Higher education has been faced with some of the same problems that
have triggered widescale lay‐offs in industry. This article is an
account of how one university engaged in organisational development
interventions to retrain and reassign 58 dislocated faculty members and
set up a humane outplacement programme for another 110 faculty. Tracking
of faculty who participated in outplacement efforts indicated a 94 per
cent success rate, defined as securing employment in another position
which was enjoyed as much as or more than employment at the university.