Image 01 Image 03

Simpson College to Cut 13 Faculty Positions in Second Round of Layoffs

Simpson College to Cut 13 Faculty Positions in Second Round of Layoffs

“employment at the college is down 17 percent over the past two years”

Majors like German and French are also being eliminated. This is going to become more common.

The Des Moines Register reports:

Simpson College will cut 13 positions in second round of 2018 layoffs

Simpson College will layoff 13 full-time employees, including 12 faculty members, and eliminate the school’s art department as it contends with lower enrollment and changing student interests.

It’s the second layoff at the Indianola private college this year. Ten faculty positions were eliminated in the spring.

The position reductions announced Wednesday will take effect over the next six to 24 months.

President Jay Simmons sent an email to Simpson alumni Wednesday announcing plans to cut the art department and eliminate French and German majors at the end of the academic year, citing declining student interest.

“Any of our current students who have declared their major in art, French or German will be able to continue and graduate in their degree program,” said Jill Johnson, Simpson’s vice president of marketing and public relations.

The college will use part-time instructors to allow current students to complete those degree programs.

With the latest round of layoffs, Simpson has eliminated nearly 20 percent of its faculty positions this year. The college has 104 faculty jobs and 134 overall staff positions after the downsizing.

Overall employment at the college is down 17 percent over the past two years.

“We recognize that … Simpson College has to be strategic when addressing trends ranging from enrollment and workplace demographics to budgetary realities and other considerations,” Simmons said.

DONATE

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.

Comments

Beautiful college. Does not say where it went wrong, but I suspect tuition. I find troublesome that it is eliminating clinical medicine in favor of a loosely defines combined degree. The way for a college to survive is to get rid of all soft courses and go straight STEM, particularly since Economics, Statistics, Accounting have been redefined to be STEM acceptable. Which is only right since ridged majors.

It’s not hard to see how Simpson College could help themselves to survive. Rather than dumping French and German entirely, dump the really stupid and useless programs in Social Justice Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies.
https://simpson.edu/academics/departments/department-business-administration-economics/social-justice-studies
https://simpson.edu/internal/womens-and-gender-studies/womens-and-gender-studies

Then use the money and faculty slots created by firing the useless faculty to enhance the most useful and employable majors such as Computer Science and the 3-2 Pre-Engineering and Pre-Medical programs.
https://simpson.edu/academics/departments/department-computer-science
https://simpson.edu/academics/departments/pre-engineering

Then, make sure all your literature to prospective students emphasizes that your students are highly in demand by potential employers and graduate schools. Students need to know that their huge investment in college will pay off in the long run.

Graduating with a degree in “Social Justice Studies” will enhance their job prospects about as much as a felony conviction on their record. Either one flags them as being a potential troublemaker. Ending the useless programs will do them a favor.