Lower enrollment numbers over the last couple of years ultimately led to the cuts announced Thursday by Kentucky Wesleyan College, according to President Dr. Thomas Mitzel. He said there were 33 positions cut campus-wide between academics and athletics, adding that 21 of those were open.
Mitzel said that during the first year of the pandemic, enrollment numbers nationwide were “still really good.”
“And then it dropped off a cliff,” he said. “We planned for that. There was there was funding to help with that. And early on, people thought enrollments would probably bounce back. What they have found is that really they have not.”
Mitzel said that in the last year, 21 religiously aligned small private colleges have closed.
“We decided we did not want to wait to see what was going to happen, and we decided the reality of the enrollment is that it’s not going to come back to pre-COVID numbers anytime in the next several years,” he said. “Our model on campus was predicated upon those higher enrollment numbers. So we had to reset our model to align better with what we see with enrollment trends, both in Kentucky and across the nation. That was when we decided we had to make that change.”
KWC on Thursday announced a series of organizational changes “to align itself for future stability,” including the elimination of positions and multiple athletic programs. The school is discontinuing its men’s and women’s cross country and track and field programs. Men’s bowling and the cheer team will be reclassified as “self-funded club sports,” according to a release.
Mitzel said of the 33 total positions removed, 21 of them were open. That spans academic and athletic positions.
“Across the campus, we looked at where we had redundancies that could be removed, and then looked at if a position was removed are there other areas where we could help to fulfill part of those duties,” he said. “What we wanted to do was to minimize the effect upon students and their education in the best possible method. That does not make it any easier. These are people that we know and we love, so the decisions were very difficult but necessary.”
According to the release, impacted employees will receive compensation through November 30. Those currently using KWC tuition remission benefits for themselves or their dependents will continue to receive an equivalent scholarship through normal degree completion.
When asked if he could more specifically break down where the cuts were made, Mitzel said there is so much crossover it’s hard to define.
“We do share a lot of positions across departments,” he said. “So something that is academic may not be fully academic, and something that is athletic may not be fully athletic. It would be hard to break those numbers down.”
Regarding the choice of which athletic programs to cut, Mitzel said the administration looked at which sports they could and coult not support well financially.
“We don’t have an indoor facility, so our students are at a disadvantage here,” he said. “We don’t have an outdoor facility, we have to rent one so the students are at a disadvantage there. The amount of influx it would take to really bring that sport up to an area of fairness for each and every one with students was more than what we knew we would have, so we made the difficult decision to remove them.”
All scholarships for impacted student-athletes will be honored through degree completion, according to Mitzel. He said for those who wish to transfer, KWC “would do whatever we had in our power to help them get to where they want to go, but the hope would be that they would remain.”
Mitzel said KWC the steps they are taking could have begun sooner or could have been pushed off longer, but the administration felt now was the time to act.
“You want to right size when you still can, which is what we have done,” he said. “The decisions are never easy, but this has been something that has been building and we’ve been thinking about it, and it was time to take action.”
OT asked Mitzel if current or pending debt played a role, and he said one when he arrived 4 years ago, “the college had very little debt compared to most institutions, and that has kept us in good stead financially.”
He continued, “Our model was based on a campus of a larger student body than what we have. … Based on the enrollments from COVID, we did not have as many students on campus, so we had a look at the expenses. We had a look at what we had that we no longer can have based on a smaller model.”
Mitzel said he is confident that KWC will be steady in future enrollments, but they will be lower annually than they were pre-COVID.
He said, “As difficult as it was, this was a necessary move that will set us up for a very strong future.”
