Southern board passes reorganization plan

The Southern University Board of Supervisors passed without objection a proposed reorganization plan that outlines layoffs, consolidations of the academic colleges and changes in the school’s administrative structure. The “retrenchment and reorganization plan,” proposed by Chancellor James Llorens, follows the Southern University System Board of Supervisors’ decision in October to declare financial exigency, which allows for the layoffs of tenured faculty. According to the document presented to system President Ronald Mason and the board, the plan eliminates 87 positions—including 35 faculty positions—and saves nearly $8.7 million. The plan is intended to move the system’s flagship campus “to a new level of efficiency, effectiveness and accountability, while simultaneously positioning SUBR for future growth and ensuring its forward movement with a balanced budget,” the document says. Faculty senate President Sudhir Trivedi, who is raising money to mount a legal challenge against the exigency declaration, says the campus Academic Council never voted on the plan, even though the council is the official policy-making body for academic issues. “We were told that we must collapse the whole academic enterprise into five colleges and that there would be no votes taken on this matter,” he says. See the plan here; and read Trivedi’s response here. For a recent Business Report cover story about Southern’s future, click here. —David Jacobs