NORTHAMPTON — Smith College will implement or extend full or partial furloughs for 230 employees, the college announced Thursday.
Of these employees, 182 will be placed on full furlough, and 48 will be placed on partial furlough, college President Kathleen McCartney and Vice President for Finance and Administration David DeSwert announced in a message to the Smith community.
Employees will be furloughed for all or part of the fall and interterm semester.
In the email, the administrators said “the decision to pivot to an all-remote fall semester and interterm, with very few students in residence, means that we need to align staffing with available work.”
According to McCartney and DeSwert, “decisions about inviting employees to return from furlough will depend in large part on when we will have students living, learning and participating in clubs, sports and other activities on campus.”
The college hopes to bring students back to campus in the spring semester, the administrators said.
The college will continue to provide health coverage, cover employee contributions for health coverage and provide tuition assistance, and employees will be eligible to apply for unemployment benefits.
In early August, Smith was the first of the Five Colleges — later joined by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Mount Holyoke College — to reverse course on its decision to invite students back to campus for the fall semester, citing public health concerns.
Other area colleges have also issued recent staffing reductions in response to the pandemic’s economic implications. Late last month, UMass announced that it would furlough 850 employees, with permanent layoffs expected in the following weeks. Also in late August, Mount Holyoke announced that it is furloughing an undisclosed number of employees.
Jacquelyn Voghel can be reached at jvoghel@gazettenet.com.