Ongoing Areas of Financial Hardships

Department of African American & African Studies (AAAS) – The College’s financial commitments to AAAS are contingent on salary savings from retirements. With the financial hardships associated with the pandemic, there are competing demands for the salary savings to be used to cover other projected shortfalls. AAAS remains a priority for the College; it is attracting top scholars in the field further elevating the demands for competitive salaries and hiring packages.

Department of Theatre – The Department of Theatre depends on revenue generated from its season of performances that they were unable to produce this past year. This revenue provides our students will a real-life production experience and may only be the opportunity for them to have this experience. In the current environment, the Department has lost significant revenue that the College will need to cover to ensure that our students receive the highly engaged education in Theatre for which our Department is known.

Cutting into revenue generation – Choice between Gen Ed & Department Programs, employee pay and benefits account for 93%-94% of the general fund operating budget. With a sizable portion of our general fund budget allocated to employee pay, the only way to address significant budget reductions is through reductions in employee pay and benefits. The staff restructuring efforts are anticipated to $350K over the next three years, which will address 1% of the college budget.