Plans for Faculty of Humanities financial policy are now known: ‘Shared responsibility necessary’
The Faculty of Humanities is heading for a financial deficit in 2024 and subsequent years. After the report of the analysis core group, the Perspective 2028 steering group submitted their advisory in report in May. The Faculty Board has now has drawn up a Plan of Action, in consultation with the institutes and departments of the faculty office. The Faculty Board gives a brief oversight of what measures this will lead to.
Which areas will you be working on?
Mark: ‘The short answer is: just about all of them. We’re going to be very cautious about filling vacancies, for example. In cooperation with the institutes, we will develop plans for this.
We’re also looking at a significant reduction in our teaching commitment to better match education demand and supply. We will adopt stronger curriculum guidelines. Aiming for fuller groups is also desirable, which means we have to think about adjusting and reducing tracks and electives. If we don’t do this effectively together, the problems will only get worse and we won’t be able to control the workload either. This is very much a shared responsibility, which may require lecturers to be willing, for instance, to teach courses that are perhaps less in line with their own specialisation.
The plan also indicates that we need to have discussions with the Executive Board about the payments for services and other central costs to which the faculty has to contribute. These costs are linked to the size of the faculty, so they stay the same percentage-wise, but we have only limited control over them. The same is true for the payments to our faculty facilities, such as the library. Finally, we will be looking at the faculty’s grant schemes and the costs of the Faculty Office.’
Are you only going to cut costs or are you also looking at other measures?
Saskia: ‘We’d like to try to increase our income by ending the decline in student intake. After all, much of our income is based on the credits earned by students.’
Mark: ‘We’ve recently also been working more on providing information to the Ministry (of Education, Culture and Science; OCW). We’re now participating in the Ministry’s consultations more often. Recently, two delegations of their staff have visited us in Leiden. The aim of this is to create more understanding of the humanities, to make clear the importance of the humanities in society. And to show how our education is structured, as well as to stress what unwanted effects even well-intended measures will have. In the national context of the Council of Deans in Humanities and the SSH Council, we’re also looking constantly for ways to make our voice heard in the political arena.’
How can we safeguard the faculty’s unique character, with its many small study programmes and broad expertise?
Mirjam: ‘It’s very important to us to safeguard our unique expertise in the area of the humanities, in both research and education. But nevertheless, it’s highly likely that we’ll have to offer some fields of expertise to a lesser extent or with less differentiation. In our education, too, we’d really like to maintain the broad range of subjects that we offer, but this won’t always be possible in the form of their own bachelor’s specialisation or standalone study programme. These choices will certainly not be painless and will ask a great deal from the relationships between us all: trust and willingness to continue supporting one another wherever possible are essential.’
Jeroen: ‘Study programmes with small student numbers are already efficiently organised at the moment, with shared courses, alternate courses, elective credits and often a period of study abroad. The Faculty Board is exploring the possibility of introducing one or two additional faculty wide courses. This way, we want to keep small bachelor’s programmes viable.
To keep our education programmes attractive for future generations of students with this changing approach, it’s important that we continue to innovate at the same time. We will therefore be critically reviewing our education portfolio in the period ahead. We’re going to appoint a task force for this purpose, with a broad representation of staff members. We will be discussing the specific task and the composition of this task force with the management teams of the institutes, the programme directors and the Faculty Council.’
Many of the measures in the Plan of Action relate to education. Why is this the case?
Mirjam: ‘Our main source of income is the revenue from students’ credits. It’s precisely there that we’re seeing a decline. This is partly because enrolment in our master’s programmes has fallen in the last two years (from 1,200 in 20/21 to 973 in 23/24), and partly because, since the coronavirus crisis, students have been obtaining fewer credits per year on average. The latter is a more general observation, but the former is not: in this respect, our faculty unfortunately seems to be performing worse than the other faculties here at Leiden and other Humanities faculties in the Netherlands. In recent years, a growing number of our bachelor’s graduates have not been choosing a master’s programme in our faculty. At the same time, we haven’t been able to compensate for that loss by attracting more master’s students from elsewhere.’
Jeroen: ‘The most important measures are to apply the ‘programme standards’ very carefully and to look critically at the education portfolio. If a recruitment freeze is introduced, we’ll have to design the education offering with fewer teaching staff. If we want to achieve this and still have any time to do research, we’ll really have to deliver our education more efficiently. This doesn’t mean simply scrapping courses, but it does mean making strategic choices in the range of education we offer.’
A large proportion of the deficit seems to be attributable to internal payments to the central organisation. How are you going to deal with this?
Saskia: ‘Many of the services that we use are organised at the university level; examples of these services are HR administration, information security and cleaning. This collective approach means that the expertise is guaranteed, and the service provision is rather like getting water from the tap: it’s taken so much for granted when it goes well that you only notice if it’s not there. The payments are set on the basis of the faculty’s size, but they’ve increased in the last few years, partly as a result of changes in laws and regulations.
In the organisation as a whole, attempts are therefore being made to reduce the payments. In this context, we’re carefully considering what consequences any reduction in services will have for the organisation and more specifically the faculty. For example, cybersecurity needs more attention, especially in combination with our research data and other data. At the same time, the question is whether all our buildings on the Humanities Campus should keep the current wide opening hours. Additionally, we’re looking at the payments to our faculty service departments.’
What is the attitude of the Executive Board?
Mark: ‘The Executive Board is emphatically supporting us and is very aware of the difficult circumstances and the vulnerability of the humanities. Another consideration is that our faculty is one of the ‘flagships’ of Leiden University and has a leading international position. But this does not change the fact that we largely need to get our own affairs in order, also because we’re not the only faculty with financial concerns.’
How does this plan relate to political circumstances outside the university?
Mark: ‘The current plan of approach is based on the problems and developments that are known at present. At the same time, however, we don’t want new developments to catch us unprepared. The outline coalition agreement (Hoofdlijnenakkoord) is causing us great concern, while the Balanced Internationalisation Act (Wet Internationalisering in Balans) also represents a major challenge for higher education. The intention of some of our measures is therefore not solely to reduce the current deficits, but to ensure that, as an organisation, we can respond adequately and efficiently to situations that are currently still uncertain.'
Is there going to be a reorganisation?
Mark: ‘Our aim is to avoid an actual reorganisation, where people lose their jobs. However, in view of the many uncertainties, we can’t guarantee that this will be possible.’
What are the next steps in the process? When will the first changes take effect and when will there be another update?
Mark: ‘We’re already working hard as a faculty and as institutes. Everyone understands that we can’t just sit still. Working groups are going to start on further developing the plans, while the Faculty Board will continue to have discussions with the Faculty Council and the institutes. This will happen in the short term: the Executive Board will have to give its consent to our approach at the beginning of July. We will naturally try to inform the faculty about this as much as possible. For example, we’ve organised drop-in sessions for all staff members in the coming weeks, and we hope people will make use of them. And then we certainly expect to have more information after the summer.’
The Plan of Action was approved by the Faculty Board on Tuesday 18 June. Once the final text is also available in English, it will be shared with the entire faculty community.