Clark administrators announced to faculty in a December 6 email that they were evaluating “discontinuing” or “restructuring” about a dozen academic programs “over the next several years” to reduce costs. Less than five months later, Clark has already begun eliminating academic programs and firing personnel. 

At least four academic majors have been cut so far, and nine staff members were laid off last month. Faculty who spoke to The Scarlet say the cuts are taking a toll and breaking down long standing assumptions of trust and mutual respect. 

According to faculty, the rapid cuts are happening without clear communication from administrators regarding their scope and impact on both students and faculty. When President Fithian mentioned the University’s commitment to transparency during his State of the University address on March 19, his remarks were met with laughter.

During interviews with The Scarlet, professors expressed confusion about the official communications from administrators and referred to them as “very vague.” Further, administrators allegedly haven’t shared key details about which course offerings will remain after the programmatic cuts, or told faculty if their positions are being eliminated. 

“They haven’t concretely communicated much,” an anonymous faculty member commented. “Some of us have met with them directly to ask, and we still are told they don’t know.”

The timing of communication has also been an issue of contention. Faculty in programs facing cuts did not receive any advance notice prior to the December 6 email that went out to all faculty, according to faculty sources.

One long-time Clark professor whose program was listed among those to be “discontinued” felt that the email “[…] was a slap in the face. Learning this at the same time as anyone else, and not to have been told even just a few hours prior that this was coming was so insulting. It showed a lack of respect.”

Some faculty were also critical of justifying the rapid academic cuts with decreasing birth rates given Clark’s hiring in recent years. 

“That’s a fault of failed leadership because the leadership knew the demographic cliff was coming and continued to hire faculty at a rapid rate,” one faculty member said. “To say ‘suddenly we’re getting fewer students, so we really need to start firing people’ is a failure of vision and leadership because you need to have said ‘we know fewer and fewer students are coming, so maybe we shouldn’t hire ten people this year.”’

Other faculty members criticized the cuts because they perceive them to be motivated by a desire to reorganize Clark to better match the vision of administrators. 

Faculty speaking on the condition of anonymity criticized the tens of millions of dollars being spent on recently opened or upcoming schools and academic programs while Clark simultaneously eliminated other academic programs. 

“They’re trying to make room, that’s why they call it restructuring,” one faculty member said.

In his address, Fithian seemingly affirmed this notion by saying he is steering the University “to be more directed and intentional about prioritizing areas that offer the greatest potential impact, influence, and appeal.”

Faculty sources stressed that they understand the need for restructuring but are critical of the way the administration is proceeding. According to them, restructuring happened more organically and without casualties in the past, allowing for natural attrition as faculty retire or leave Clark.

Faculty in the Language, Literature, and Culture department felt particularly targeted by efforts to “refocus” Clark’s academic offerings despite previous communications from administrators. 

“The narrative from the administration was consistently that pain would be shared across the campus, that the humanities would not suffer disproportionate pain,” one faculty member said. “Then when we got the list on December 6th, all of the entities listed first to be cut were all but one in our department which didn’t feel like shared pain at all to us.”

Another professor added, “Why should Clark even want to matter to the world, if the world doesn’t matter to Clark?” 

“It seems odd to have global ambitions while having such disregard for the Language, Literature, and Culture department,” the professor continued. “Previous presidents would make similar statements, but they seemed to believe in them and to have respect for what we do in the department. But at this rate such statements sound like empty marketing rhetoric bearing little relation to program offerings.”

Overall, liberal arts faculty at Clark indicated a steep decline in morale in recent months, and many long-time faculty say they no longer feel they can trust Clark’s administrators. 

“This was only the first round of cuts, and there will be others,” a faculty member concluded. “This sense of unease and distress and impending doom takes a toll on people’s mental and physical health.”