With Additional Layoffs, Baldwin Wallace Has Cut 20% of Faculty This Year

The university this week also announced the elimination of 10 additional academic majors

By Vince Grzegorek on Wed, Oct 2, 2024 at 9:15 am

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The major cuts predicted at Baldwin Wallace in November are now here.

Baldwin Wallace announced additional sweeping cuts on Tuesday to help rein in a $20.5 million budget deficit the university has been fighting to address since it was discovered last year. In a press release, the cuts were described as a "transformational reorganization."

With 28 faculty and staff being laid off in the most recent wave, 84 jobs have been slashed since February of this year, including 36 faculty and staff members who voluntarily took buyouts this fall. In terms of raw numbers, about 20% of faculty have been cut this fall.

BW also announced it would eliminate 10 additional academic programs including music history, visual/studio art, communication studies, film studies, public relations, and public health, on top of the nine programs that already got the axe early in 2024.

"We believe this plan not only makes us a more efficient and sustainable organization, but a more effective one, as well," Greg Flanik, BW's VP of Operations, said in a statement. "This is the type of work every institution of higher learning in this country should be undertaking right now." 

BW, like many smaller schools, is facing an enrollment cliff and the attendant financial effects. The university emphasized cuts were strategically made to make the least possible impact on students -- 87% of them, the school said, were in majors unaffected by the cuts.

"We know the current higher education landscape in this country is fraught with uncertainty. This plan will set a course for BW that will allow faculty, staff and our students to focus on the great work they do, knowing that we have put a strategy in place to address enrollment trends, shifting demands for various majors and increasing costs related to gaining a college degree," Interim President Dr. Thomas Sutton said in a statement.

This week's cuts will save BW nearly $6 million.