On July 21st, the serene campus of Kalamazoo College was dead quiet. History professor Charlene Boyer Lewis was one of a few faculty members on campus when she received an announcement from the president, Jorge Gonzalez.
It said that 11 of the college’s employees, roughly 2% of its workforce, had been laid off for financial reasons.
“But we had no idea who, where, how that was going to impact any of us. It was not as clear or as fully transparent as a lot of faculty had wanted it to be," Boyer Lewis said.
She added that she had no idea who had been laid off until she visited the library that day to pick up a book, only to find a research librarian — her colleague and friend of two decades — cleaning out her desk.
“We just sat there and cried together and I said, ‘I don't know how to be here without you. Like, you do so much work for our students and so much work for our classroom and I'm not the only one who would want to say goodbye to you.'”
During the fall quarter, faculty at Kalamazoo College have had to grapple with the impact of the summer break layoffs. For some, it’s been difficult to come to terms with the abrupt departure of established members of the community. The administration says it’s working to balance the needs of employees with cuts necessitated by a budget deficit.
Lisa VanDeWeert is the vice president of business and finance at K. She declined to disclose the total amount of the deficit. But she said the layoffs accounted for about a quarter of a $2.4 million reduction of the budget this academic year. The college estimates that this workforce reduction will conserve an additional $1 million next year.
“If we had not made any changes, then the operating deficit would have been much larger than it currently is. But because of the changes we made, we were able to reduce that deficit in half, which was what our goal was," she said.
WMUK spoke with one long-time employee of the college who was laid off. They asked not to be named in the story to avoid violating their severance contract. They said although the college’s financial situation was well understood among employees, it wasn’t clear that layoffs would come so soon, and so suddenly.
The source said they were not given advance notice of their termination. On July 21st, their email was de-activated and they were told to vacate their office by the end of the day. They weren’t allowed to train the employees who are now expected to perform their duties.
Kalamazoo College Provost Danette Ifert Johnson said that immediate email deactivation is a standard practice, as is not allowing departing employees to train their replacements. She also said not all laid-off employees were told to clean out their offices the same day.
“These position eliminations were not a decision that we arrived at lightly. It’s something that's very hard for everybody involved and like you said, it's even harder when we're in a small community like this one.”
The administration is not sharing the list of eliminated positions even internally, according to Johnson, and they declined to confirm an unofficial list provided by WMUK’s source. Working in the dark, faculty have been trying to fill the gaps left by their departed colleagues so the burden doesn’t fall to students.
Sandino Vargas-Pérez is a professor in the computer science department. As a non-native English speaker, he’s concerned about the lack of support for English language learners after the employee who oversaw the English as a Second Language program was laid off.
“I felt like that was an extremely important program because when you are an immigrant and you are placed into these institutions, you are very lost, right? And you are missing a lot of the cues that others will get naturally," he said.
And the Kalamazoo College bookstore no longer sells books or school supplies after its employees were laid off. Students can now get their books through the college’s online bookstore. However, history professor Charlene Boyer Lewis says that stocking issues and shipping delays forced her to make changes to her curriculum earlier this term.
“My first-year seminar needed to have a book on the first day of school. None of them were able to get it. The bookstore-the online bookstore had a problem of misunderstanding that something was temporarily out of stock.”
Other layoffs took place in the library, where there remains only a single research librarian. The college recently posted a job listing for a Collection and Reference Services Librarian, which Johnson said will replace a librarian who retired in 2023, not those laid off. She said none of the laid-off employees were fit for this new position.
This year, Kalamazoo College’s first-year class is over 8% larger than last year’s, but total enrollment is still down by almost 4%. VanDeWeert attributes declining enrollment to FAFSA delays in 2023 and the Trump administration’s policies on higher education and international students.
On the other hand, retention rates are up. VanDeWeert takes this as a sign that the college is rebounding. But she adds, the college still needs to reduce the budget to stay on track with its expense-cutting goals. She says administrators are currently deciding how to do that.
“We have had some positive results there, in that once the students are here, they are staying longer, if you will. We just have to try to get more of them in the door in that first year.”
