Oakland City University to suspend undergrad programs, lay off workers (original) (raw)

May 19, 2026Updated May 20, 2026, 10:20 a.m. CT

Oakland City University will suspend undergraduate programs for at least a year and lay off an unknown number of employees, the school announced Tuesday.

Todd Mosby, the school's associate vice president for development, marketing and communication, wrote in a news release just after 1 p.m. that the layoffs will take effect May 31.

"There are no additional updates or comments at this time," the release stated.

In a WARN notice OCU sent to Indiana's Department of Workforce Development on April, it previously warned of a "mass layoff" of all 167 the school's remaining employees by June 1. The school later denied it planned layoffs at all.

The news release didn't say if all employees would lose their jobs. In fact, OCU allegedly still plans to offer "graduate-level" programs, and apparently hopes to resume undergraduate operations for the 2027-28 school year.

But Tuesday's announcement is a complete 180 from the vague optimism school officials put forth last week, when they said an unnamed financial "strategic partner" would not only help keep the school open, but eventually allow the university to expand its offerings.

In an interview with media outlets on May 13, Mosby declined to say who that partner was, how much they were paying, and how the arrangement would allegedly work.

Both president Ron Dempsey and Mosby have also claimed they had yet another unnamed source to fulfill payroll obligations for OCU employees who haven't been paid in weeks. But so far that money hasn't come to fruition.

Employees' last scheduled paycheck on May 8 never arrived, and as of Tuesday employees still hadn't been paid.

Undergraduate students, meanwhile, will be "provided guidance and options for next steps," the release states.

A letter to students

In a Tuesday letter to OCU students signed by Dempsey and obtained by the Courier & Press, the school reiterated its belief that undergrad programs could resume after a gap year. But that apparently is hinging on the school selling a patent it holds for carbon capture technology. At no time does the letter mention the unnamed "strategic partner."

The letter offers students three options moving forward.

The first is aimed at those within 25 credit hours of graduation. They "should contact their major advisor or school dean to discuss possible teach-out opportunities that may allow them to complete their program requirements during Fall (2026) and Spring (2027)," the letter reads.

The second option is to transfer. According to the letter, OCU has struck to deal allowing students to continue their work at the University of Southern Indiana.

It also says "most" OCU students are student-athletes. They should "work closely with their dean, advisor, or athletic coach regarding transfer opportunities to another institution."

Both USI and the University of Evansville issued statements Tuesday pledging support to OCU students looking to transfer.

In a news release, USI chief communications officer John Farless stated that OCU students are eligible for a waived application fee, meetings with school counselors, and potential scholarships of as much as $1,200, among other offerings. It even created a landing page for OCU students interested in making the move.

As far as UE, it created a landing page as well. A statement credited to President Chris Pietruszkiewicz said the university "stands ready to help students navigate that path in any way we can."

Students hoping to stay where they are have one final option, OCU's letter states. And it's more open-ended and much less certain: take a year off and assume Oakland City's undergrad programs eventually resume.

"We are confident that the OCU undergraduate programs will return in Fall 2027," the letter reads. "Therefore, students may choose to pause their college studies for the 2026–2027 academic year and plan to return when undergraduate programs resume in Fall 2027."

Earlier in the letter, Dempsey says officials "believe" that the school's carbon capture patent will sell to an unnamed investor group, allowing the university to continue. OCU first mentioned the patent as a potential savior in a post to the school's official Facebook page the day after it issued the WARN notice. It claimed then that the patent sale would help them avoid layoffs at all. That didn't happen.

On Tuesday, a source at OCU who asked not to be named questioned how the university could resume undergrad operations with no students and very-little-to-no staff. They said employees weren't asked if they'd be willing so stay on and help students. They aren't even being paid.

The damage, they said, is already done.