June 25, 2020
President's Videoconference with Donors
During a virtual conversation with Mills donors, President Beth Hillman and Board of Trustees Chair Katie Sanborn ’83 announced for the first time that the College had entered into partnership discussions with the University of California, Berkeley. They discussed the financial challenges facing Mills and the College was taking in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and our plans for fall 2020.
The video recording is no longer available, but in a follow-up email to all alumnae, President Hillman provided this summary of the call:
The two messages I would like you to take away from this videoconference are:
Mills has survived a lot over the years, but the challenges faced by higher education institutions today are unprecedented. The impact of the pandemic on Mills—both in terms of unexpected expenses and lost revenue—has compounded the financial challenges that Mills has been coping with for many years. Our estimated financial loss for the year ended June 30, 2020, is $6 million; we are projecting another loss in the upcoming fiscal year that is more than double that amount and will likely be higher given continuing economic uncertainties. A driver of our financial challenges remains declining student enrollment. We are taking all steps necessary and recommended to reopen a safe campus this fall; even so, we are projecting total student enrollment in the fall will be down at least 15 percent from the year just ended.
We owe it to our community to define a path toward a sustainable future. The outlook for small colleges is challenging, and I expect many will announce plans to close in the coming months because the financial difficulties and the uncertainty are overwhelming. Mills is working on a different outcome. We entered into discussions with the University of California, Berkeley, earlier this year to explore strengthening our longtime collaboration and partnership for the benefit of the students, faculty, and staff of both institutions. My vision is that a stronger relationship with Berkeley will allow Mills to retain its identity as a unique and powerful educational institution and to support the education of women in the 21st century. I want to stress that discussions are preliminary and still in the exploratory and largely confidential stages.”