Notre Dame de Namur University announced July 9 that it has reached an agreement with its faculty union to extend and modify a collective bargaining agreement with the teachers through Aug. 14, 2021.
The move continues the Belmont school’s efforts to answer difficulties including low enrollment and limited cash reserves.
“NDNU has been diligently working on ways to continue in a new format as a learning institution for both the short and longer term,” the school said in a statement. “The university has been exploring all options to provide students close to graduating a guaranteed pathway to finish their degrees.”
The school announced in March that it would not be accepting new students while working its way back to financial good health.
While moving to what the school called “proportional pay” to “minimize and delay” faculty layoffs the much-reduced student enrollment as compared to fall 2019 means fewer teachers will be needed.
The school said it will offer severance pay to any full-time faculty who are laid off and cannot find a position elsewhere at equivalent salary.
“Without a faculty agreement, eligible students would not have been able to continue through spring 2021 to finish their degrees,” the school said.
The above comes from a July 9 story in Catholic San Francisco.
I wonder if Covid 19 may prove to be the final straw for the University. Declining enrollment, no incoming students, need to lay off faculty. When will the accrediting authorities raise a flag?
Mike:
NDNU long enjoyed a great rep in selected fields: for example, its education credential programs, both preservice and administrative. Their alums are successful teachers and principals throughout the Peninsula and the Bay Area. Their science undergrads also did well in premed and graduate schools. The new administration seems to have overextended resources into new areas, and I hope the college survives the recent mistakes.
Disclosing: I have one degree from the school when it was College of Notre Dame (MPA ’98)
Another one bites the dust.
Tom, even if enrollment were open, I would be hard put to recommend the school in the current circumstances
I attended the College of Notre Dame, as it was then known. The first class I took had a priest in the habit of his order justifying abortion and premarital sex. Years later, he was speaking at a parish and I again contacted him to ask if his views had changed. He said they had not. The pastor of the parish was informed of this but allowed him to speak anyway. At least as far as their Catholicism goes, Notre Dame is disappointing, to say the least, and misrepresenting itself as a Catholic institution. And, from what I’ve heard recently, things haven’t changed much. If I’m mistaken and it is truly a Catholic school, please let all of us know.
impending name change:
Notre Dame de No More