The announced a major academic restructuring Tuesday that includes closing and merging departments and combining schools at the 11,500-student campus.
DU leaders acknowledged that the changes will eliminate an unspecified number of jobs, but Provost Elizabeth Loboa said the realignment is “not really a part of” addressing the $20 million to $30 million budget shortfall the school had announced earlier this spring.
Officials at the private university declined to say how much money the restructuring will save. They said DU will operate under a balanced budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
“The restructuring is really for the future to make sure we’re agile and nimble to match the size we are and match student demand,” DU Chancellor Jeremy Haefner said in a Tuesday morning interview with The Denver Post. “We’re very excited about this.”
DU’s moves come as universities across the country face financial woes amid falling enrollment, the Trump administration’s funding cuts and an increasing scrutiny of the value of higher education. The budget deficit DU announced in March was blamed, in part, on reductions in the number of international students and the overall campus population.
DU was able to balance its budget for the 2027 fiscal year by adjusting to lower enrollment levels, reducing expenses and leaving vacant jobs open or eliminating them, spokesman Jon Stone said. About 9% of DU’s faculty “voluntarily chose to conclude their service” through buyouts.
The university announced Tuesday that it will eliminate the within the and the within the . Both will close this year, Haefner said.
The religious studies department is home to eight faculty members, said Sahara Byrne, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
Fifteen faculty members made up the electrical and computer engineering department at the start of the year, but many have already departed, said Corinne Lengsfeld, senior vice provost for research and graduate studies and acting dean of the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science. Eight faculty members remain, she said.
DU leaders said faculty members also voted to close three additional departments: ; ; and .
Yet no academic programs are being eliminated, Haefner said. All current academic programs for the closed departments — including undergraduate majors, minors and graduate degrees — will continue outside of those departments, he said. New students will be able to begin those programs next academic year, and current students can continue and achieve their degrees outside of the eliminated departments, Loboa said.
As part of the restructuring — which has been in development for years through committee work with staff, faculty and administration — schools within DU are also merging.
The Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science is merging with the . The will join with the and the .
To “integrate the performing arts,” the , the and will be brought under the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
“Change is hard, but in reality, higher education is under a lot of pressure,” Lengsfeld said. “Not just financially, but also public pressure to be more agile and adapt and to create higher return on investments for students who attend and get degrees, so in some ways right now this is very painful, but I think in the end itap going to be very healthy.”
DU is also investing in “interdisciplinary hubs” to better connect faculty, staff and students across and within colleges, Loboa said.
As an example, DU’s will now work with the new dean of the combined Graduate School of Professional Psychology, Graduate School of Social Work and Morgridge College of Education to integrate training clinics from four existing colleges into one on-campus mental health clinic for students.
The university is building a hub focused on preparing undergraduate students for careers in health, DU leaders said, by integrating existing kinesiology and pre-health programs.
“Yes, this moment is hard, but lower student numbers are an indication we’re not faring well with the needs of the student population or the desires, so this is a great time to pivot, rethink and push forward in places we can excel,” Lengsfeld said.
Since last fall, three committees — including staff, faculty and administration — were tasked with creating recommendations and discussing enrollment and retention, career outcomes and artificial intelligence and academic excellence.
The restructuring announced Tuesday followed committee discussions and approval from the provost, chancellor and DU Board of Trustees.
“I don’t know about specific cost savings,” Loboa said when asked how much money these closures and mergers would save the university. “I think itap more about leaning into our future and providing whatap best for our students and our faculty. Any time you reduce administrative staffing, and if you have fewer deans and associate deans, you’re going to have cost savings. For me, the bigger component is we are leaning into what we’re exceptional at and really making sure we’re providing what will best serve our students.”
Later Tuesday, Loboa sent an email to the DU community informing them about the academic realignment, a message that listed data and documents used to make the restructuring decisions. One document listed in the email was “analysis of financial cost and savings opportunities resulting from restructuring.” When The Post asked to review that document, Stone said it was redacted along with another document titled “FY27 Budget along with three-to-five-year enrollment projections.”
In September, Loboa said the university will begin internal searches for two founding deans to lead the newly merged colleges. They will oversee much of the restructuring.
“I’m not worried about the university because I know the educational experience is top, top, top-notch,” said Sahara Byrne, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
What worried Byrne when she arrived at DU about a year ago, she said, was the faculty size, which she believed was too large for the number of students, as exemplified by course cancellations due to low enrollment.
Byrne said she took the position with faculty and staff that it was their collective problem to fix. She began meeting with departments, letting them know which she felt had too many faculty members and which were in good shape.
“All of us would have loved to have done this over a 5-to-10-year timeline, but I did worry we would be in very big trouble if we didn’t start thinking in solutions soon,” she said.
Byrne said she believes religious studies students will actually have a better experience after the department closure with incoming lounges, better advising and more interdisciplinary learning.
Rumors and tensions among DU faculty had heightened as the university prepared to release its decisions on closures, mergers and other forms of right-sizing, Byrne said, noting she recently had a faculty member run into her office and ask whether the university was closing.
“I think people are worried,” said Sarah Watamura, president. “Whatap been has made it clear what the sector is up against. I’m happy that we’re being responsive to those changes, and I think, for the most part, they are changes that make sense for us across a long history of things we’ve considered doing. I think change is hard, and I think, particularly, the loss of colleagues is something I never expected to experience.
“Department closures, that kind of thing that impacts our ability to retain faculty and staff, is heartbreaking,” she said. “And yet, I think we have to adjust like schools all over the country to the demands that we’re facing.”
