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"With our graduate programs, some of those programs had to be postponed and picked up in the summer.
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"We kept up the clinicals as much as we could, but as hospitals became overloaded, of course, the clinicals were shut down," he said.
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Since many health care professions require hands-on training, the college "had to be creative with modest resources," according to Ames. Roughly 20 on-site students and employees have tested positive for the virus since last fall, according to the state's COVID-19 Report Card for schools.Īmes credits the seriousness of Sage students many study and work in health care fields and are accustomed to practices like mask-wearing and handwashing.ĭuring the height of the pandemic, many Russell Sage graduate students already working in health care professions and education administration were in the front lines battling the impact of the coronavirus in New York's worst COVID-19 hot spots. The school, which enrolls about 2,300 students between its undergraduate and graduate programs, saw relatively few coronavirus cases among its 500 residential students and during the socially distanced fall term and saw its retention rates rise. we've asked a lot of our employees to work with a smaller staff so we wanted to be loyal to them during this difficult time," Ames said. "We had made the cuts earlier to reduce in size, so we were working with a lean workforce. The college also welcomes a sizeable number of first-generation students each year, Ames said. News & World Report annual "Best Colleges" rankings. But as it has evolved, the college's original social equity mission has remained strong, according to Ames.įor two years in a row, Sage has been among the top 10 in the "social mobility" category in U.S. The college first opened up to men during World War II and added graduate programs and a junior college in Albany a few years later. Slocum Sage and Emma Williard head of school Eliza Kellas were suffragists who saw education as a way to advance opportunities for women. During its first few years, the college was founded under the charter of Troy's Emma Willard School. Like other colleges, Russell Sage refunded half of the room and board fees paid by residential students who were sent home during the spring semester shortened by the pandemic.īut the college announced no layoffs or furloughs in connection with the pandemic even when its campuses were closed last spring and most of its operational staff were not needed.įounded in 1916 as a women's college by Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, the college was named for Sage's late husband who had left her a sizable inheritance. "Once we got a healthy baseline and we weren't bleeding money, we could start growing our programs and it's been a really steady progress," Ames said.īy spring 2019, Moody's Investors Service had upgraded the college's outlook from "negative" to "stable." In June, the college had a positive balance of $2.9 million, marking the second consecutive fiscal year the college ended with a multi-million dollar surplus. The college also scaled back some of its academic majors in areas like mathematics, chemistry and computer science. All of the reductions were made through attrition- faculty members who retired or resigned and were not replaced. college.īetween fall 2017 and fall 2019, the college eliminated 41 staff and administrative positions and reduced its faculty by 10.
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Through a series of targeted cuts and a strategy to boost enrollment and rebrand the 105-year-old institution, the college whittled down a $4.8 million deficit and reversed one of the worst credit ratings of any U.S. And it took a couple of years to get the ship completely righted," Ames said. "The deficit sort of emerged between the time I was hired and when I started, so I walked into a situation where that, of course, was the number one priority - to maintain the fiscal health. Russell Sage President Christopher Ames, who joined the college in 2017, credits its multi-year financial turnaround which began yielding results shortly before the pandemic began.