Every Mother’s Day for 26 years I have spent the weekend working. To be clear, I love teaching. I thank my students every semester for going through the hassle of applying to Duke Divinity School so I am paid to do what I love. Graduation weekend, which always coincides with Mother’s Day weekend, is celebratory and busy. It is also work. Duke University, the largest private employer in the region, expects many of its employees to spend our Mother’s Day working.
This Mother’s Day weekend was difficult, as faculty members labored under the gloom of layoffs. As we taught our last week of classes, the administration announced a round of “voluntary separations,” to be followed by layoffs, with the goal of cutting the budget by $350 million. In his address to what Duke branding calls the “community,” university president Vincent Price used this language to describe the process: “If we are smart and serious about pruning and perhaps thinning now as needed, we can position ourselves well for a vigorous response when conditions more conducive to growth return.”
Human beings working Mother’s Day weekend looked at one another across the aisles of our ceremonies, wondering who would be pruned and thinned for the sake of vigor. The day after Mother’s Day, people who have given countless hours to the endeavor of learning received stark emails with non-disclosure agreements.
