Native Information
Enrollment declines and monetary pressures drive educational overhaul.
Clark College is shedding as much as 30% of its school and 5% of its employees because it restructures its diploma applications as a result of enrollment and monetary challenges.
“All of upper training, Clark included, is at a important inflection level,” Clark College President David Fithian stated in an announcement. “Fairly than merely meet this difficult second as an train in finances constraint, we’ve taken an extended view, leaning into present strengths and what’s greatest about Clark to supply our college students an much more compelling expertise going ahead.”
The Worcester-based college confirmed the layoffs to Boston.com on Thursday afternoon.
In keeping with the Widespread Information Set of Clark College for the 2024-2025 educational yr, the college employed 228 full-time and 101 part-time tutorial school members.
A college spokesperson acknowledged that the college employs 930 school and employees members.
The College wouldn’t verify the precise variety of layoffs because of the shifting panorama; nonetheless, based mostly on the offered percentages, roughly 100 school members and 30 employees members are anticipated to be let go.
The personnel choices will start with retirements and attrition, adopted by non-tenure, pre-tenure, and adjunct school. It’s too quickly to find out if the layoffs will influence tenured school.
In keeping with the Widespread Information Set, the college enrolled 2,229 undergraduate college students and has a student-to-faculty ratio of 8.5:1.
In a press launch to the Clark College group, the college outlined its plans to refocus its curriculum and educational departments on probably the most related areas, together with Local weather, Setting, and Society, Media Arts, Computing and Design, and Well being and Human Habits.
The college additionally plans to streamline its operations to assist the areas of focus by including new majors, programs, and concentrations, and eliminating lower-enrolled majors.
The adjustments will tackle the monetary pressures of the current lower-than-expected enrollment.
“Whereas change is difficult and we’ve needed to make tough choices, I’m tremendously excited in regards to the future at Clark,” Provost John Magee stated in an announcement.
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