Cardinal Stritch closing, president cites forces 'beyond our control'
GLENDALE, Wis. - Cardinal Stritch University's president spoke to FOX6 News Thursday, days after the nearly 100-year-old institution's impending closure was announced.
Dan Scholz said university officials knew that, despite overall enrollment being up this past fall semester, undergraduate enrollment was down. By January, the writing was on the wall: a $6 million deficit that could not be overcome.
"It was a combination of events that happened," Scholz said. "Even though in the fall our enrollment was a little bit higher than we had budgeted for, we didn’t have as many undergraduates as we were anticipating."
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Cardinal Stritch was short about 40 undergraduate students, with enrollment around 1,200 evenly split between undergraduate and graduate students. The university will close May 22 after spring graduation.
"We could see by the end of January of this academic year that we were projecting about a $6 million deficit, if we kept operating," Scholz said.
A big portion of that deficit came from labor costs for faculty and staff.
"We had believed, up until very recently, that we had pathways forward that we could close that gap," said Scholz. "We reached out, had needs for scholarships. You have to think how you message this in such a way that people are going to want to give in a way that can be transformational for us."
The university also tried to get loans, a stop-gap for a trend seen across higher education: declining enrollment and fewer students choosing to go to college.
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"It’s forces that are in many ways beyond our control," Scholz said.
Scholz said a merger was considered, but could not be done in enough time – and there was not enough money. Downsizing and cuts were also considered.
"We’ve done that. You get to a point where if you reduce so much, you impact the quality of the education, and that’s where we were at," said Scholz.
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Cardinal Stritch University closing, campus employees call news 'devastating'
The announcement of the May closure of Cardinal Stritch University leaves hundreds of employees without a job and with a lot of questions.
Now, the university is working to help students, faculty and staff transition to a future without Cardinal Stritch.
"Our main message was, we’re here for you. We’re going to work with you in this terrible situation to do everything we can to make sure you land safely at another institution," Scholz said.
The university intends on holding job fairs for faculty and staff next week to try to land a job at other area institutions. Work is also being done to help students transition to complete their degrees onces the university closes its doors.