Columbia laid off six tenured professors on Wednesday, May 27 in its fourth round of faculty cuts in the past 18 months, bringing the total number of full-time faculty layoffs and contract non-renewals since January 2025 to 54.
In an email sent to faculty and staff on Wednesday, Interim Senior Vice President and Provost Suzanne McBride said the layoffs affected the Schools of Communication and Culture and Design.
The faculty will be paid through the end of the next academic year.
Asked how students might be impacted, McBride told the Chronicle in an email that the college remained focused on “student success and continued support” despite the reductions.
“We remain committed to providing our students with an industry-facing arts and media education that remains accessible and empowers our students to be successful creative leaders,” McBride said.
The latest faculty reductions come as Columbia responds to declining enrollment and a budget deficit that has grown to more than $40 million. A series of cost-cutting measures have included layoffs, administrative restructuring, increased teaching loads and the suspension of faculty sabbaticals for a second consecutive year. Enrollment fell below 4,000 students this spring for the first time in more than two decades, although the college is optimistic that it will climb in the fall.
The college also laid off four senior administrators this spring, including former Interim President and CEO Jerry Tarrer, former Chief of Staff Laurent Pernot, Jeffrey Reuter, associate vice president of Budget, Planning and Analysis and Dirk Matthews, interim vice president of Development and Alumni Relations.
“The reductions reflect alignment with the college’s revised program array introduced for the 2025–26 academic year and a careful evaluation of current departmental needs that contribute to overall cost efficiency,” Jourdan Thompson, senior director of Campus Communications, said in an email.
Asked how the college determines which faculty positions are eliminated, Thompson said the college assesses its full-time faculty needs in light of overall anticipated course section offerings and specific requirements.
The college did not release the names of the faculty members. The Chronicle is not disclosing the names of faculty who were laid off unless they provided consent or talked publicly about their dismissal.
This is the college’s fourth round of faculty layoffs since the start of 2025. Columbia laid off 23 full-time faculty members in January and eliminated another 20 positions in June. In December, two tenure-track assistant professors were let go, and three teaching-track faculty members were informed their annual contracts would not be renewed, as the Chronicle previously reported.
“Despite awareness of a demographic drop in college bound youth, the administration kept painting a rosy picture. A call to action to plan for and address shifting enrollments should have happened much sooner. Earlier faculty and staff engagement might have helped mitigate the circumstances that led to the college’s current situation,” said Joan Giroux, professor in the School of Visual Arts, who is retiring this month after 20 years at Columbia teaching studio art.
She said faculty requests for accountability at the highest levels of the administration did not appear to be acted on by the Board of Trustees, despite the board’s fiduciary responsibility to the college.
Although this round of layoffs only impacted tenured faculty, previous rounds have included tenure-track assistant professors and teaching-track faculty of all ranks.
Teaching-track faculty primarily focus on classroom instruction, generally teaching four courses per semester. Faculty with tenure appointments balance teaching with scholarship and service responsibilities. Under changes approved by the Board of Trustees this month, tenured faculty moved from a 3:3 teaching load to a 4:3 load, increasing their annual course assignments from six to seven courses per academic year.
Newly-elected Faculty Senate President David Gerding, associate professor in the School of Design, where the majority of the layoffs occurred, said the Faculty Senate will continue to advocate for policies that respect the “foundational role” of faculty.
“I deeply regret the loss of colleagues and friends. It hurts. Of course, it hurts the most those that lost their positions today. And our empathetic pain doesn’t equate with their real loss,” Gerding said.
The college has an estimated 164 full-time faculty, including administrators with faculty rank, Thompson said. That is down from 221 in the Fall of 2023 when the college’s part-time faculty union went on strike for seven weeks.
Faculty layoffs and program restructuring have become increasingly common across higher education as tuition-dependent colleges respond to declining enrollment, rising operating costs and persistent budget deficits.
Public institutions also have been impacted. In two rounds of cuts in 2024, Western Illinois University laid off 40 tenured or tenure-track faculty and did not renew the contracts of 52 non-tenure track faculty, as administrators sought to address a multimillion-dollar deficit tied to declining enrollment.
In each round of layoffs or termination of contracts at Columbia, the affected faculty had a meeting invite show up on their Outlook calendar with the provost. By this last one, faculty knew what it meant, faculty told the Chronicle. They started receiving the invitations to the meetings on Tuesday afternoon, May 26, and word started to spread as faculty reached out to each other for support.
Many of the laid–off faculty taught in Columbia’s core. The college reduced the number of core credits students are required to take from 42 to 30, which was effective in Fall 2024, just before the layoffs started.
Ames Hawkins, director of the School of Communication and Culture, which has been impacted significantly by layoffs because of the presence of the core courses in that school, declined to comment.
Hilary Sarat-St. Peter, an associate English professor in the School of Communication and Culture, confirmed to the Chronicle that she was laid off on Wednesday.
Sarat-St. Peter just started a new Neurodiversity Alliance this month at the college, as the Chronicle previously reported.
She was scheduled to teach three English courses in the fall: an honors section of “21st-Century Writing in Creative Discipline,” “Grant Writing” and “Writing for the Creative Workplace.”
Amelia Lutz, incoming president of Student Government Association, said the cuts create additional pressure across campus because “more weight” falls on “the people who are left.”
“A wider variety of staff helps students see more of themselves and what their future could hold in their classes and in spaces on campus,” Lutz said.
Copy edited by Venus Tapang
Resumen en español
Columbia ha despedido a 54 miembros del profesorado y personal de tiempo completo desde enero de 2025, incluidos seis que fueron despedidos este miércoles 27 de mayo, como parte de sus esfuerzos por abordar la disminución en las inscripciones y un déficit presupuestario que ha crecido a más de $40 millones.
Columbia despidió a seis profesores titulares este miércoles 27 de mayo en su cuarta ronda de recortes de personal en los últimos 18 meses, elevando a 54 el número total de docentes, personal y profesores con contratos no renovados desde enero de 2025.
En un correo enviado a la facultad y al personal el miércoles, la vicepresidenta sénior interina y vicerrectora académica Suzanne McBride dijo que los despidos afectarían a la Escuela de Comunicación, Cultura y Diseño.
Al ser consultada sobre cómo los estudiantes se verán afectados, McBride le dijo al Chronicle en un correo electrónico que la universidad seguirá enfocada en “el éxito de sus estudiantes y su apoyo continuo”, a pesar de los recortes.
Resumen por Antonio Chaves
