The Catholic University of America, which educates more than 6,500 students, reportedly plans to ax 9 percent of its full-time staff in a bid to ease a serious cash crunch.
The Washington Post says the cost-cutting measure – scrapping 35 positions from a staff of 381 faculty members -- will be achieved through attrition, buyouts and possibly layoffs.
The newspaper adds the proposed plan has “rattled” professors at the school which has close ties to the Vatican, with one instructor saying, “Morale has never been lower.”
The private, non-profit Catholic university, founded in 1887 and located on 176 acres in Washington, D.C., has been ranked as one of the nation's best colleges by the Princeton Review.
The Post says the university’s fiscal problems are largely the result of an enrollment decline that has cut into revenue from tuition revenue. The proposal to cut staff is now being weighed under deliberation by Catholic’s academic senate.
Catholic University was in the news last month for hosting a symposium marking the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae which reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on family life and against contraception.
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