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Guilford College, in North Carolina, plans to eliminate 30 percent of its full-time faculty positions and discontinue nearly half its academic majors, the News & Record reported. The private Quaker college plans to lay off 27 full-time faculty, including 16 tenured professors and five visiting faculty. Four professors intend to retire, and two plan to resign.
Some faculty and alumni are alarmed about the recommended cuts, which come after a program review process and a decade of enrollment losses, primarily in adult education programs, that have reduced the size of Guilford’s total student body by about half. Most of the 19 major programs set to be discontinued are in the humanities, including major programs in history, philosophy, religious studies and three foreign languages. The college is also eliminating majors in chemistry, math and political science.
Guilford has also eliminated staff positions. A total of 9.5 staff jobs were eliminated last week. In July, the college laid off 47 staff members and five visiting professors and said it would not fill 34 open administrative and staff positions. The college blamed pandemic-related revenue losses.