On the 108th anniversary of the 1914 fire that nearly wiped out the Reddie spirit, Henderson State University officials announced across-the-board furloughs for faculty, staff and administration.

Dr. Charles Ambrose, Henderson’s chancellor, made the announcement Thursday, Feb. 3, via a virtual campus-wide meeting.

Here’s what The Arkadelphian was able to gather from Henderson’s website:

At the Campus Conversation on February 3, 2022, Chancellor Chuck Ambrose communicated that Henderson State University will immediately begin the process of declaring financial exigency:

“Since joining the Henderson community in November as Chancellor, we have spent almost every minute working with our finance team and the Arkansas State University System on improving the financial performance of our university. That work has revealed throughout the development of the Modified Cash Budget that we will need to make dramatic changes to how we allocate our resources in order to ensure Henderson is a thriving and sustainable 4-year institution into the future. Unfortunately, these changes will need to be implemented immediately, and they will be painful and impactful changes for our campus and the members within our learning community.

“For these reasons, pursuant to the Henderson Faculty Handbook, I am a proposing a situation of financial exigency, I am including below the relevant budget summaries and projections that I have relied upon in concluding that this proposal is necessary for the ongoing operation of the university.”

Ambrose also penned a letter:

For links and more information, click here.

The dire circumstances will also force the university to eliminate a “small number” of positions in the coming weeks, with additional positions being cut in the next fiscal year, according to the website.