Hiring Freeze Hampers Departments

Policy to Come Under Review June 30th

By Joshua Strauss

Desks in the offices of Alumni Affairs are idly collecting dust.  Staff is pushed to work seventeen-hour days in Admissions.  These are just two consequences of the many maladies plaguing Yeshiva as a result of the ongoing University-wide hiring freeze.

Early on in the spring semester, Yeshiva officials received memos mandating that they cease hiring administrators, managers, supervisors and secretaries.  Faculty hirings were not mentioned in the memo and therefore not affected by the freeze.  Administrators have been quick to note that Yeshiva higher-ups have guaranteed that the financial strictures will not adversely affect the University’s academic enterprise.

“The University is very concerned that there be no diminution in the academic quality of what we’re delivering,” declared Dr. Charles Snow, Dean of the Sy Syms School of Business.  “The level of academic quality is not to be touched,” he asserted.

Director of University Finances Bernard Pittinsky also promised that positions “critical to the health and safety of the student body” are obviously immune to the freeze.

Dr. Morton Lowengrub, Yeshiva’s Vice President of Academic Affairs, prefers to describe the status quo not as a “hiring freeze,” but as a “hiring delay.”  To demonstrate this point, he noted that at the Cardozo School of Law, a plan was hammered out to hire deans incrementally, in hopes of alleviating a gaping administrative hole that had opened after the hiring freeze had been instituted.

Furthermore, he reassured that a hiring freeze is something that happens regularly at colleges and that it should not alarm students.

Lowengrub also noted that the policy would come under review as of June 30th, at the close of Yeshiva’s fiscal calendar, asserting that the freeze might well be lifted thereafter.  Some departments, such as Admissions and Alumni Affairs are counting on this in order to replenish a depleted staff.  Michael Kranzler, Director of Admissions, declared that Admissions was “just barely surviving” in the wake of the departure of former associate director Ryan Hyman, and that the current hiring freeze would only further delay the process of procuring a replacement.

Director of Alumni Affairs Robert Saltzman finds the hiring freeze “unfortunate” and agrees that it has been putting strains on his department.  “Through a series of coincidences we have three vacancies now, which we can’t fill,” noted Saltzman.  “I’m sitting here with the empty desks of the Director of Alumni Affairs for Yeshiva College, the Director of Alumni Affairs for Stern College for Women and Sy Syms, and the Director of Alumni Annual Giving.”

Others hope that the freeze will be lifted on June 30th, inasmuch as they foresee a sustained freeze hampering operations and personnel for the coming fiscal year, as the natural ebb and flow of resignations and retirements open positions.

Lowengrub and Pittinsky, in a line repeated by many administrators, claim that Yeshiva currently has an operating budget deficit, which they cite as the impetus for instituting the freeze.  They further claim that most non-profit institutions run an operational deficit, and that a widening gap is growing between Yeshiva’s unrestricted cash reserves available and the money necessary to pay for the daily running of the University is a red light for action.  The ten percent tuition increase instituted for the 2002-2003 academic year will serve to partially close the alleged gap; the freeze would also serve to minimize a gap, thereby allowing a more modest tuition increase, though, as reported in Issue 10 of The Commentator, a ten percent raise in tuition has already been scheduled for the 2003-2004 academic year.

However, with tuition on the rise and a four hundred million dollar capital campaign underway, many students have questioned the underlying necessity of the hiring freeze.  “Yeshiva just received a ten million dollar gift from the Wilf family for campus improvements, and now there isn’t enough money in the operating budget to pay administrators’ salaries?” questioned an irate Yeshiva College Senior.

The answer to this student’s question involves truths that cut to the core of university fundraising in general.  Administrators maintain that, while Yeshiva is fortunate to receive large endowments and donations for various projects, an operational budget deficit  has been created in part by a lack of unrestricted cash donations.  Vice President for Development Daniel Forman claims: “It’s more difficult to raise unrestricted funds versus designated giving.  Donors prefer to know exactly where their funds are going.  They like to be identified with a specific project or facility.  This is not unique to Yeshiva University but standard for all university campaigns… We need to educate our alumni and families about the importance of unrestricted giving, even though it’s more popular to support focused giving.”

Forman claimed, though, that the largest factor contributing to the alleged operational budget deficit was the shortfall in the endowment to cover the scholarship assistance Yeshiva provides to over seventy percent of its undergraduate students.  “Hopefully, someday, the University endowment and the unrestricted giving will be large enough to match the need for increased scholarship support.”

During times of economic downturn, Forman said, it is harder to raise unrestricted funds.  The claimed reason behind this is that the unrestricted cash usually derives from donors giving small to medium size gifts -- donors who are usually hardest hit by an economic downturn and are most likely to curtail giving at such a time.  In fact, he said, during the period ranging from September 1st until March 31st, Yeshiva raised $712,000 less in unrestricted cash gifts than the same-period average for the previous five years.