NJCU Considers Exiting Fort Monmouth Campus

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Financial emergency prompts ‘rightsizing’ efforts 

An aerial view of Fort Monmouth’s New Jersey City University campus, located in Oceanport along Parkers Creek. Courtesy NJCU

By Laura D.C. Kolnoski

OCEANPORT – The Board of Trustees of New Jersey City University (NJCU) is considering vacating its year-old Fort Monmouth campus as it enacts cost reduction measures following June’s revelation of a financial emergency at the 92-year-old Jersey City-based public institution. As of Tuesday, NJCU’s long-term future at Fort Monmouth remains unclear, with officials saying an exit is possible. 

“At this time, we still are fully committed to our Fort Monmouth location and the students we serve there,” said Ira Thor, NJCU spokesperson and senior director of university communications and media relations. “Unfortunately, our enrollment at Fort Monmouth dropped from 306 to 195 this year. As we move forward, NJCU will realign programs and focus on its mission of serving the students and families in Jersey City and Hudson County so we can continue helping the state’s most vulnerable population reach the promise of economic mobility through higher education.” 

The option of leaving Fort Monmouth was part of a presentation from Ben Durant, NJCU’s chief financial officer, during the board’s Sept. 12 meeting when the next steps in the university’s “rightsizing” efforts were discussed. 

When NJCU’s multimillion-dollar deficit was announced June 27, the board of trustees created an interim budget “to provide a financial structure to support necessary operational and capital expenditures,” the board said. Layoffs began immediately and included Michael Edmondson, Ph.D., dean of the Fort Monmouth campus. Sue Henderson, NJCU’s first female president, resigned the same day. 

Since then there have been discrepancies over financial figures, with NJCU disputing reports in other media that have been cited by Gov. Phil Murphy. In an Aug. 5 letter to state comptroller Kevin D. Walsh requesting a formal investigation into NJCU’s finances, Murphy referenced news reports that the school went from an approximately $108 million surplus in 2014 to an approximately $67.4 million deficit with $156 million in debt. Those figures, if true, the governor wrote, “are deeply troubling.”

At the time, The Two River Times received a statement from Durant disputing the figures and citing the findings of First Tryon Advisors, an external financial advisory firm, stating the published numbers were inaccurate. Simultaneously, state Sen. Vin Gopal, (D-11), chairman of the Senate’s Education Committee, called for a different state university to take over the Oceanport campus, currently in the first semester of its second academic year in Fort Monmouth’s former Squier Hall. According to the minutes of the NJCU Board of Trustees Sept. 12 meeting, total enrollment for the fall semester is 6,354, down from 6,650 in fall 2021. 

After only one full academic year, NJCU is weighing whether to exit its Fort Monmouth campus, part of the fallout from an institution-wide financial crisis. Courtesy NJCU

“The university continues to address the challenges it faces due to the financial emergency,” Thor said. “While we continue to work with our state and legislative leaders, the university has proactively identified approximately $10 million in cost-containment measures… including a 5% reduction in its authorized employee headcount.” Pay cuts to upper management, employee furloughs, and reductions to supplemental instruction have also been instituted, along with budget reductions and organizational consolidation. Tuition and fees were raised and vacant positions eliminated.

NJCU is requesting accelerated allotments of its state appropriation and has asked the New Jersey State Legislature’s Joint Budget Oversight Committee for at least $35 million in capital expense funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. Thor said the request for ARPA funding is to address NJCU’s physical plant and infrastructure needs following years of deferred maintenance. The school has identified at least $25.93 million in critical infrastructure needs. Additionally, in October, NJCU will apply for a $15 million Higher Education Infrastructure Trust grant.  

Gopal said he was informed of NJCU’s proposals by the school. 

“I appreciate NJCU’s cooperation in moving their future focuses to Jersey City,” Gopal wrote in response to a Sept. 19 email from The Two River Times. “They represent some of the smartest young men and women at their Jersey City campus. Now they can focus their resources toward that campus.” 

As per the board’s Sept. 12 meeting minutes, “multiple years of operating deficits are the result of shrinking enrollment market/declines in enrollment, the Covid 19 pandemic, increases in institutional aid, aggressive expansion of NJCU’s real estate footprint, and significant growth in academic and athletic programs.” Net position has declined, the minutes state, “due largely to a new pension-related accounting standard required in 2015.” 

The university anticipates another year of declining enrollment but noted there were gains in the fall 2022 incoming class in Hudson County, including students of color and low-income students, “the core” of the student body. 

On Sept. 1, the president and chief negotiator for the American Federation of Teachers Local 1839 at NJCU released a letter announcing a “working partnership” with NJCU management and called on the governor and legislature “to assist NJCU in its mission.” 

“AFT Local 1839 Union leadership recognizes that New Jersey City University is at a crossroads,” the letter stated. “The union and NJCU management have embarked on a solid working relationship to revitalize our beloved institution.” The union recognized “certain past management decisions may have been ill-conceived and managed badly,” adding the “critical mission of NJCU is to serve the exceptional group of students that need us most.”

“The legislature and governor’s office need to look at greater transparency and accountability of our public state universities,” Gopal said. “Oversight was eliminated in the mid-1990s and needs to be reexamined.” 

Opened in 1929 as the New Jersey State Normal School, the institution was renamed New Jersey State Teachers College in 1935, and Jersey City State College in 1958. It became NJCU in 1998. NJCU’s Oceanport campus opened in August 2021 in the renovated Squier Hall, a 1930s building on 22 acres that was originally home to the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

The article originally appeared in the September 22 – 28, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.