Yale Board of Trustees Freezes Faculty Hiring

The Yale University Board of Trustees announced last Friday that it will suspend the hiring of faculty, staff and administration personnel to cut back spending and reduce the budget base until the 1979-80 school year.

Stanley Flink, Yale's director of public information, said yesterday, "The job freeze is to slow things down fast, while we search for equilibrium of our income versus expenses." Flink added, "This is, of course, a temporary move but it is firm and effective."

Flink said the university expects to save $7.4 million by not filling vacated positions or creating any additional jobs. The hiring freeze includes tenured, non-tenured and junior posts within the faculty.

Hannah Gray, Yale provost and acting president, told The Yale Daily News Monday "only critical and demonstrable needs will be exempted from the hiring ban." She said the provost's office will grant exceptions to the hiring suspension only with strong justifications.

Gray said "there will definitely be fewer appointments at Yale University made in the next year and one-half."

Yale is currently undergoing its fourth consecutive strike in four contract disputes with its maintenance, food services and custodial workers.

Officials of the University Employees Union Local 35, who are representing the strikes, have charged Yale with precipitating and prolonging the strike, claiming that the stand-off saves the university money. While the university supporting staff strikes for higher wages and better job security, Yale is not paying them any salaries.

"The university faces a number of financial difficulties," Flink said. Yale's provost office will release a comprehensive budget review later this month to augment the reasons for the hiring freeze.

Flink described the review as "a number of fiscal actions encompassing a whole range of cutbacks. By tightening our overall operation we aim to achieve a balanced budget without diminishing the quality of education. This includes, most importantly, the management of our physical plant and use of energy."

Yale's office of employee relations released a statement that said the freeze policy in no way alters the university's previously existing stand in regard to the job security dispute with its striking support personnel. "I do not see how the hiring suspension should affect the bargaining with the strikers," Flink said.