Adelphi University to close social work campus in Poughkeepsie
Adelphi University plans to close a satellite campus, part of this medical complex in Poughkeepsie, due to a decrease in enrollment. Credit: Google Maps
Adelphi University plans to close its Hudson Valley graduate social work site after the spring 2027 semester as more students shift to online programs, university officials said.
The university’s board of trustees in September approved the closure of the satellite facility at the MidHudson Regional Hospital in Poughkeepsie, where Adelphi offers master’s and doctoral degree programs in social work.
Adelphi will not renew the facility’s lease next year since enrollment there was declining as more students opt for online programs, Adelphi spokesperson Taylor Damian said in an email. About 40 students were attending classes at the site, she said.
In addition, she said, Adelphi has a new midtown Manhattan facility. The 51,000-square-foot Manhattan Center, which opened in June, offers programs in nursing, social work, business, technology and other subjects.
The Hudson Valley facility will offer all scheduled programs through the spring, and students can transfer to the Manhattan site or Adelphi’s online program, Damian said.
The closure comes as Adelphi and other higher education institutions have faced enrollment declines due in part to falling birth rates since 2007 as well as drop-offs in international enrollment as foreign students face more difficulties obtaining visas.
In an email to faculty in August, Christopher Storm, provost and senior executive vice president of academic affairs, wrote that enrollment of master’s students and international students has dropped. The number of international students has fallen by 213 students since 2022, a 41% decline, he wrote.
Damian told Newsday that the decrease in international students over the past two years resulted in an estimated loss of about $10 million.
Adelphi’s overall enrollment and tuition revenues have held steady, however, and it saw an 18% increase in the number of first-year students this fall, according to the university.
Adelphi also has seen more students enrolling in online and part-time programs that are “compatible with their busy lives,” Storm wrote. Among graduate students, 51% attend part time, he wrote.
$7 million deficit
Storm also wrote in his email that "despite positive news about enrollment," the college needed to make changes to address a projected deficit of approximately $7 million.
Among those changes were reductions in the working hours of some administrative assistants.
In the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, its largest division with nearly 1,700 students last year, 12 full-time administrative positions have been changed to part-time positions, university and union officials said.
The assistants are members of Local 153 of OPEIU, the Office and Professional Employees International Union. Teresa Santosus, head of Adelphi’s OPEIU chapter, said under their contract, members could accept the reduction in hours, move into other open positions or leave with severance. She said four moved to other full-time positions, five are now working 25 hours a week and three left with severance.
Some members of the faculty and staff are “very upset” about the cuts to the administrative assistants’ hours, said Nathan Ross, president of Adelphi’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
Adelphi “did pretty well with enrollment this year. We really did better than a lot of the surrounding schools, and we hit our numbers,” Ross said.
Of the administrative assistant cuts, he said, “The savings there are pretty small … but that's the way they decided to save money.”
In an email, Damian said, “We have shifted our administrative support model in the College of Arts and Sciences from full- to part-time administrative assistants while maintaining dedicated administrative support resources for each academic department.”
Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.
