Central State trustees approve staff cuts, plan to ‘realign faculty’

Central State’s problem, though, isn’t just that students aren’t taking some of these classes. It’s that almost half of faculty are teaching in “low-enrolled programs,” and 29% of faculty members are teaching in “sustainable programs,” said Morakinyo A.O. Kuti, the CSU president.

“That’s why we are looking at a realigning of academic resources, not just a reduction,” Kuti said. “We have some majors that will have 300 unique students in one semester, and that affects the quality of teaching and advice the students will get.”

A total of 52 faculty members teach in “low-enrolled programs,” as of fall 2025, but just 31 faculty members teach in “sustainable programs,” Kuti said. A further 22 faculty members teach in all other programs.

But the faculty union says they don’t believe the university is fully accounting for all the faculty lost through retirements and people leaving for other jobs.

Genevieve Ritchie-Ewing, the president of the Central State chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said the university has lost at least 23 faculty since 2023-2024, and hired 10 faculty, most of whom were hired for less money than those who retired.

“As the university is in financial straits, which we understand, there is savings there when you lose faculty and don’t replace them,” she said. “And those savings aren’t being taken into account, either.”

The trend of having a small number of faculty teaching a large load of students has gone back at least since fall of 2023, Kuti said.

Senate Bill 1 requires a state institution to eliminate any undergraduate degree program it offers if the institution confers an average of fewer than five degrees in that program annually over any three-year period, according to the Ohio Department of Higher Education.

The majors that had produced fewer than 15 graduates over three years were:

The Ohio Department of Higher Education chancellor may grant a waiver to a state institution for a program. However, if the degree program is eliminated, students cannot be admitted into the program by Aug. 15 following the completion of the academic year that triggered the program elimination, according to ODHE.

All Ohio public universities will have to undergo looking at majors laid out in SB 1. However, Central State hasn’t completed the process of looking at low-enrolled programs in a long time, so there is more to consider, Kuti said. Universities eliminating low-enrolled programs is a common occurrence.

“These are very sober times because as we are taking these steps, it will impact individuals on campus,” Kuti said.

The board of trustees also voted to approve four new degrees but did not say what those majors are since the university is waiting on approval from both the Ohio Department of Higher Education and the Higher Learning Commission, the university’s accreditor.

Ritchie-Ewing said the university senate had more proposed degrees but those were not presented to the board. It was a significant amount of work that the faculty undertook to combine programs and create new degrees, she said, and only four of those programs were recommended.

“They would not tell us which programs were being recommended, and they wouldn’t tell us how many faculty,” she said. “So all of that work that we put in during the fall, in order to do the work that was required of SB 1, a lot of that work was not used.”

Jacqueline Gamblin, the board of trustees chair, thanked the administrators, faculty senate and others who worked on this proposal.

“We’re having to make some very difficult decisions during these times as we move forward,” Gamblin said. “We know it’s not easy, but we just have to continue to push forward.”

The university has been facing ongoing financial problems. Kuti noted that last year, 33 staff members and seven faculty members were cut as part of a cost-savings measure. Kuti said CSU is facing a $5 million shortfall in fiscal year 2026 if drastic changes are not made.