The move is not entirely unexpected in light of the staff cuts announced last November.  According to a VLS spokesman, these most recent faculty cuts were made through a combination of attrition and converting some full-time positions to part-time.  The downsizing affects both tenure/tenure-track faculty as well as contract faculty which I presume includes legal writing and clinical professors.  Here are the details courtesy of the Tax Prof blog (the story was first reported by the Vermont Digger):

After some correspondence with Peter Glenshaw, Director of Communications at Vermont Law School, I’ve learned that the precise numbers involved are:

(1) Four tenure/tenure-track faculty have gone from full to part-time. Two tenured/tenure track faculty left the school, and their positions were eliminated. Together this represents a 21.4% reduction in the number of full-time tenure track faculty.

(2) Four contract faculty have gone from full to part-time. This represents 13% of the contract faculty. Thus the number of full-time positions on the teaching faculty (TT and contract) has been reduced by 17.2%.

Mr. Glenshaw wishes to emphasize that the eight faculty members who have gone from full-time to part-time status will, in his words, “continue to teach or work at VLS in the coming years. We are thrilled that every faculty member who participated in this voluntary program will remain involved in our community as teachers and educators, and we look forward to their contributions in the coming years.”

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Tags: contract faculty, Peter Glenshaw, Vermont Law School