UPDATE: A Year's Salary For Profs OKed for Early Retirement as UNI Attempts to Avoid Faculty Layoffs

The Iowa Board of Regents approved an early retirement plan targeting tenured faculty at University of Northern Iowa with a unanimous vote during a special telephone meeting on Monday.

UNI President Ben Allen declined to get into specifics about how many people would be eligible under the plan or how much they might save. Under the plan, a tenured professor in a program that plans to cut would be eligible for a full year's salary, plus additional health and sick pay benefits if they apply for an are approved for early retirement.

For comprehensive coverage of the closure and other budget cuts, including the UNI students' "study-in" on campus this week, visit the Cedar Falls Patch topic page, and get notified of the latest on Price Lab and other UNI news by signing up to the Cedar Falls Patch newsletter. 

The average salary at UNI ranges from $64,000 on average for an associate professor to $78,000 for a full professor, plus up to an additional $15,000 in benefits. 

Eligibility includes those aged 55 and older. People must apply by April 23, and resign no later than June 29.

UNI officials must update the Regents on the early retirement initiative in August.

UNI and Regent officials say their hope is that by incentivizing early retirement they can avoid laying off faculty, although that measure could still be necessary.

Under collective bargaining agreements, UNI is obligated to attempt to eliminate positions through attrition rather than layoffs.

"This is designed to be an incentive to motivate individuals who might be considering resigning or retiring to do so, which would mitigate then the need for layoffs," Regents staff general counsel Tom Evans said during the meeting.

United Faculty, the union representing UNI faculty, is using details compiled from information requests to assert the administration has plans to close undergraduate in physics, geography, religion, philosophy, and the teaching of English to speakers of other languages. This would result in the elimination of 30 faculty positions, according to the union.

Allen said he plans to meet with faculty this week with some program cut announcements to follow.