McIntyre largely declined to discuss the thinking behind the university's request that units find 9% budget reductions in the next two academic years, saying it was made before she took office.

Most deans have already put together a two-year plan, McIntyre said, and her role will be to assess what has been successful and what hasn’t in budget meetings that will occur in the Spring. What those plans look like is unclear. McIntyre said only that “we’re pretty close” to finalizing them and that the university will have an update soon regarding layoffs.

University spokesperson Amber McCann said the university is estimating about 200 eliminated positions with final numbers to be determined.

For these cuts and layoffs, the university instructed deans and directors to handle budget reductions themselves, rather than providing specific instruction. McIntyre said they are empowered to manage budgets themselves.

“As an administration, you know, we're several layers removed from that, and so I don't necessarily think that it's our job to be able to dictate who needs to stay and who needs to leave,’ Mcintyre said.

The university asked all units on campus to cut evenly rather than cut more in specific areas than others. She said this process was very intentional and it gave leadership an opportunity to review what programs could be retained and trimmed.

“Some programs and portfolios are expanding, some are declining, some are remaining steady,” McIntyre said. “And so it was very intentional to not just go across the board in every single aspect.”

Uncertainty among unions and faculty

Faculty Senate Vice Chair John Aerni-Flessner said these cuts have created frustration and demoralization among faculty.

“Because the work continues and even increases,” he said.

Budgetary cuts have disproportionally fallen on contingent faculty and recent hires, Aerni-Flessner said. These are faculty who are typically lower on the pay scale and perform the daily teaching and advising at MSU.

Union of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty President Victor Rodriguez-Pereira said they know as much as what is publicly available when it comes to these layoffs. He said he is aware of the estimated 200 figure, but doesn’t know how many of them will be faculty. 

What Rodriguez-Pereira has noticed in the recent months is that rather than departments choosing to lay off faculty, they instead have decreased teaching loads.

“People who were teaching on a full time load until spring 2025 all of a sudden are being put in part time,” he said.

This means professors are being paid less, and this issue is more prevalent in certain colleges, Rodriguez-Pereira pointing to the College of Education as one example.

Although the university granted every request for a meeting with UNTF, Rodriguez-Pereira said that the “information that we get from those conversations is not that different from what the university is telling the public.”

For the Graduate Employees Union, communication has been non-existent with the university.

“They have not contacted the union,” President Jared Maul said.

Maul believes this is because graduate students like teaching assistants occupy a space between student and employee and in this situation, he said the university may just view them as students.

For those who Maul represents though, budget cuts have created fear and uncertainty while also exacerbating tensions between TAs and faculty.

“We're also very concerned about being put into a situation where we're being pitted against the tenure stream faculty, as well as the fixed-term faculty for teaching positions,” he said.

Adjunct or fixed-term faculty are often cheaper than TAs, Maul said, and this is a sentiment which is frequently expressed to graduate students. With these cuts, Maul expects there to be fewer graduate students.

And some departments are not taking on new graduate students because of budgetary reductions. Maul said he could only confirm that the College of Education is not taking on graduate students.

For the majority of those the Spartan Skilled Trades Union represents, budget cuts have been less weighty. SSTU President Dan Barney said Infrastructure Planning and Facilities, where most of his members work, have not had to lay anyone off yet with these cuts.

As of Sept 23, Barney said only two members of SSTU have had their positions eliminated with efforts now being made to relocate them elsewhere on campus.

One Team One Health

McIntyre has also been working to implement President Kevin Guskiewicz's so-called "One Team One Health" initiative, which seeks to merge the College of Osteopathic Medicine and College of Human Medicine while also creating a brand new College of Health Professions.

Since this announcement, the reception from the College of Human Medicine faculty has been less than favorable. Additionally, the former dean, Aron Sousa, recently stepped down to accept a new position at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

Earlier this month, The State News obtained a survey from the College of Human Medicine faculty which found more than half of respondents were at least somewhat opposed to voting in favor of the merger.

McIntyre pushed back on this survey, saying the data reflects people’s "lack of awareness or some questions or concerns." She said the merger has not yet happened and that the university is still in a stage of gathering feedback from faculty staff and students. She added that a university-wide survey will be accessible at some point in the future.

Come November, McIntyre said Guskiewicz will make a decision for the next steps forward using recommendations from the council responsible for assessing One Team One Health.

In regards to the proposed College of Health Professions, she said the goal is to create a more uniform experience for students pursuing health sciences. This college will give students, “an opportunity to co-mingle and provide kind of an innovative and more modern curriculum that focuses on health sciences and professions,” she said.