The Bloomfield College employees notified Wednesday that they are not being offered jobs include 10 of 43 full-time faculty members and 12 of 122 other employees, Montclair State officials said. They will remain employed by the college until the merger this summer.
“We are heartbroken for our colleagues and sad to be losing their expertise and their dedicated service. Their loss is not going to help us preserve the mission of the college,” said James Murphy, a biology and biochemistry professor in his 28th year at Bloomfield College. Montclair State, a public university, stepped in last year with an offer to merge with Bloomfield College after the small, private institution said it might have to shut down due to financial problems. The campus of the 155-year-old private college will be renamed Bloomfield College of Montclair State University following the merger.
No decisions have been made about Bloomfield College’s part-time employees, including adjunct professors, Montclair State officials said. The planned merger was announced in October 2022, about a year after college officials said the school was in jeopardy of closing. Bloomfield College is one of many small- and mid-size colleges facing financial problems nationwide after the pandemic and declining enrollment put many struggling campuses further into the red., and the mid-1990s shutdown of Upsala College in East Orange.into other schools over the last century, according to state records.