St. Scholastica to lay off 14 staff, faculty

For the first time since the 1998-99 school year, the College of St. Scholastica announced employee layoffs this week.
The college is in the process of cutting 14 workers. In an email from President Larry Goodwin to faculty and staff sent Wednesday, he announced an employee reduction that included 12 staff and two faculty members across a variety of departments.
The college was responding to shrinking enrollments, according to a school spokesman.
“We’ve had a very strong last 15 years - the college has grown, it has diversified, it has greatly enlarged its endowment, which is like a college’s savings account,” said Bob Ashenmacher, executive director of communications. “We’ve prospered and we will continue to prosper. But the demographic challenges we’re facing are real and they are being faced by all institutions of higher education in the Upper Midwest.”
In October, the News Tribune reported a drop in undergraduate enrollment at the Duluth campus of 2.8 percent for the current school year. At the time, a school official said such a dip was new for the college. But Ashenmacher said the enrollment of 18-year-olds specifically is “projected to drop again sharply in the next decade.”
Additionally, more students than ever before are entering post-secondary school having already received some college credits, reducing the number of courses students need to take to earn their degrees.
“When tuition revenues are not there, you have to make up for them,” Ashenmacher said. “If we put it in business terms you could look at this as prudent planning and good portfolio management that will strengthen us as an organization.”
The private college has an enrollment of 4,237 students across its graduate and undergraduate programming. There are 528 employees on the Duluth campus.
Ashenmacher confirmed that the faculty members who were laid off will work through the end of their contracts, while the staff will receive severance packages, including being paid through January 2015.
The college announced earlier this year that it will open a campus in Surprise, Ariz., near Phoenix, in phases over the next four years. It’s also adding a new physician assistant program in Duluth in 2016, and expanding its physical and occupational therapy programs here.
“If we can grow them, we know they will fill,” Ashenmacher said. “There is a need.”
The employee reductions and program additions are all part of a strategic plan directed by the president, Ashenmacher said. The plan includes convening a task force “to help imagine a new model of traditional undergraduate education that could be more affordable,” Ashenmacher said.
The school is also looking at the discontinuation of some programs in an effort to reduce courses with low enrollments.
“We’re still offering a variety,” Ashenmacher said. “We’re proud of our liberal arts foundation and that is not going away. It’s an integral part of St. Scholastica.”