The all-women’s Mills College has just declared a financial emergency following a run of financial deficits, with plans to lay off 30+ faculty and staff. Following here is a Mercury News newspaper article link: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/17/mills-college-declares-financial-emergency-as-financial-woes-worsen/
They should put a quick call in to the alumnae team that saved Sweet Briar for ideas.
I wanted to reply to this thread as someone who recently transferred out of Mills. Administrative press releases assuring Mills parents and the public that the college’s financial issues are not dire are, frankly, lies. The financial and administrative issues plaguing the college are nothing new and have been going on for at least a decade, according to an article published in San Francisco Magazine last year (the reporter got her hands on some internal financial documents). The school has been cutting corners to save money as a result, student life has really suffered. We no longer have an on campus bookstore (Mills opted to go completely online). There are currently talks of ending the shuttle system, which I often see touted as one of the draws of Mills and its Bay Area location. I had friends who wrote for the campus newspaper when I was there, and from what I heard, their budget was cut by 50%. When I left, the Spanish department had one remaining full time professor and an adjunct. The College recently decided to layoff as many as 11 tenured faculty members, including the entire philosophy department, a beloved journalism instructor who is also the advisor for the campus newspaper, an English professor who has been at Mills for 30 years, and an internationally famous jazz composer who teaches in the music department. Departments slated for “restructuring” or elimination include philosophy, ethnic studies, and government. Students and alumnae are protesting at an open meeting that is being held next week, but no one is counting on this administration to listen.
Perhaps most serious of all, there was also a protest last spring regarding the administration’s lack of response to multiple students who reported being sexually assaulted by male students in the EF program, a separate program for international students housed at Mills. The EF program will not be returning to Mills next year, but to my knowledge, no one was held accountable for the assaults, and no one in the administration was held accountable for ignoring the problem.
That’s not to say there aren’t some amazing faculty members at Mills–but they unfortunately work for a school that doesn’t value them.
If you are considering Mills, I would urge you to look elsewhere. This school is a sinking ship.
A lot of schools skip the campus bookstore. Amherst, for one, there’s no shortage of money there. There’s a bookstore in town that carries textbooks but I bet most kids shop online, as is the case now everywhere I imagine.
Everything else you said is pretty alarming.
Mills needs to hire people who know how to publicize the school. I live in the Bay Area and used to hear about it a lot back in the 80s and 90s, and it had a very good reputation. These days nobody talks about it. I had no idea it was in serious financial trouble.
not sure Mills can survive. Besides a fine LAC for women, what else do they offer? For that matter, not sure it is all that LAC-like anymore…in the search for more revenue(?), Mills has been growing its Masters programs (which are coed).
It really is a gated-community/oasis in a part of town that is growing rougher over the year. There is literally nothing to walk to off campus. They tout the advantage of taking classes at Berkeley, but that’s difficult for anyone with out a car. Even with a car, parking in Berkeley is difficult. And if they are canceling the shuttle…girls will be landlocked behind the walls for the semester.