statement was made in the context of the Article 22 presentation. The General Education Task Force’s own Steering Committee has acknowledged in its final report that the Article 22 process and the GenEd review are “formally separate matters” whose outcomes may nonetheless intersect in significant ways.

The Faculty Senate’s authority over curriculum, including the structure of general education, is not contingent on the Administration’s financial determinations. The elimination of University Studies as an academic unit is a matter properly subject to the full procedural protections of Article 22, including consultation, comment periods, and departmental review, and may not be resolved by administrative declaration. Furthermore, Senator Osborn’s point at the March 16 meeting, that the GenEd Task Force’s own model may cost more to implement than the current University Studies structure, remains unanswered. Before the Faculty Senate votes on a general education proposal, the Administration should provide a clear accounting of any financial commitments it is prepared to make to support implementation.

IV. Conclusion

I urge the Administration to take the following steps before issuing a provisional plan under Article 22:

First, provide a written accounting of excess non-E&G reserves and a clear, legally and policy-grounded explanation of whether and why those reserves may not be used to cushion the impact of retrenchment.

Second, provide a written reconstruction of the PIVOT evaluation methodology at the program and college level, including the basis for classification decisions in cases where programs fell below the stated contribution margin threshold but were not placed in the sunset category.

Third, clarify, in writing and in advance of any Faculty Senate vote on general education, what financial support the Administration is prepared to commit to any reformed general education model, and confirm that the elimination of University Studies as a unit is subject to the full procedural protections of Article 22.

The faculty of Portland State University has engaged the PIVOT process and the Article 22 proceedings in good faith. That engagement has a cost — in time, in labor, and in institutional trust. The Administration’s obligation is to meet that engagement with commensurate transparency and procedural rigor. I submit this comment in that spirit and expect a substantive response.

Respectfully submitted,

Ramin Farahmandpur