Oakland City University will suspend undergraduate programs for at least a year and lay off an unknown number of employees, the school announced Tuesday.
Todd Mosby, the school’s associate vice president for development, marketing and communication, wrote in a news release just after 1 p.m. that the layoffs will take effect May 31.
“There are no additional updates or comments at this time,” the release stated.
In a WARN notice OCU sent to Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development on April, it previously warned of a “mass layoff” of all 167 the school’s remaining employees. The news release didn’t say if that would occur. OCU allegedly still plans to offer “graduate-level” programs, and apparently hopes to resume undergraduate operations for the 2027-28 school year.
Tuesday’s announcement is a complete 180 from the vague optimism school officials put forth last week, when they said an unnamed financial “strategic partner” would not only help keep the school open, but eventually allow the university to expand its offerings.
In an interview with media outlets on May 13, Mosby declined to say who that partner was, how much they were paying, and how the arrangement would allegedly work.
Both president Ron Dempsey and Mosby have also said they had yet another unnamed source to fulfill payroll obligations for OCU employees who haven’t been paid in weeks. Their last scheduled paycheck on May 8 never arrived, and as of Tuesday employees still hadn’t been paid.
Undergraduate students will be “provided guidance and options for next steps,” the release states.
This is a developing story.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Oakland City University to suspend undergrad programs, lay off workers
Reporting by Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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