Midland Lutheran College's leaders triggered a sweeping reorganization Wednesday, laying off about 15 staff members and confirming that some of the college's majors will disappear this summer.
The 127-year-old Lutheran college in Fremont, Neb., has long displayed the signs of being a school in serious trouble. Freshman enrollment has plunged nearly 60 percent in the past five years. The college's endowment is shrinking rapidly.
The school's incoming president confirmed that, without changes, Midland couldn't have met its payroll in the months ahead.
“We no longer have the freedom to continue to do things as we've always done them,” said Ben Sasse, who officially takes over in late March.
The changes started Wednesday, when the college's board laid off 15 marketing, fundraising and other administrative employees who together earned $500,000. Much of that work will be outsourced.
The school will soon pour $1 million in donations into an effort to expand the its health sciences offerings — new classes and majors that could boost enrollment and might be offered in west Omaha and elsewhere.
And Sasse expects to eliminate some of the 32 majors that Midland currently offers, shrinking academic departments by offering selected professors early retirement packages this summer.
It's an admission, Sasse said, that the college can no longer be all things to all students.
“Midland is not going to be credible if we continue saying that we deliver 32 different programs all equally well,” he said in an interview.
The chairman of the Midland board sketched a dire financial picture in an e-mail sent Wednesday to faculty and staff.
The college's unrestricted assets — basically its financial cushion — have plunged 95 percent in the past four years, wrote Steve Bullock, the Midland board chairman, who is also an administrator at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Midland has borrowed nearly as much money as it can, he said, and has a limited ability to cover what he called “current cash short flows.”
In the short term, the layoffs, coupled with the restructuring of some debt and new fundraising, will help, Sasse said.
In the long term, he said, the cuts are part of a reorganization that won't be completed until he has finished a schoolwide review this summer. Sasse started the review after Midland hired him late last year.
The goal: to pour most available money into the five to eight academic departments that are deemed Midland's best.
School leaders are already trying to expand the health sciences department, anticipating adding classes in that rapidly growing industry while strengthening already-strong programs in nursing, biology, chemistry and physical therapy.
Another possible way to grow, Sasse said, is to expand the master's program in education, which allows teachers to earn an advanced degree by attending classes only six Saturdays a year.
Both efforts need a specific marketing push, Sasse said; surveys commissioned by Midland indicate that few Nebraska teachers know about the master's program.
Even worse, few of the state's high school students can muster an answer when asked to name one of Midland's strengths, he said.
Both efforts might push the Fremont school into west Omaha. The college will begin recruiting more heavily in Omaha and its suburbs, Sasse said, and might locate one or several satellite campuses there.
“Omaha is 25 minutes from here now,” Sasse said. “We need students in Omaha to know how close we are, and we have data that says they think we are in Columbus or Norfolk.”
An unknown number of academic majors will be shrunk, consolidated or eliminated to help pay for the expansion of the college's top-rated programs, school leaders said.
Sasse said he hopes to avoid faculty layoffs, instead offering early retirement packages to some professors in downsized departments.
Midland will continue to focus on giving students a well-rounded liberal arts education, said Sasse and Alcyone Scott, the college's longest-tenured professor.
Nursing students will learn history, they said, and accounting majors will study Shakespeare.
What might disappear, though, is the opportunity for a Midland student to major in history, Sasse said.
Scott, chairwoman of the English department, said it was too early to gauge faculty reaction to the layoffs and restructuring plan.
But she said she believes that Sasse, the board and faculty leaders have carefully thought out the plan. She's confident that it can succeed.
“There are endless ways that you can be hit, and we've met them all,” Scott said. “I think we have an exceedingly resilient faculty here, and the employees in general are eager to do what they can to ensure this place makes it.”
Contact the writer:
444-1064, matthew.hansen@owh.com
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