ATLANTA - Clark Atlanta University cut about 100 workers Friday, with officials at the historically Black college blaming slipping enrollment as cash-strapped students sit out the spring semester.
Spokeswoman Jennifer Jiles said 70 faculty members and up to 40 staff learned from supervisors that Friday would be their last work day. No more cuts are expected.
It was the first round of such layoffs since 2003, according to school spokesman Larry Calhoun.
Jiles insisted the 4,200-student-plus college - the largest of the United Negro College Fund institutions - was not in any financial distress.
"There is absolutely no financial emergency, and the university is not in a cash marginal institution," Jiles told the Associated Press on Friday.
On campus, students expressed confusion over the sudden decision but trust in the administration.
"To make this situation better, the people in control needed to prevent any financial loss in the long run of the institution," said sophomore political science major Maurice Simpson, 19, of Maryland.
The decision to make cuts came as college administrators have been trying to align faculty numbers with dwindling student numbers, but the problem has been compounded by the nation's economic recession, according to a university statement.
The school is still determining just how many students have been shed; administrators recognized a sharp downward trend late last year, Jiles said.
"We were getting some indication by mid-fall, and certainly by December, that we would have a number of students that would not be returning for the spring semester," Jiles said, explaining that students expressed difficulty getting loans.
Such loans - as well as savings often stashed by mindful parents years before students arrive on campus - are the bread and butter of nearly all college students.
But they often have a special significance at the nation's network of more than 100 historically Black schools. Sprinkled mostly across the South, these schools often draw from Blacks who cannot afford other schools.
