Emerson faculty, staff, and students left in the dark following news of impending layoffs

Faculty say there is no information on the extent of the problem, casting a shadow on summer vacation.

Some Emerson faculty, staff and students are saying there’s a dark cloud over their campus this summer, following an announcement of impending layoffs and budget cuts that failed to disclose specific details.

“This was a shock,” said Anna Feder, the head of the Film Exhibitions and Festival Programs at Emerson College. Feder, who has been there since 2007, said the news came “out of the blue” and that no one knew the school, which is mainly tuition-dependent, was struggling.

“We’re getting less transparency than we’ve ever had,” said Feder.

In mid-June President Jay Bernhardt sent an internal email announcing the layoffs and hiring freeze, which was shared with Boston.com.

The college is blaming an enrollment decline in part on “negative press and social media” from the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the campus and subsequent arrests.

In the early morning hours of April 25, 118 student protesters were arrested by Boston police when officers swept through the pro-Palestine encampment at Boylston Place Alley. This public right-of-way leads to the State Transportation Center.

The president wrote that he expects the enrollment decline to last only one year, but the effects will ripple through the budget for the next several.

Bernhardt lists multiple reasons for the reduction, including “national enrollment trends away from smaller private institutions, an enrollment deposit delay in response to the new FAFSA rollout, student protests targeting our yield [admitted student] events and campus tours, and negative press and social media generated from the demonstrations and arrests.”

In response to a request to comment, Emerson said the letter was “an internal message to faculty and staff to inform them about the enrollment decline, its causes and necessary spending cuts to offset lost revenue.”

According to the statement, Emerson used internal data to come to this conclusion. Additional analysis is needed to determine the budget reductions, including how many staff will be affected, the school said.

“We understand that challenges like this can be stressful for our workforce, and we will do everything we can to provide timely information and support to those affected,” the statement said.

Future of the college

The Emerson Staff Union has said it is holding off on making statements or comments since there are still many unknown details on how it will affect their lives.

Vinicius Navarro, an associate film and media professor at Emerson College, said his colleagues are worried about their future and the future of the college.

He shared via an email to Boston.com that the letter was “deliberately vague,” with no specific information offered.

“Keeping us in the dark while threatening us with layoffs is extremely disrespectful,” Navarro wrote.

Navarro said the bad publicity resulted from the administration’s poor handling of the student protests and subsequent arrests.

“Rather than blame the protesters for the decline in enrollment numbers, the administration should take responsibility for its mistakes,” Navarro wrote.

“Protesting is part of life in a democracy,” Navarro continued. “It ought to be encouraged, not vilified.”

Budget concerns

Some faculty members say the college isn’t spending its budget wisely.

Last year, Emerson’s full-time faculty union, the Emerson College Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, commissioned a study from its parent organization, the American Association of University Professors, revealing that Emerson College is a top-heavy institution compared to similar higher education institutions.

The report says the college has a similar number of full-time top-level administrators and managers, at 205, as full-time faculty members at 244. The college also spends $2.4 million more to pay the top administrators than the full-time faculty.

Despite these findings, the college continues to hire new vice presidents, with the latest hire of a vice president of strategy, innovation, and institutional initiatives announced on June 3, according to an internal email shared with Boston.com.

Nigel Gibson, a professor at the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies, has been with the college since the early 2000s.

The last time he saw the college struggling was following the financial crisis in 2010 when the school cut department budgets and laid off some part-time staff.

He said staff members who are not in the union feel vulnerable.

“I think they’re right to feel that too because there’s a vagueness,” Gibson said of the letter.

Gibson and Feder said that even when enrollment dropped because of COVID-19, the school handled the problem differently.

Former college president Lee Pelton held a town hall where faculty members collectively came up with solutions. But now, they say the information is coming from the top down.

“And so we’re all in the dark,” said Gibson. “There’s no detail.”

Emerson College’s Student Government Association unanimously passed a resolution in late April calling on the president to resign in a vote of no confidence.

“There has been wide condemnation of this president,” said Feder. “And he turns around and closes ranks and fundamentally changes the atmosphere of the institution. It’s deeply concerning.”

Emerson’s Students’ Union also expressed outrage at the letter, saying the college is at fault for its enrollment decline.

“Emerson has terrible financial aid, represses student activism, refuses student/community demands to divest from Israel, and now is hurriedly stripping away its offerings,” the union wrote in a collective statement. “The school’s decision to lay off faculty is a disgusting attack on labor and a disservice to its students.”

The union said it makes sense that potential students would be wary of such an institution and choose not to attend.

“Current students (who are now well aware of the admin’s hypocrisy) will only become more disillusioned, and enrollment will continue to decline if the administration continues down this path,” the statement said.