A budget cut of nearly $11 million to the College of Arts and Sciences was announced in a Sept. 17 internal meeting, as confirmed to The Sun by several College of Arts and Sciences department chairs present at the meeting. The meeting discussed austerity measures to reduce the University's spending for the 2025-2026 academic year.
This internal budget cut follows at least $250 million of cuts in the form of stop-work orders and frozen grants to Cornell by the federal government since this spring. In response, Cornell announced budget reductions across the University in two statements released over the summer.
The cut represents approximately 2.4 percent of art and science's nearly $456 million budget, according to the Operating and Capital Budget Plan FY 2025.
Department chairs, program directors, University lawyers and Cornell University Graduate School leadership were among those in attendance at the Sept. 17 meeting, according to Prof. Shirley Samuels, English department chair. Samuels reported that during the meeting, chairs and directors across the University, including herself, were emailed “very specific” funding guidelines for their departments to implement by Warren Petrofsky, arts and sciences associate dean of administration.
Chairs have also met individually with Petrofsky to discuss “where they stand financially, and what potential there might be in the future” to streamline costs, according to Dinnie Sloman, administrative director of the Department of Government.
The Sept. 17 meeting was the first time specific guidelines on where to cut funding were formally distributed, Samuels said.
The guidelines are a part of budget reduction measures discussed in a University statement released in August. Cornell University Media Relations declined to comment on the meeting, but referred The Sun to the August statement.
The statement, titled “Next Steps For Our Financial Future,” stressed “urgent action” in order to maintain the University’s financial well-being and announced plans to continue an ongoing University-wide hiring freeze, make spending and staff cuts and institute a series of weekly town halls to discuss the funding changes.
Since then, the Cornell community has been periodically updated on the University’s budget plan through a series of town hall meetings with Provost Bala and President Michael Kotlikoff, according to the August statement and as confirmed by department chairs.
The August statement cited “increases in employment costs and other expenses, significant legal and regulatory expenses, clinical reimbursement pressures at Weill Cornell Medicine, and an uncertain and unprecedented federal landscape” as the cause for “financial austerity” measures.
“The strongest impact right now is on hiring,” Samuels said. “We [the English department] do not have permission to hire anyone until at least 2027.” All hiring requests made by the English department were rejected by the University this June, Samuels reported, noting that the English department has been encouraged to place more students and fewer instructors in classes.
The College of Arts and Sciences has reduced its hires of tenure-track faculty from 20 to eight new hires for the 2025-26 academic year, according to Samuels and Prof. David Bateman, associate chair of the government department.
Prof. Daniel Barbash, molecular biology and genetics chair, said that graduate student admissions across the University have also been restricted.
“We are being encouraged to admit a somewhat smaller number of graduate students,” Barbash said.
Barbash expects the reduction to continue into at least the 2026-27 academic year, citing “uncertainty about the levels of fellowship support” and federal research funding as primary concerns for his department.
In addition to hiring, departments have also cut back on discretionary spending.
“The colleges ... are trying to encourage, and in some cases mandate, reductions in discretionary spending. So this would be things like travel costs for visitors to the department, food and beverages at department events, travel costs for receptions that we hold when we're recruiting graduate students,” Barbash said.
The English department has restricted both the number and size of guest lectures, conferences and speaker events this semester, according to Samuels.
Restricted funds — donations given to departments for a specific purpose outlined by their donor — are protected from the University’s budget cuts, allowing the English department to continue certain programs, such as the Zalaznick Reading Series, Samuels said.
“These changes will be difficult for our community but are vital for our future. We are grateful for the work of every member of our faculty and staff and committed to taking the steps necessary to ensure that Cornell pursues its academic mission sustainably for generations to come,” President Kotlikoff and other University administrators wrote in their August statement.
Update, Oct. 1, 11:50 a.m.: This article has been updated to include The College of Arts and Science's overall budget and what percent this cut represents.
Correction, Oct. 9, 11:38 a.m.: This article has been corrected to explain that the Provost was not a part of the internal meeting.
Iris Liang is a member of the class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a Senior Writer and can be reached her at iliang@cornellsun.com.
