This article explores how budget cuts affected faculty in two departments--a physical sciences department and a humanities department--at one research university in the USA. Using theories of academic capitalism as a guide, the author focuses in particular on changes in governance structures and increasing competition between disciplines for resources and prestige. The article suggests that the physical sciences department was relatively spared, due to its ability to bring in external grants and the role played by the department head while the humanities department suffered from a mass exodus of faculty. Both departmental and institutional operations signal the ways in which universities are increasingly adopting market-like behaviours to survive. (Contains 2 notes.)