Nashville, Tenn.-based Meharry Medical College, one of the oldest and largest historically black academic health science centers in the U.S., reduced its workforce by about 6.5 percent, reports The Tennessean.
The workforce reduction resulted in the layoffs of 55 employees, including executive and administrative positions, college spokesperson Laura Stephens told the publication. Faculty positions were not affected. Additional details about the affected jobs were not immediately available to The Tennessean June 28. However, Ms. Stephens said Nashville General Hospital at Meharry, which is on the site of Meharry Medical College, should not be affected.
Meharry Medical College attributed the layoffs to a need "to optimize our resources and align them to our mission," according to the report.
"The decision to eliminate these positions was not made lightly, and came after careful and thorough consideration of the resources Meharry requires to provide the best education to our next generation of physicians, dentists and researchers," Meharry President and CEO James Hildreth, PhD, MD, said in the letter to the college community June 27. "The action is all the more difficult because the people of Meharry and their devotion to our mission are what have made our college the national treasure that it is today."
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