University of the Arts President Kerry Walk has resigned, the institution confirmed Tuesday, just days after announcing it would close for good on June 7.
In a message to campus Tuesday, UArts board chair Judson Aaron said that with the departure of Walk, the university has hired consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal to help navigate the closure
“They will help us urgently address the needs of our students, faculty, and staff as we work through this process,” Aaron said.
The chair added that UArts is now focused on ironing out its teach-out plans for its students seeking to finish their studies at other institutions. “We also remain committed to taking whatever actions are feasible to support our incredible faculty and staff through this challenging time,” Judson said.
UArts had faced an unexpected cash crush after running into “significant, unanticipated expenses” that it could not meet, Walk and Aaron said in a Friday message addressing the abrupt closure. This situation, they said, forced the institution to shutter.
Students and other stakeholders have protested the university’s closure since it was announced, with the community asking what exactly happened that brought about such an abrupt closure of an institution that stretches back nearly 150 years.
A virtual public information meeting scheduled for Monday was canceled minutes before it was to start. On Tuesday, the administration also postponed a meeting with the university’s faculty union less than an hour before it was slated to begin, the union’s chapter chair told Higher Ed Dive.
“The utter lack of coordination, collegiality, and transparency when hundreds of people’s lives are affected is beyond comprehension or forgiveness,” Nick Embree, a professor at the university and chapter chair of the faculty union, said in an email.
On Tuesday, Nine UArts employees filed a class action suit against the institution, arguing that its sudden closure violated federal labor law by not giving them at least 60 days written notice in advance of job losses.
A UArts spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the canceled meetings and lawsuit.
While the campus struggles to understand and come to terms with the closure, Temple University, a public institution also based in Philadelphia, is in talks on a potential merger to save the private nonprofit UArts and its legacy, according to media reports.
In a campus announcement Wednesday morning following the reports, Temple President Richard Englert and Provost Gregory Mandel said that university officials have “spoken with UArts representatives to explore all options and possible solutions” to preserve the institution’s legacy.
“This remains a fluid situation, and we continue to gather more information in relation to the University of the Arts’ sudden closure,” Englert and Mandel said.
Temple’s board chair, Mitchell Morgan, has reached out to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker to see how the university could help UArts, according to a Tuesday report in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Englert and Mandel said Temple leadership’s “first priority is working to ensure that all UArts students have a path to completing their studies.”
Temple is one of the transfer partners for UArts students. It has already created a web page devoted to potential students from UArts that says Temple aims to “make the path to enrollment at Temple seamless and transparent.”
UArts had 1,313 students as of fall 2022, a 29% decline from 2017, according to federal data.