Clark Atlanta cuts 100 staffers

About 70 full-time Clark Atlanta University faculty members and 30 other full-time employees are receiving word today that they have lost their jobs.

To compensate for the cutbacks to the school’s 650-member staff, some classes are being combined, university President Carlton E. Brown said Friday.

Brown emphasized that the university remains fully accredited and financially sound.

“This is how we stay that way,” Brown said. “You have to fit what you do to what you can pay for what you do.”

The layoffs were necessitated by an “enrollment emergency” exacerbated by current economic conditions, Brown said.

The research university’s student body has been declining for several years, from about 5,000 in 2001 to about 3,900 this semester, he said.

At least 200 students dropped out this year or transferred to state schools because of their family’s worsening financial situation, he said.

At the same time, the university’s endowment, which helps fund scholarships, has lost about a quarter of its $40 million value, he said. And, he said, would-be donors are suffering their own setbacks.

Clark Atlanta’s annual cost, including food, housing and tuition, is about $25,000. Nine in 10 students receive financial aid.

Brown said he is looking at reorganizing the administration, streamlining some processes and introducing greater accountability. As those initiatives progress, more cuts in staff could come, he said.

The president said today’s layoffs “are going to be traumatic for us.”

But, he said, “It’s what we have to do to move the university forward.”