The President of Memorial University’s Faculty Association is accusing MUN President Janet Morrison of trying to “diminish” the university with recent job cuts.

Memorial, last week, quietly issued an update on its cost-cutting measures, outlining in the Gazette the elimination of 107 positions from management to faculty and staff.

Erica Mercer told VOCM Open Line with Brian Callahan it is something everyone needs to be worried about.

“They call it ‘reorganization, restructuring,’ they have all these fancy words for it, but the fact is, people are being fired, people are losing their jobs,” Mercer said.

“We all pay for it, the students are paying for it, the province as a whole, our future, our economy is paying for that.”

Mercer says with the job cuts, Memorial University is “sending tuition dollars elsewhere.”

She contends that the cuts are not helping the university, and they’re actually “part of a downward spiral to shrink and shrink and shrink.”

She doesn’t think “it’s fair to tell the students, the youth of Newfoundland and Labrador…if you’re interested in Classics, sorry. If you want to do a Master’s degree in that, well too bad, you’ll have to leave.”