The Executive Committee for Fordham University has decided to suspend all contributions to the university’s faculty and staff retirement plan effective for the Nov. 6, 2020 payroll and extending through June 2021. 

The Board of Trustees said it took this step as a result of “grave revenue shortfalls in the University budget associated with COVID-19.” The decision was announced in an Oct. 28 email from Robert Daleo, chairman of the Board of Trustees, just nine days before the cancellation takes effect. 

In a follow-up email from Rev. Joseph McShane, S.J., president of the university, on Nov. 3, he said the decision was made due to a $105 million budget shortfall this year. He said the board was deciding between cutting retirement plans and furloughing or laying off faculty and staff members.

“We believed, and continue to believe, that the second option would fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable members of the University’s workforce,” the email read. “Aside from being counter to Fordham’s ethos, doing so would weaken our ability to carry out our core mission, and further reduce our ability to attract students in a highly competitive higher education climate.”

The Instagram account @fordhamfacultyspeakout is accepting and posting anonymous submissions from faculty and staff about experienced exploitation from Fordham University. Several posts describe frustrations with the university’s decision to suspend funding towards retirement and condemn the tone and message of the emails from McShane and Daleo. 

“I have been working my heart out to support my students and the university in this time of crisis,” one post reads. “For the university to reward that by breaking its contracts with faculty and threatening our future is extraordinarily betrayal.”

Many posts express the fact that professors have been working hard to sustain a proper working environment through virtual, hybrid and online classes, and as well as feeling of being undervalued in light of this cut. 

This article will be updated as new information comes to light.