Senior Vice President and Provost Marcella David told faculty that expecting the college to close its $17 million deficit through fundraising “is doomed to fail.”
Instead, the college needs to focus on enrollment — which drives revenue – and instructional costs.
“Those are the pieces that tie the cost and the income together,” David said at a hybrid town hall on Wednesday, March 19 hosted by the Faculty Senate.
She made the remarks after being asked about the college’s fundraising goals under new President and CEO Shantay Bolton. The college announced two days earlier that Bolton, a former administrator from Georgia Institute of Technology, would start July 1. David said that she is “very excited about the breadth of experience” that Bolton has.
“We still have to have a plan that is right-sizing our expenses, right-sizing our income,” she said, adding that fundraising is part of that but “not a strategy that will be able to get us out of an operating deficit of $17 million.”
She also noted that the potential sale of the former presidential residence is not a “deficit buster.”
Former President and CEO Kwang-Wu Kim, who left the college last summer after 13 years, recommended that the college sell both the residence and the 624 S. Michigan Ave. building, which houses the library, as part of his sweeping recommendations to the Board of Trustees to address the financial deficit.
The upper floors of the building are closed, but the library is still open.
The college is undertaking a needs assessment about where to relocate the library and where to create new space for faculty to congregate.
“So far, I am not aware of anybody rushing up with a truckload of cash saying, ‘I want to buy the 624 building,’” David said.
In January, the college laid off 23 full-time faculty as part of a historic dismissal of tenured and teaching-track professors, as the Chronicle previously reported. The layoffs represented 10% of Columbia’s 233 full-time faculty and included five faculty from the School of Film and Television.
She was asked what factors the college would consider for any additional faculty layoffs.
David said that future layoffs would depend on the college’s enrollment and how it is distributed among the remaining degree programs. The Board of Trustees voted in December to merge or cut nearly half of the college’s major, as the Chronicle previously reported.
“Even if we were to go and admit and matriculate the same number of students in fall of 25 as we did in fall of 23, we’re still going to have a smaller size population, because that dip in the population has to work through all of our years,” David said.
Columbia’s spring enrollment is 4,952 students, an 11% decrease from 5,570 students in the fall 2024 semester. The college lost roughly the same percentage between fall and spring after the seven-week part-time faculty strike in 2023.
“The Board of Trustees is not expecting us to have no deficit next year, but they are expecting us to make progress on the deficit,” David said.
At the senate’s first meeting of the new semester on Feb. 7, David said there were no “fixed plans” for layoffs in the short-term but said that “in the long-term, I imagine that is absolutely going to happen.”
At the town hall, David said there is a difference between an adverse circumstance and financial exigency. The Board of Trustees voted last May to support Kim’s findings that the college met the requirement for adverse circumstances as outlined in the “Statement of Policy.”
“Financial exigency suggests that we don’t believe we can pay the bills tomorrow, and that’s not true,” David said. “We want everybody to know we’re open for business, and we’re planning on being open for business, but we know that we have hard work to do in order to make sure our finances are right.”
Faculty Senate President Rojhat Avsar told the Chronicle in an email that the town hall was an “essential forum” that facilitates important discussions between the provost and the faculty.
“Columbia is currently experiencing a period of transition, leading to numerous questions from the faculty on topics such as job security and shared governance,” Avsar said. “I appreciate Provost David’s willingness to participate in today’s Town Hall, her commitment to being accessible to the faculty, and her readiness to address the concerns that are weighing on their minds.”
Brendan Riley, associate professor in the School of Communication and Culture and one of two senators from the Faculty Affairs Committee who hosted the town hall, said he also appreciated the opportunity to talk with the provost.
“Provost David shared information earnestly and with candor throughout the event. She acknowledged the many challenges facing our community, but in doing so offered ways we can all contribute to enhancing the student experience at Columbia,” Riley said.
Copy Edited by Patience Hurston
