An overwhelming majority of professors at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln support the way the university's administration is dealing with big budget cuts and think that the chancellor should keep his job, according to the results of a referendum announced on Thursday. The chancellor had promised to resign if the vote went the other way.

Of the 1,024 professors who voted last week, 914 said they supported the administration's actions and had confidence in the leadership of Harvey Perlman, chancellor of the university. All 1,434 members of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln Assembly were eligible to vote. (The assembly is made up of tenured and tenure-track professors, as well as non-tenure-track faculty members who have been at the university for at least three years.)

Mr. Perlman called for the referendum after a motion for a resolution of no confidence was introduced in the Academic Senate in April (the senate is a smaller body of professors elected from the assembly). Because the motion was introduced at the final meeting of the academic year, the vote will not be taken until the fall. The timing upset Mr. Perlman, who said in an e-mail message to the faculty and staff last week that allowing the pending resolution "to fester over the summer will continue to divide the campus at a time when we will have to make important decisions."

The university has been hit hard by the current economic downturn. In March, Mr. Perlman proposed a budget that would lower the university's spending by $7.5-million and eliminate the jobs of eight tenured faculty members. Much of the criticism was focused on the decision to fire the tenured professors, all of whom were a part of the University of Nebraska State Museum's research division (The Chronicle, May 2).