The union of 292 full-time faculty members and librarians at Saint Mary’s University, SMUFU, has voted 91% “No Confidence,” in SMU’s president, Robert Summerby-Murray, and the chair of SMU’s board of governors, Alan Abraham.
— SMUFU (@SMUFacultyUnion) April 9, 2024
In the union’s press release from Tuesday, they write that the “financial mismanagement” by SMU’s president has resulted in “debt, budget cuts, the suspension of the university’s student employment program, SMUWorks, and reductions in scholarships.” It reads that the union has “exhausted internal channels,” such as working with the university’s senate and board of governors to sit-down and find a plan for setting the university back on stable financial footing.
The SMUFU paid for an external financial audit of the university’s financial situation from 2017 to 2022, with updates added for the 2023/24 fiscal year in the final published report in October 2023.
The audit reported that SMU incurred a $6.9 million loss in their general fund for the fiscal year ending Mar. 31, 2023, which amounts to an 85% decrease from 2019 levels of “unrestricted cash and investments and [dues] from other funds.”
Cathy Conrad, the president of the SMUFU, says the university has not published their 2024/25 budget yet because the board has told them they need more information. Conrad says “we think that might be a delay tactic–to hide it.”
Conrad is quoted in the release as saying the union “has made multiple requests to the administration for basic information about the financial condition of the university, but they have refused to be accountable and transparent about the true financial picture at Saint Mary’s.”
On Thursday, Apr. 11 from 1-2pm at the corner of Inglis Street and Tower Road, the SMUFU will hold an information and solidarity rally for anyone interested in learning more about the situation that has brought the union to this decision, that they describe as not something that needed to happen, that is emotional and taxing, but is what they say is necessary to highlight the immediacy of the financial crisis faced by the university today.
“We're hoping that by exposing the situation that's happening internally at SMU and by taking it to the community, to all of the people that love this university, that there will be some pressure to compel [the administration] to take us seriously, because we're in a very frustrating situation,” says Conrad. “We have one of the best business schools in the country. We have experts in finance and accounting and management, psychology and human resources, and [the administration] will not listen to us while we're being mismanaged into the ground.”
While a vote of no confidence does not require the president or chair of the board to resign, it does highlight the immediacy of the faculty union’s concern with university leadership and governance.
This is a developing story.
