Wittenberg faculty, alumni rip proposal to cut 60% of professors, many staff

University staff expect to get at least 60 days notice of cuts, based on federal laws around mass layoffs, but professors are on contract through the 2024-25 school year.

Wittenberg is a private liberal arts university just north of downtown Springfield that was established in 1845. The university said it had 1,288 undergraduate students and 45 graduate students as of fall 2023, along with 25 intercollegiate athletic teams in NCAA Division III.

According to Wittenberg’s tax returns, 1,282 people were employed by the university in 2022-2023, but that number likely included temporary or student workers.

As of this year, 97.5 faculty members worked at Wittenberg, according to a document obtained by the Springfield News-Sun. No more than 40 would be retained under this plan.

Some departments could be almost completely cut. The political science, women’s studies and sociology department, for example, is set to be cut from 7.5 employees to two. Even nursing would cut at least one of its professors at a time when universities are fighting to recruit and retain those professors.

Wittenberg board members are expected to vote on a plan on Aug. 15, but it is not certain that this exact plan the faculty has seen will be the one voted on. Announcements about how many jobs will end up being cut could come as soon as Aug. 16.

“The details of the plan are still being worked out, with involvement from faculty and staff, and we do not have any specifics to share at this time,” said Karen Gerboth, a spokeswoman for Wittenberg. “We do expect that any innovation we are considering will require a significant reallocation of the institution’s personnel and resources over the next two years.”

This development comes as Wittenberg is about to start its new school year. The first day of classes is Aug. 26.

Gerboth said the university expects “academic programs, student engagement activities and athletic experiences to remain as currently offered and structured for the 2024-25 academic year.”

Some staff and professors question how the university would function with so many of the people who work there gone. They say the loss to Clark County and Springfield could be huge.

“Wittenberg faculty, staff and students do countless hours of community service and civic engagement with organizations throughout Springfield and Clark County and beyond as part of our current curriculum,” said Lori Askeland, an English professor and the president of the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, on-campus. “That loss will be felt.”

Financial problems

The small, liberal arts university is facing many of the same challenges as other smaller, private colleges. Fewer people are graduating from high school, and even fewer are choosing to attend college. For those who are attending college, price is often a main factor in deciding where to go, and private universities are generally more expensive than public ones, unless financial aid levels the playing field.

Combine those factors with the financial challenges of the COVID pandemic, and many small colleges are facing a perfect storm. In the past few years in Ohio, Urbana University and Notre Dame College in Cleveland are among those that have closed.

However, Wittenberg faculty who spoke to the Dayton Daily News said building projects, including a $50 million sports complex originally estimated at $40 million when it broke ground in 2017 also contributed to the current financial problems.

The university recorded a $17 million deficit in the 2022-2023 school year, according to its tax records. Wittenberg spent about $96 million that year, and about $26 million was spent on salaries and benefits for staff.

The 2023-2024 tax record is not yet publicly available.

Last week, Wittenberg confirmed it is planning about $7 million in budget cuts, mostly to staff.

Implications?

Askeland said there could be multiple problems for the university if this plan goes through.

She said the university’s accreditation could be in jeopardy if it uses as many online courses from exterior platforms as proposed, without the university taking proper steps to make sure those classes give students real knowledge.

Askeland said the AAUP feels accepting a new class of Wittenberg students, having made promises to them about the kind of education they’d be getting at Wittenberg, only to not provide it, is unethical.

“By announcing this change at this late hour before classes start in late August, many of us are left feeling that we lied to those students, especially those that were just recruited,” she said.

The university declined to speculate about any longer-term implications, saying the path had not been determined yet.

“Once the direction is determined, we will work with the Higher Learning Commission, our accreditor, to ensure that any path we choose adheres to the appropriate guidelines for curricular delivery, governance, and implementation,” Gerboth said.

Staff, alumni speak out

Faculty, staff and alumni have all condemned the plan to cut so many jobs at once.

And this is not the first rumbling of problems at Wittenberg. Cuts have been happening since at least 2017.

Vanessa Plumly, a German professor at Wittenberg, said her department was told this past spring that it could be eliminated, and faculty may need to defend themselves. But that didn’t happen, and now, this new plan has been presented.

She said there’s a problem with transparency at Wittenberg and called for more information about the university’s budget and how it’s been spending money.

“It’s frustrating,” Plumly said of the situation.

Alumni and students have criticized the part of the plan where many of the classes would become online.

“There is no world in which you can claim to be a world-class liberal arts college when more than half of your courses are online,” said Mary-Elizabeth Pratt, a member of the university’s Alumni Association Board and a 2015 graduate of Wittenberg.

The Wittenberg Biology department posted on Instagram to ask alumni and students to provide insights and experiences to try to keep the department as intact as possible. The department asked students if they would have attended Wittenberg if they knew many of their classes would have been provided online.

Those who replied said they came to the university for the in-person classes with small ratios of faculty to students.