Bellarmine College college members have voted no confidence of their president, provost and senior vice chairman.
“The president has made poor monetary selections in response to the dire fiscal realities that Bellarmine is dealing with and doesn’t encourage confidence in main the college out of the scenario,” says the decision on President Susan Donovan. The College Meeting’s resolutions had been offered to Inside Greater Ed after The Courier-Journal beforehand reported on them Wednesday.
Amongst different issues, that decision additionally says Donovan has embraced strategic visions that partly “undermine our historical past as an unbiased liberal arts college within the Catholic custom,” together with by means of the “elimination of majors and packages that assist the liberal arts core and consequently the variety of adjunct college educating throughout the core.”
That decision handed 58 to 46, with two abstaining. The 2 different no-confidence resolutions handed by increased margins in favor. These outcomes had been shared with college members late final month.
Donovan instructed Inside Greater Ed Thursday that there are 165 full-time college, so the votes expressing no confidence in her represented 35 p.c.
The college is phasing out 9 undergraduate majors, together with philosophy, physics and theater, and two graduate packages in athletic coaching and medical laboratory science.
“None of these have greater than 10 within the main,” Donovan stated of the liberal arts majors.
Jason Cissell, a college spokesman, stated these enrollment figures solely embody those that had been enrolled in Might however not set to graduate. He stated the figures additionally don’t embody those that plan to newly declare these majors by the top of August, the cutoff.
Donovan stated, “We’re not eliminating any of these disciplines, we’re persevering with these, however we simply can’t proceed small enrollments in upper-division programs.”
Cissell stated the college hopes layoffs gained’t be needed. College leaders didn’t present numbers for what number of positions they’re looking for to shrink the college by, or what sort of price range deficits they’d face in the event that they don’t make these adjustments.
“There’s actually packages that we don’t have or packages that we began which might be rising that want assets,” Donovan stated. “Public well being, neuroscience … pc science—there’s nice scholar curiosity in these.”
