Termination of tenured appointments: MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine (Pennsylvania)

5. Goals and objectives which are established for these tenured faculty members should be consistent with the reasonable expectations of any member of the department. For example, if all researchers in the department are expected to obtain funding for 75 percent of their salaries, this expectation can also be applied to these tenured faculty members.

Option 2

1. For those tenured faculty who do not wish to take advantage of option one, they should also be advised of the severance package which will be made available to them.

If the faculty member does not elect either option 1 or 2, the faculty member may elect to resign effective no later than June 30, 1996. The goals and objectives assigned to a faculty member during this terminal appointment will be designed to reflect that the faculty member will remain in the School of Medicine for a limited period of time. The faculty member will receive an appointment letter that will fully outline the terms and conditions of [his or her] appointment.

Upon receipt of this letter, several of the affected faculty members filed grievances with an appropriate faculty committee. This, in turn, eventually led to a negotiated agreement, dated December 1, 1994 (which is quoted at length below), that, in effect, removed the threat of any termination actions, and went on to specify that "[a]ny reductions in Faculty may be accomplished by attrition, with due regard given to tenure and years of service."

Despite this apparent victory of the faculty in 1994 in resisting dismissals, the next several years cannot have been without uncertainty and strain, as financial pressures on the university became increasingly known and discussed.

1. 1997 and 1998

In fall 1997 AHERF, the health-care conglomerate that included Allegheny University and its medical school among the foundation's extensive statewide holdings, laid off more than two thousand employees in its Philadelphia-area hospitals.5 Although these layoffs did not directly affect AUHS or the MCP Hahnemann faculty, they were seen as reflecting the severity of AHERF's growing financial difficulties and as having potential ramifications for the university and the medical school. On February 16, 1998, in a letter addressed to "Delaware Valley Colleagues," including members of the AUHS faculty, AHERF president Abdelhak offered assurances that AHERF's "financial position remains very strong with sufficient reserves to minimize the effects of the severe reductions we have experienced in our revenues." He went on to announce, however, that the foundation was considering divesting itself "of certain programs and/or assets [in the Philadelphia area] that are not central to our academic mission and/or require a disproportionate amount of time, effort, or subsidy. . . . [S] uch action is a prerequisite to the continued vitality of our central health, education, and research mission."

In the months that followed, AHERF engaged in serious negotiations with Vanguard Health Systems, a private for-profit health provider, for the sale of most of the foundation's eastern Pennsylvania properties (but not AUHS). The proposed sale, as originally structured, fell through in late June because it failed to meet AHERF's financial requirements. In the meantime, on June 5> as the magnitude and sources of the financial distress facing AHERF became public, President Abdelhak was discharged and replaced by Anthony Sanzo, chief executive officer of the foundation's western Pennsylvania hospital system. Later that month, Dorothy McKenna Brown, a member of AHERF's board of directors, was named acting president of Allegheny University-a position she held until November 1998.