thursday, march 19, 2026
celebrating 122 years
free
O • Chalamet controversy
C • Pawfessors
S • The big leagues
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Timothée Chalamet’s recent viral comments dissmissing ballet and opera devalue influential fine art forms.
By bringing their dogs to campus, professors and faculty connect with students and increase attendance.
Promises, not guarantees
Joey Spallina’s prolific play at Syracuse and summer box lacrosse experience has prepared him to play professionally.
university senate
SU faculty decreased last year, census finds By Samantha Olander enterprise editor
Locals press Micron for legal commitment to green goals, new jobs By Brenne Sheehan and Owen Smith the daily orange
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s a child growing up in central New York, Bonita Siegel watched a major infrastructure project reshape the region in the 1960s. Most people cheered the Rust Belt city’s development. Decades later, Siegel wasn’t so sure. When the New York State Department of Transportation completed construction of the Interstate-81 Viaduct Project through Syracuse’s 15th ward, a historically Black neighborhood, she remembered watching the city near her hometown of Clay shift. Although the project promised revolutionized transportation between Pennsylvania and Canada and increased traffic into Syracuse, what followed were years of Black residential displacement and redlining.
After retiring, Siegel returned to Clay, determined to help repair Syracuse by joining community service organizations like the Urban Jobs Task Force. In 2022, when Micron Technology announced its plans to invest $100 billion in a multi-plant semiconductor facility in Clay — Siegel and other advocates were eager to see its several promises fulfilled. “When you start doing things with infrastructure to serve people, you shouldn’t be disadvantaging people that might be in vulnerable classes of society just because you can or just because you’re powerful,” Siegel said. From 2022 to its groundbreaking in January, Micron has touted plans to create 50,000 jobs, with 9,000 high-paying positions by 2045, practicing “good faith” hiring practices to “disadvantaged communities.” As part of New York state’s see micron page 5
ilana zahavy presentation director | leonardo eriman daily orange file photo
Syracuse University’s total faculty decreased by 44 positions from 2024 to 2025, while the share of tenured and tenuretrack professors increased, according to data presented at Wednesday’s University Senate meeting. The annual Faculty Census, compiled by the senate’s Academic Affairs Committee, found that tenured and tenure-track faculty made up a little over 50% of faculty in 2025, up from 49.6% the previous year. The number of those tenured positions still fell from 922 to 919, while the university’s total faculty count decreased by 44. “The big trend that we talked about and noticed is that pretty sizable decrease in the overall faculty workforce in the last year,” Academic Affairs Co-Chair Matthew Huber said. “Even though we got over the symbolic 50% category in 2025, the overall number of tenured and tenure-track faculty actually declined.” The share of tenured and tenure-track faculty has hovered around the 50% mark over the past four years, with only minor fluctuations, the committee reported. Tenure is the “indefinite appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency and program discontinuation,” according to the American Association of University Professors. National debates over tenure have intensified as universities rely more heavily on non-tenure-track and part-time faculty. At SU, faculty leaders have previously framed tenure as a key protection for academic freedom and shared governance, arguing it allows professors to teach and research controversial issues without fear of discipline or censorship. Since 2016, the Academic Affairs Committee has collected faculty data annually and compiled it into the Faculty Census, which tracks changes in tenure status, instructional roles and demographics across the university. The latest data showed continued shifts in who’s teaching classes at SU. Part-time instructional faculty decreased slightly by over 30 positions, while full-time instructional faculty outside the tenure track — including teaching professors and professors of practice — increased by 10. According to the data, tenured and tenure-track faculty accounted for 45.6% of credit hours taught in 2025. Full-time and non-tenure-track faculty accounted for about one-third of credit hours, while parttime faculty taught 21.4%, down from 30.6% the year before. The census compared SU with 16 other peer institutions using 2024 data. SU reported 49% tenured and tenure-track faculty that year, placing it near the middle of the group — behind Carnegie Mellon University and ahead of Boston University and George Washington University. The census also included demographic data. In 2025, about 53.9% of faculty iden see usen page 5