President Bloomberg on Notre Dame absorption talks: “It must’ve been a slow news cycle this weekend” – The Cauldron

At the faculty senate’s first meeting of the spring on Wednesday, Jan. 31, President Laura Bloomberg, Ph.D., addressed recent local conversation on Cleveland State University potentially absorbing or merging with Notre Dame College—no, not the one in Indiana.

And no, it’s not actually happening any time soon.

“It must’ve been a slow news cycle this weekend,” began Bloomberg.

First reported by Signal Cleveland and mentioned by Bloomberg in the meeting, the two Ohio colleges met on three separate occasions last fall, discussing the possibility of future absorption or merger having taken place.

“It is not a well-kept secret that Notre Dame College, like so many other small, private institutions, sadly, are really struggling, really struggling,” shared Bloomberg. “Not like a budget deficit like we have, but like an existential crisis.”

Notre Dame confirmed that these talks took place, stating that a “partnership with Cleveland State” was one option posited.

However, Bloomberg emphasized that the avenue was merely being explored and no news of an official acquisition will be released any time soon. That’s not to say the discussion ends here, though.

According to the CSU president, the two colleges have decided to think about the struggling Notre Dame College as “something of a test case to help [CSU] come up with a rubric,” for the relationship between the two in the future, “whether it’s a merger or an acquisition or a teaching partnership with some revenue-sharing model, whatever it might be.”

But, that’s it, Bloomberg insists.

“You can only control what you tell the media, sometimes you just can’t control what they do with it.”

Notre Dame’s Struggles (and CSU’s, too)

Notre Dame is one of many small, private colleges across the state and country that have felt the detrimental impact of COVID-19 on its operations.

2023 data compiled by Crain’s Cleveland Business shows that the struggling college in South Euclid currently sits with just a little over 1,000 enrolled students and an approximate $9.6 million endowment.

The question remains as to what a potential absorption or merger of Notre Dame by CSU would look like for the latter, which faces several issues of its own, including a persistent budget deficit and a decline in enrollment.

As reported by Deborah Smith, the preliminary organizer for the CSU faculty senate’s budget and finance committee, university enrollment is down 2% since last spring, though the budget is up 9%. For a point of guidance in battling the deficit, CSU has entered into a $900,000 contract with Ernst & Young (EY), an accounting and consulting firm.

The two focuses for this partnership include developing actions for short-term relief, as well as long-term strategic opportunities, an example of which being integrated majors, previously highlighted by Bloomberg and Faculty Senate President Anup Kumar.

The funding for this contract, according to Bloomberg, is “external” and not coming out of the University’s operating budgets.

“It’s an eye-opening thing to have an outside party look at large amounts of data and say ‘so, how do you step up to your peers, to the state, to people in your region?’” shared Bloomberg.

Meetings of the faculty senate take place once a month, the next of which is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 28 in the College of Law’s moot court, Law Building (LB) 101, as opposed to the usual Student Center ballroom location.