Alverno College’s Board of Trustees voted Friday to declare financial exigency, an emergency step that allows strained institutions to restructure academic programs and lay off faculty members without running afoul of guidelines issued by the American Association of University Professors.
A statement from Alverno Friday said the restructuring would reduce the number of undergraduate majors to 29 from 43 and the number of graduate programs to 19 from 25. Alverno will eliminate 25 full-time faculty positions and a dozen full-time staff positions as it combines and restructures academic and administrative departments.
“While these are challenging times for Alverno and other higher education institutions in Wisconsin, we believe declaring financial exigency will ultimately position Alverno College for a more financially sustainable future,” Kathy Hudson, the Alverno board chair, said in the statement. “We remain dedicated to providing students a transformational education experience.”
A college spokesperson told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Alverno expected a $9 million deficit for the current academic year, which would represent its fifth deficit in the last six years.
Wisconsin is among the states where colleges are struggling the most. Members of the Universities of Wisconsin System have eliminated several branch campuses in the last year, most recently the Fox Cities campus of the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, and private nonprofit colleges such as St. Norbert and Northland Colleges have been wrestling with significant deficits.
