University of Delaware President Dennis Assanis announced a hiring freeze, no summer on-campus programs and other moves as the institution deals with the impact of coronavirus.
Assanis announced the following in a letter to the UD community:
Hiring Freeze – As communicated earlier this month, a hiring freeze is in place on all current and future academic and non-academic searches.
Capital Projects – All campus projects already under construction will continue, including the Ammon Pinizzotto Biopharmaceutical Innovation Center, Whitney Athletics Center, Worrilow Hall, and Warner Hall. Existing capital projects in the planning and design phases will be reevaluated to determine whether they should proceed or be deferred. No new capital projects will be approved. Exceptions will be made for projects funded primarily through external funds that also support strategic initiatives, including the “FinTech” building on STAR Campus. Deferred maintenance spending will be reduced to an amount necessary only to maintain operations.
Travel Ban – All university travel is currently suspended.
Discretionary Spending – All expenditures that are not critical to university operations are suspended immediately. This includes food/meals, events, memberships, hiring of outside consultants, contracts, and purchase of equipment, among other categories.
Staff Realignment – All departments have been asked to evaluate work capacity among staff to ensure efficient use of resources. Managers should contact Human Resources to explore opportunities for potential staff repurposing and/or job sharing in their department or unit as appropriate.
Summer activities – Assanis also stated, “in the immediate term, all in-person summer activities, programs and conferences that were slated to begin prior to August 1 are canceled or will be converted to online offerings; summer classes will continue via distance learning.“
Assanis stated, “For the spring semester, the unforeseen impact to our campus budget has been more than $65 million.” He added, “through deliberate cost-mitigation strategies and a $6 million allocation from federal stimulus funds under the CARES Act to offset institutional losses, we have been able to contain our budget impact to approximately $50 million.”
