Never take a position at this institution. They have recently declared financial exigency to layoff tenure-track faculty while admins keep increasing their own salaries. Shameful.
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@mw agree. Sad to see former faculty like Lance Fortnow posting on social media and spreading the same BS narrative that IIT admins are pushing, simply whining about "everything that is happening in higher education right now". How naive can one be.
CFO Jeremy Fine, on the day of the layoffs, sent nearly all IT staff an appointment for two later with subject line “Organizational update”. The attendees were hidden in the appt item and with this note: “We ask that you participate from a private location. Your attendance is important.”
So, for those two hours, many folks were feeling psychological trauma at the prospect of imminently losing their job. Everyone on my team immediately exchanged phone numbers so we could continue to communicate if we got canned.
Then, in the call, he says, “We just want to answer any questions you all may have about this very difficult day…” Total nothingburger of a meeting but the invite felt very manipulative and subtly threatening.
@1nj 40% of the faculty? Meaning the school had less than 200 faculty left before the layoff?
@1mx 72 tenured faculty, 31 nontenured faculty and 60 staff. Over 40% of the tenured faculty were terminated.
Does anyone know the actual number of tenure line faculty that were cut? The number reported (160) also included staff, so it’s hard to tell.
Note that "President Raj" makes $1 million a year with his bonus. No senior administrators have been willing to sacrifice anything for the institution. Karma will kick this university's butt.
The current president, Raj Echambadi has been in his position for 5 years. In that time he has mismanaged the institution using his distorted view of higher education. He has created a culture of dismissal of faculty input, fear of reprisals, and outright lies. His financial mismanagement, and the declaration of financial exigency, are evidence of his incompetence. He is the antithesis of a leader. After heavy deficits in his first years at the university, in May of 2025 he came before the university faculty and staff and congratulated them about how wonderful it was that the university had been turned around, financially. "No other school has done this!" he stated. In August of 2025 he came before the university faculty and staff and told them that the institution could not survive for another 2 years. In January 2026 he told the faculty that "tenure would remain in place and not be abandoned." In August of 2026 he fired 1/3 of the faculty, at all academic ranks, many tenured faculty members. He has deceived the faculty and the Board of Trustees. He, and his hand picked executive team that he brought from Northeastern University, including Provost Elizabeth Hundson, and Mallik Sundharam have embarked upon "progressive" restructuring of the university, destroying any recognizable elements of higher education. He claims that the university woes are due to policies of the Trump admininstration. This is only moderately true. The real cause of the decline of the university is his complete dismissal of shared faculty governance and the elimination of any faculty influence upon academics. Hudson has created trendy new college names such as 'Professional Futures" and "Tech Futures." All academic departments have been eliminated. It is doubtful that academic programs in science and engineering will retain any accreditation. He has fired the most capable faculty two weeks before the start of the fall 2026 semester, without any plan about how courses can be delivered to students. The university is in massive chaos. After firing about 100 faculty members, now the administration is trying to find adjuncts to teach courses for students. Staff have been fired without any infrastructure to replace their function. All of this is happening because of the gross financial mismanagement of the institution by the president, provost, and CFO. While the very real external forces affecting higher education today have had an effect, the real cause of the decline of this once noble institution is the ill-conceived and arrogant policies of the president and provost. The most vulnerable victims are the students. I urge any current students to strongly consider transfering to other universities while there is still time to complete their education with a degree that has some credibility. I urge new, and incoming students, to flee as quickly as they can. IIT was founded on the promise of providing education to first-generation college students, particularly from Bronzeville. Raj Echambadi has betrayed the vision of those who started and matured the university. The institution has been irrevocably damaged. It is very sad.
The institution announced a new multi-million dollar campus in India as a part of a costly expansion. Horrible financial decisions being made at the top level of administration costing jobs, scholarships, and financial aid.
Many undergraduates are in the process of transferring out to nearby schools like UIC and UIUC.
IIT should have remained in Chicago and stayed focused on building itself back to its former glory rather than wild expansion efforts. It's disgusting what they're doing to faculty members that have given so much to this institution from decades of work. All gambled away.
Absolutely right. The professors who were laid off should file a lawsuit against the president himself and the entire trustee of the university. They should have taken actions much earlier, given that the international student enrollment had been consistently declining over the last several years. They don't even want to consider other options like reducing salaries (including themselves) or requiring furloughs or offering fair earlier retirement, etc., while keeping the faculties. Note that the enrollment reduction from international students, their major excuse for laying off faculties, is not unique to IIT. If other universities are able to handle this, why not IIT? There is something terribly wrong with this president and the entire trustee. Shame on the president and the trustees!!
I've been at this institution for over 20 years and I've never seen things this bad. Trouble comes from the top! Time for a new president since this one has dragged us down!!