Dive Brief:
- Christian Brothers University, a Roman Catholic institution in Tennessee, is looking to stabilize its finances by eliminating 28 faculty positions and a dozen academic programs at the end of the academic year.
- Eleven of the affected positions are vacant, temporary or held by retiring faculty, while 17 will result in layoffs, it announced Friday. Among the latter, nine of the positions are tenured, and the remaining eight are nontenured, the university said.
- Christian Brothers’ accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, also placed the 152-year-old institution on probation last week over concerns about its financial stability and governing board practices. SACSCOC will reevaluate the university’s standing at the end of next year.
Dive Insight:
In September, Christian Brothers declared financial exigency, which indicates a severe budgetary crisis. The university projected a deficit between $5 million and $7 million by the end of 2024.
The shortfall stemmed, in part, from a steady decline in undergraduate enrollment since 2018. Christian Brothers also said it missed enrollment targets for first-time freshmen in fall 2023.
Christian Brothers’ enrollment reached about 2,150 students in fall 2017 but fell to around 1,930 students by fall 2022, according to federal data.
In response to the budget gap, the university’s trustee board called for Christian Brothers to reduce salaries, wages and benefits by $4 million.
In October, Christian Brothers eliminated $1 million by cutting nine full-time administrative and staff positions, including three vice president jobs. The newly announced faculty and academic cuts will allow the institution to meet the trustees’ edict.
“We are taking these extraordinary actions to ensure that CBU continues as a flourishing and prosperous four-year establishment for the foreseeable future,” the university said in an online FAQ.
The academic cutbacks will affect 15 of the university’s roughly 920 undergraduates who will be enrolled next academic year. University leaders selected programs that served disproportionately low numbers of students.
They will reallocate resources to its more popular departments, the institution said. Tuition costs will not change.
“Decisions like these are the most agonizing a school can make,” Dave Archer, president of Christian Brothers, said in a statement. “Our focus on CBU’s remaining 41 undergraduate majors and 11 graduate programs will attract more students and transform lives.”
The eliminated programs are:
- Chemistry.
- Cultural Studies.
- Ecology.
- Engineering Physics.
- English.
- History.
- History Education.
- Liberal Studies.
- Master of Education.
- Physics.
- Politics and Law.
- Political Science.
The university is also eliminating concentrations in art therapy and philosophy.
Christian Brothers is hardly the first religious institution to face enrollment-based budget challenges.
Earlier this month, the College of Saint Rose, a Roman Catholic institution in New York, announced it would close at the end of its spring 2024 term. Enrollment at the 103-year-old college dropped by about 40% in the past decade, and its faculty and staff cuts failed to offset its deficit.