Correction:
An earlier version of this article said the physics department would no longer offer degrees. The department had already stopped offering degrees. It was also updated to reflect the correct name of the American Association of University Professors.
The University of Akron’s School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering will not experience faculty cuts that professors said would have devastated the program, the Board of Trustees decided Tuesday. But professors said even without cutting 10 faculty members, the initial proposal that would have eliminated close to half the school’s professors has caused harm.
Several faculty members are interviewing for jobs elsewhere, said Mark Soucek, the interim director of the polymer science school, and he’s aware of another faculty member whose exit hasn’t been announced. Soucek said he “certainly will try to help change their minds” and encourage them to stay in Akron, but morale remains low.
“I’m frustrated,” he said. “We were targeted.”
The polymer science school is among the most well-regarded at the university and has an international reputation. Over the past year, Akron has received more than $100 million in grants, some of which will go to the university, as part of state and federal awards for the city’s polymer hub.
While no jobs will be cut, the Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to require changes in the department, as they agreed to accept University of Akron President R.J. Nemer’s recommendations to help trim at least $22 million from the budget by the end of the 2026 fiscal year.
The university has seen a significant drop in student enrollment over the past decade, seriously impacting the amount of money it receives through both tuition and state funding. In 2011, the University of Akron had nearly 30,000 students. In 2025, that number dropped to 13,923.
A professor in the polymer science school, whom Signal Akron is granting anonymity to because he does not have permission to speak about retrenchment, said the process has significantly eroded other faculty members’ trust in the system. He expects the program to shrink if enrollment does not rebound and said the public discussion of possible cuts had a long-lasting negative effect.
“It’s like an arrow,” the professor said. “Once it gets off its bow, it goes its course.”
In Akron, anthropology degree to be eliminated and physics faculty to be cut
In addition to polymer science changes, the vote will affect the physics and anthropology departments. Both will experience a reduction in faculty and the anthropology department will no longer offer degrees. The physics department had already stopped offering degrees.
Some physics courses will be folded into the polymer science, engineering, biology and chemistry departments, the board decided. Three faculty members will leave voluntarily by the end of June 2026, while three others will remain, with mutually agreed upon end dates. If no agreement can be reached, the three remaining faculty members will be subject to the same job cut process — called retrenchment — that the university previously considered.
Members of the anthropology department filed a grievance following the announcement that their department could be eliminated. If the grievance is settled or withdrawn, two faculty members will be transferred to the College of Health and Human Sciences and the Department of Sociology, two will be retained to allow anthropology students to finish degree courses by May 2028 and two will not have their contracts renewed after May 2026.
If the grievance is not resolved, the four faculty members who would exit over the course of several years would have to sign separation agreements or be subject to retrenchment themselves.
The Department of Chemical, Biomolecular and Corrosion Engineering, which was recommended for five job cuts, had three people leave voluntarily and is not subject to other reductions.
The Board of Trustees vote regarding Nemer’s recommendations comes on top of the exit of around 30 faculty members, 20 of whom are in departments that were targeted for cuts, said Toni Bisconti, the president of the Akron chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
She called those who were leaving “some of our brightest scholars” and said many are faculty members who have a “deep-rooted commitment to the health of the university,” which is what led them to decide to leave, protecting the jobs of younger faculty members who would have been subject to cuts if retrenchment had proceeded.
“At the end of the day, the whole process is upsetting for a lot of different reasons,” said Bisconti, who is also a professor of psychology at the university. “The union’s position is retrenchment is bad for the university.”
Polymer science teaching requirements will increase
While no polymer science faculty were cut, the department will experience changes. Nemer’s recommendations determined the school should operate like a top-tier research university, with more work requirements and research dollars.
Bisconti said she expects workloads will increase, and professors will have to fund their own research — something that might be harder with federal funding cuts.
“Their daily lives are going to be different,” she said.
Soucek, the interim director, said having faculty members take on more teaching responsibilities would likely slow down their research. He said the details of what will happen with the school still need to be worked out, but, in the meantime, he is frustrated that decisions were made without any input from the polymer science school.
“We have to be a research-oriented unit,” Soucek said. “We definitely need enough time to write proposals and do the research we’re promising. We have yet to see how this is going to be balanced out with the teaching load the administration has in mind.”
The school currently receives about $10 million in grants, Soucek said, an amount that would be closer to $15 million if not for large federal grants that are on hold. He said while there is a “sigh of relief” that more faculty members won’t be cut, he’s now tasked with figuring out how, exactly, to act on Nemer’s recommendations.
“Until I know the details of what they want, it’s almost like reading tea leaves,” Soucek said. “What they want is for us to cost less money.”
Soucek said he was thankful Nemer had given his school “thoughtful consideration” and was looking forward to what he hoped would be stable leadership, with a new provost starting soon after a year of changes.
UA Board of Trustees must ‘support a sustainable budget’
Bisconti said she wished the “Big Ideas” that were part of a Joint Committee on Retrenchment solicitation would have come before any cuts were proposed. The way the university operated — announcing retrenchment plans before seeking ideas to make or save money — was “backwards,” she said.
“I think they did damage, period, out of the gate. That hurts our reputation, that hurts our alumni giving money. … We’re going to be losing scholars; we’re likely going to be losing students.”
In its resolution announcing the vote, trustees said the board “recognizes that change is necessary and required” within certain units and that they “must ensure our academic programs and services are properly and continually aligned with student and market demand.”
“The Board, in our fiduciary role, considers these changes necessary in order to support a sustainable budget that aligns with the changed needs and size of the student body,” Lew Adkins, chair of the Board of Trustees, said in an emailed press release.
In addition to the changes to academic units, the Board of Trustees affirmed its support for other efforts, including “continuing to trim our real estate footprint, improving the athletics budget, engaging in conversations to exercise proper stewardship over our facilities, selling underutilized assets and monetizing others that will assist in reducing expenses and increasing revenue.” And it will form a Position Review Committee to review and approve requested faculty positions before seeking a replacement.
“I’d really like to see equal scrutiny towards the other elements,” Bisconti said, referring to the real estate, athletics and other places cuts could be made. “Cutting on the academic side is not the path for financial solvency.”
