600+ University of the Arts faculty and staff laid off on the school’s chaotic final day; hundreds rally

The University of the Arts, an institution with roots dating back nearly 150 years, laid off 613 staff members Friday on its chaotic, final day of formal existence.

“We are confirming that the university is closing today, June 7, as previously announced — this means we are starting the process of an orderly wind down and we will not hold any further classes,” a message from the consulting firm hired to oversee closure wrote in a message to staff.

“Unfortunately, because of the financial state of the university, we are unable to retain most employees after today,” the message said. About 100 university staff are being kept on indefinitely.

Many UArts faculty and staff learned they would be laid off Friday over a Zoom call led by consultants from Alvarez & Marsal, the firm hired by UArts to manage its abrupt closure. Leaked audio revealed the moment they were told they no longer had jobs and would lose their medical insurance within weeks.

”We know that this has been a very difficult time and uncertain time and that you have many questions regarding your employment status,” said Jim Grady, one of the Alvarez & Marsal consultants.

”We apologize for not providing sufficient notice on the closure based on the financial position of the university,” Grady continued.

The consulting firm did not take questions from those losing their jobs.

No faculty or staff spoke during the eight-minute meeting, during which people could be heard crying.

A call center is expected to be set up to address their questions in the near future, according to Grady.

UArts is expected to deliver staff members’ final paychecks in full, and will pay out their unused vacation time, Alvarez & Marsal member Jenelle Beavers said.

Employee medical insurance will continue through June 30; staff members will have the option to purchase COBRA insurance through the next 18 months.

Staff members were encouraged to apply with the state for unemployment benefits.

Grady told faculty and staff that UArts was “committed to taking whatever actions we feasibly can to support you through this very challenging time.”

Anger. Sadness. Bittersweet laughter. Vows of retribution and promises of hope.

The scene Friday outside of the now-shuttered South Broad Street institution was an emotional carousel, as students, faculty, staff members, and elected officials rallied together to protest the school’s abrupt closure on its final official day and mourn the loss of a creative home.

Over 200 people gathered at the university’s grand staircase, which, for over a century, has swept students out of Philadelphia’s hustle and bustle and into what many described as a haven for the arts that will be nearly impossible to replicate.

For recent theater graduate Brenna Patzer, UArts was a dream destination since high school, she told the crowd in tear-filled remarks.

The student spent this week “begging for answers to no avail” from the very same institution, she said.

”Our administration and those who have failed us will be stained by their actions forever,” Patzer said.

UArts faculty member Allen Radway told the crowd he spent this week witnessing the “tears of my students” and the “broken hearts” of alumni. Many of them gathered at the rally and reminisced with past classmates.

”There’s been zero transparency from our leadership for something that was absolutely predictable,” Radway said, before leading the crowd in a chant of the word “transparency.”

Elected officials of the district, State Rep. Ben Waxman and State Sen. Nikil Saval, both Democrats, also made appearances.

”This is outrageous; what happened here should not be able to stand,” Waxman said. The legislator said he plans to bring lawmakers together with displaced students and staff in a public meeting next week.

Saval said he rejected the idea that there was a crisis in higher education.

“It is a political crisis, it is a manufactured crisis. This is not some inevitable drift of history. There are people behind this and those people need to be held accountable,” said Saval.

Laura Frazure, an artist, associate professor, and sculpture and crafts coordinator, blamed the board of trustees and the university’s president emeritus, David Yager, for the closure. (Yager’s name drew boos from the crowd.)

”I was so looking forward to working elbow-to-elbow in the shops and studios with my sculpture and thesis students in the years to come,” Frazure said, wiping away tears. “They have taken our collective future away, and I will never forgive them for that.”

Amid the uncertainty, a new group of parents and alumni has emerged as a “committee of concerned community members” to support students, appeal to lawmakers and others potentially in a position to help, and possibly stave off closure and reimagine what University of the Arts can be.

Frank Machos, head of the Philadelphia School District’s Office of the Arts & Creative Learning, is helping anchor the group. Machos, who earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. at UArts, was set to join the university’s board of trustees this month. In conversations with top university executives just a few weeks before the closure announcement, there was no inkling that a catastrophe was imminent, he said.

“I feel confident that nobody in the upper leadership — nobody that I was in contact with had any idea this was coming,” Machos said. “I was on calls with foundations, securing support for campus expansion. I was receiving texts from upper leadership.”

After a planned town hall Monday with university leaders was canceled 10 minutes before it was scheduled to begin, people who had never met each other before began to mobilize. The group now includes not just parents and alumni with experience in multiple fields, but also two deans who hope to save the school.

Machos said representatives of the group have already had a conversation with the Middle States Committee on Higher Education, the agency that pulled University of the Arts’ accreditation after it announced it was closing.

“They are open to having a conversation with us,” Machos said. “We think the largest piece that needs to be addressed is the financial issues.”

Machos said the group was particularly stunned that once the crisis became evident, no one at University of the Arts turned to its alumni, a network of creatives known for thinking outside the box.

In the short term, the group’s focus is supporting students as they transfer to institutions that have already raised their hands to help. Next, they want to focus on some way to preserve the university.

“Can these students walk in graduation as University of the Arts students, with that diploma? That’s our ideal situation, rather than some type of absorption,” said Machos. ”Every higher ed institution is reimagining what their future is going to be. We can probably create one of the most forward-thinking schools on the planet.”

A week ago, university president Kerry Walk and board of trustees chair Judson Aaron announced the school would close June 7 because of an unspecified financial crisis. Another trustee later estimated that the crisis — whose details even she did not have — would take about $40 million to solve. Walk has since resigned.

» READ MORE: UArts closure will be the subject of Philadelphia City Council hearings, as a Temple merger moves one step closer

One staffer said they were interviewed by representatives of Alvarez & Marsal, the global consulting firm hired to oversee the university’s closure, on Thursday, but given no answers.

The staffer, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said they were not even sure if they should show up to work when the weekend is over.

“None of us have heard who’s being extended past June 7, or if anyone’s being extended,” the staffer said. “We don’t know if we have jobs on Monday.”

Also unanswered is whether a merger with Temple University, which officials have confirmed is currently being explored, is possible and, if the parties agree, what will be left to save. Temple has signed a nondisclosure agreement with the University of the Arts to formally explore the merger, according to a source close to the process who asked not to be named because the talks are private.

Mergers typically take at least a year to complete, and University of the Arts — whose leaders said they explored every possible alternative to closure prior to the announcement — told the Middle States Commission on Higher Education it would close Friday.