A 5 percent budget cut at the end of 2008 caused the University of Missouri St. Louis to freeze most, if not all, unfilled faculty and staff positions. University of Missouri-St. Louis has endured almost two years of a strict budget. During the process of enforcement, it came to a point that some positions were pivotal and needed to be occupied. “For a long time Jim Krueger, who is the Vice Chancellor for Managerial and Technological Services kept the Chief Information Officer [position] opened for a long time and had those units report to him directly,” Bob Samples, Associate Vice Chancellor, said. “Then he eventually felt that we were starting to fall behind in the planning and implementation of having the expertise in that and then he asked that there be an exception to fill that slot.”

The university established a system where if there was high priority for a certain staff or faculty then the chancellor would make the decision to override the freeze. “There’s a form called the Hiring Freeze exception and if someone wants to hire, they fill out a form that says this is a request for an exception to the hiring freeze. They would then send it to their supervisor, who would eventually send it to one of the three vice chancellors.  And if we all agree that it is an important, need-position, then we send it to the Chancellor for approval,” Glen Hahn Cope, Vice Chancellor, said.

Within this year the university has hired on two interim deans, Dean of Fine Arts and Communications along with Dean of Libraries. While both deans have tenure with the university they are temporarily replacing the previous deans that have retired. The university plans to start a search for new deans to fill these positions soon. “We will have a search, a national opened search, to replace the deans that retired and [the interim deans] may apply but they will have to compete for the job and get it,” Cope said.

Even though there will be a search for deans, the Vice Chancellor said there will not be a search for both at the same time. “We can use the salary of the [dean] that is fully retired but the one that has gone back to faculty we only have part of that salary,” Cope said.

In addition to the hiring freeze, there have also been layoffs. “The [University of Missouri President Gary D. Foresee] implemented a Transition Assistance Program for individuals who would be laid off due to budget cutbacks, and we have laid off 38 people on this campus—all across the board,” Samples said. Also, there are eight open faculty positions eliminated, 24 faculty searches on hold, 21 open staff positions eliminated, and 57 staff searches on hold.