Dear Faculty and Staff,

We know that many of you are balancing the order to shelter in place, while also caring for children or grandchildren who are out of school and helping the most vulnerable members of your family, including elderly parents and relatives. Many of us are meeting these needs while also adjusting to working remotely. Your sacrifices and flexibility are appreciated as we work together to shift to remote learning.

At the Budget Forum earlier this month, we outlined some significant challenges that our beloved Santa Clara University is facing along with the rest of higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic has added yet another disruption which together we will face and meet. This will take sacrifices on the part of everyone.

In these unsettling and stressful times, our leadership has been working around the clock to understand and address the financial and other impacts on the University. In the interests of transparency, we are committed to communicating with you as the financial challenges become clearer and as we adapt to a rapidly evolving situation.

Santa Clara is incurring significant additional expenses with the move to remote learning. At the same time, the financial uncertainty experienced by many of our students’ families is likely to result in materially lower enrollment and lost tuition. Finally,  the University will not receive spring quarter room and board fees for about 90% of students in University-owned residences, resulting in unanticipated loss of room and board revenue for the spring quarter of as much as $13 million. 

Given this reality, we have made the following decisions after extensive consultation and analysis: 

Salary Continuation to April 30th: To ease concerns and provide more certainty, we announce the continuation of payment of salary to April 30, 2020 for all full-time and benefits-eligible part-time employees at their current base rate of pay. This is an extension of our previous commitment to April 7th. In mid-April, we will review and update you with any subsequent adjustments that may need to be made based on a very fluid situation.

Employees on Campus: There have been some questions from staff and faculty regarding coming into campus to work. To fully comply with the California executive order to shelter-in-place indefinitely, all should plan on working remotely unless otherwise directed by your dean or direct supervisor. More information will be forthcoming on this shortly.

Update on Student Workers:  Student workers, if they haven’t already, will receive notification in the next week from their direct supervisors as to what options for student employment may be available for the remainder of the academic year. The Federal Work Study program has ensured that students in that program will continue to be paid.

As we are tuition dependent and now dealing with substantial lost revenue and cash flow challenges, we all need to exercise greater financial control and discipline, particularly over the next few months. To do this and to balance the long- and short-term financial obligations of the University with our overall responsibility to students, faculty, and staff, we immediately implement the following measures:

• Discretionary Spending: Only mission-critical expenditures will be approved.  Travel, supplies and food expenses with transaction dates after today will not be approved until further notice.
• Non-essential Purchasing Cards: Effective immediately, all but a handful of staff purchasing cards have been suspended until further notice. Faculty cards will remain activated through the first week of classes to allow for essential purchases to enable their move to online learning, after which their cards will be deactivated as well. In extraordinary circumstances only, a request can be submitted for P-card reactivation to the requester’s manager, unit vice president, and Vice President for Finance and Administration Michael Crowley.
• New Contracts: No new contracts or standard engagement agreements will be authorized until further notice.  See your unit’s business/finance manager for clarification or any questions.
• Open Positions & Adjustments: Until further notice, the University will institute a hiring freeze on all open positions and temporary workers hired through staffing agencies. This will apply to all open positions with certain mission-critical exceptions approved by the associate vice president of human resources, the vice president for finance and administration, or the provost. In addition, all reclassification requests, market adjustments and reorganization requests are on hold until further notice. For any questions, please contact your respective HR Partner.

We recognize that all these adjustments will require additional sacrifices from everyone. And with the unpredictability of this pandemic, the road ahead will continue to be challenging for our community with the likelihood of other difficult decisions ahead.

In his Founder’s Day Homily on March 19th, Fr. O’Brien offered this observation, “I know that we don’t have to be afraid because we have each other and because we have been in this great enterprise of learning and service for 169 years. In this we find our strength…” As stewards of this historic institution, we each have a critical role to play in ensuring Santa Clara’s long-term financial viability. Please know that we truly appreciate everyone’s partnership in this effort.  Thank you for all you do for Santa Clara and our students. 

Sincerely,

John M. Ottoboni
Chief Operating Officer

Michael Crowley
Vice President, Finance and Administration