Twelve Keene State College faculty members have accepted voluntary separation agreements, a University System of New Hampshire spokesperson said in an email Thursday.
Coupled with this week’s termination of 25 staff positions, eight of which were vacant, at the college, the separation incentive plans stem from an $18 million cut to the state university system’s budget over two years by the N.H. Legislature this summer. As a result, Keene State officials have said the college must make up a $4 million deficit by the end of fiscal year 2027.
Of the dozen tenure-track faculty who’ve accepted separation plans, eight will depart at the end of the fall semester, while the other four will leave “in the spring,” USNH spokesperson Lisa Thorne said.
The 12 faculty members “are from eight different disciplines that represent a cross section of the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences, and professional studies areas,” Thorne wrote. Two faculty members departing at the end of this semester are slated to teach courses as adjunct faculty in the spring, she said.
Most of the staff terminations announced Tuesday are planned to go into effect on Jan. 2, while the other positions will sunset in “early 2026,” Thorne wrote. In response to a follow-up question about whether people are still working in those positions in the meantime, she wrote that “KSC does not provide specific details about staff attendance or specific termination agreements.”
In the fall 2024 semester, Keene State had 244 faculty members — 117 full-time and 127 part-time — and 354 staff members, according to the most recent data available on the college’s website.
A late October email from then-President Melinda Treadwell and Kim Schmidl-Gagne, affiliated staff association president, to the campus community said 17 staff positions were being considered for elimination, according to The Equinox, Keene State’s student newspaper. The Equinox also reported that cuts would be made to faculty through voluntary separation packages.
Treadwell left Keene State at the end of October to become president of SUNY Geneseo.
Last week, Bill McColloch, president of Keene State’s faculty union, said the college had agreed to backfill 40 percent of the positions left vacant by departing faculty. When asked by The Sentinel about this, Thorne referred back to her description of the return of the two faculty members as adjuncts in the spring, and where she’d written, “The KSC administration is in the process of consulting with departments to gain an accurate assessment of academic needs and coverage of courses.”
The university system will not be releasing the names or departments of employees affected by personnel reductions out of respect for their privacy, Thorne said.
In a statement sent to The Sentinel after Tuesday’s layoffs, Keene State’s Interim President Donald Birx, who also heads up Plymouth State University, said, “As for additional steps to meet our financial obligations through FY27, the College is continuing to evaluate a range of strategies to address these challenges, and we will share updates with our community as they become available. Overall, our goal is to align our resources with institutional priorities, while preserving as much of the student experience as possible.”
Thorne referred back to Birx’s statement when asked if there could be more layoffs or separation packages forthcoming.
These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.