by Pete Mazzaccaro
Earlier this month, Chestnut Hill College sent an email to
faculty and staff alerting them to campus-wide furloughs. The furloughs will
place affected …
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by Pete Mazzaccaro
Earlier this month, Chestnut Hill College sent an email to faculty and staff alerting them to campus-wide furloughs. The furloughs will place affected employees of the school on unpaid leave for four weeks out of the eight-week summer period. In other words, furloughed staff will be placed on unpaid leave for one month.
“Without students on campus and no summer programs, we tried to find a way to reduce our summer operating costs,” said Kevin Hearn, Vice President for Strategic Enrollment Management and Communication at the college. “What we came up with are several different temporary solutions or ways to mitigate some of our additional spending and it did result in a number of employees being placed on a temporary furlough.”
Hearn said, however, that the college sees the furloughs as temporary and expects to bring restore all furloughed employees to full status in the fall. He could not confirm the number of employees who will be affected by furloughs.
In the letter to staff, signed by college president Sister Carol Jean Vale, the college said that it was forced to return $1.1 million in spring dorm fees once students were forced off of campus due to coronavirus concerns in early March. In addition to the loss of residential fees, the college did not run any summer programs, losing that expected source of income. The situation forced it to find cost savings.
“These are temporary cuts that are unfortunate to say the least but they are what we thought were necessary because of the fiscal instability that all businesses are facing,” Hearn said.
Hearn said, however, that the college was projecting a swift return to financial stability for a number of reasons. He said the school acted quickly after closing its campus on March 9 to save money on student activities and services. He also said that despite national projections of enrollment losses for colleges and universities that Chestnut Hill College is expecting to see enrollment gains in the fall.
“We've got very positive forecasts with regard to enrollment,” Hearn said. “We continue to track about 15 per head 15% ahead in our undergraduate schools and that's 15% ahead of a banner year last year, so we're actually 25% up from two years ago. So, we are cautiously optimistic in an environment where no one can be certain about anything.”
Hearn said, as well, that the college was planning on bringing students back to campus in the fall for face-to-face learning. He said a task force convened by Vale was about to deliver a report on how to make that happen.
“We have already announced that we plan to be open in this fall for face-to-face operations and the false semester begins August 31,” Hearn said “We anticipate at this point teaching on Labor Day and during the long weekend in October which are typically days that we provide vacation to students, and teaching right up until the Thanksgiving holiday, at which point students will leave campus and we will offer online instruction through the remainder of the fall semester.”
If all goes according to plan, Hearn said the college will be sure to bring every employee back to full time.
“These are tough decisions because they affect people personally, but we made the move very deliberately to make sure that were temporary, and that in bringing them back we would bring back all of them,” he said. “We're very mindful that these positions and these personnel are critical to who we are as an institution. We’re looking forward to welcoming them back.”
Pete Mazzaccaro can be reached at pete@chestnuthilllocal.com