Simpson College has sent a ripple of shock throughout the community with the announcement that multiple staff positions, sports teams and programs will face layoffs, cuts and changes, just days before the official start of summer break.

The men’s and women’s swim and dive teams, the Speech and Debate team, the shooting sports team, as well as six staff positions, all fell victim to Simpson budget cuts in order to maintain financial sustainability.

The cuts come as Simpson continues its efforts to close a long-standing budget deficit. According to the college administration, Simpson has worked to reduce a structural deficit by approximately $7 million in the last three years.

An independent 2024 audit reported that the college generated $66.7 million in revenue while spending $78.7 million, resulting in an operating loss of nearly $12 million.

The extent of the cuts to these teams due to the deficit is as follows: the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams and the shooting team have been cut from Simpson entirely. Additionally, a speech and debate coach did not have his contract renewed. All of these changes are effective immediately.

SWIM AND DIVE

On Wednesday, May 20, at approximately 9:15 a.m., Heath Moenck, interim athletic director, shared the first email of the day regarding the cuts. He told both the men’s and women’s swim and dive teams that their programs have been discontinued.

“After a careful review of the College’s programs and long-term financial priorities, Simpson’s administration has made the difficult decision to discontinue the men’s and women’s swimming and diving program effective immediately,” Moenck wrote. “Please know this decision was not made lightly. We recognize your dedication and hard work as members of this team. We understand this announcement may be disappointing to you and other members of the Simpson College community.”

Rising sophomore and swim team athlete Ky Frederick directly replied to the email, asking why Moenck and Tara Rehmeier, assistant athletic director, earlier this semester told the team there was no risk or even thought of the teams being cut.

Rising senior and captain of the swimming and diving team, Brett Snyder, was also in attendance at the meeting two months ago with the athletic directors. He was also a part of the esports team that was cut last summer.

“It is very frustrating,” Snyder said. “It hurts to have to be going through something worse than last year. I had just been told two months ago that there was nothing to worry about for them cutting our program.”

Frederick’s reply and other voiced concerns prompted President Sue Stuebner to readdress the swimming and diving teams.

She explained that the cuts went “beyond the scope of athletics.”

“The decision about your team was made as part of a broader review of programs across the college,” Stuebner wrote. “It is important to emphasize that the athletic administration was not disingenuous when they spoke with members of the team earlier this year about the future of the program. There were no plans, at that time, to make a change. The swimming program was only recently identified as an institutional reduction.”

Rising sophomore Destiny De La Torre, who came to Simpson from California, shared that Head Coach Kayla Cary, who’d only been in the position for one season, was also let go on Wednesday.

“To see our coach also get laid off without real notice is unsettling. She just became our coach and gained relationships with all of us, and now she’s forced to start over,” De La Torre said. “The athletic department and admin of Simpson really dropped the ball and they don’t seem to offer much of an explanation and are kinda just telling us it is what it is, and it’s just not right.”

Like all seniors facing the discontinuation of their sport, Snyder explained that while the opportunity to transfer is available, it is extremely limited, as the ideal transfer time for athletes closed months ago.

“For me, there isn’t enough time to transfer and continue swimming and still graduate on time in a year from now,” Snyder said. “I’m sad that the fellow people graduating next year and I will not get our senior season or any chance to say goodbye.”

For the women’s team, rising sophomore Alli Robinson explained that plans for next season were already set and ready to go.

“Being informed that our team is being cut effective immediately, especially at this point in the year, makes it extremely difficult for us to transition smoothly into the upcoming school year,” Robinson said. “We had already made plans for our next season, including what meets we would be attending, recruiting new swimmers, starting a diving team and more.”

Like all the swimmers affected, Robinson articulated that the loss of the sport feels like losing a part of herself.

“Losing the swimming and diving program is more than just losing a sport for me,” Robinson started. “It is losing the passion I have been dedicated to for the past 15 years of my life. It is losing the pool, which has always been a happy place for me. It is losing the team that has been a family to me.”

SHOOTING SPORTS

For rising senior and team captain Taylor Busho, this is the second college she’s attended to have pulled the rug out from under her regarding the sport that she loves most.

When Busho transferred from Upper Iowa University, she would never have predicted that Simpson would discontinue a successful shooting sports team.

In the last three years, the shooting team has brought home two national championships and a runner-up title, among many individual athlete awards.

“I have seen us win so many accomplishments that this school has not acknowledged us for and ignored, but that didn’t stop my passion for shooting,” Busho said. “But now I have to hang up my red and gold vest a year earlier than planned, missing out on so much that this sport has to offer and leaving me questioning what I should do for senior year.”

The shooting sports team received the same exact email from Moenck that the swim and dive teams did, identical, word for word, just 26 minutes apart.

Another team member, Kevin McConnell, stated that he believed the email was a phishing scam.

“The subject line was fully in lowercase, it was sent to Brock Rogers instead of our teammate Brock Wadkins and it didn’t contain any of our five incoming freshmen, most of which have already transferred out,” McConnell said. “What pissed me off the most was the fact that our coaches were not involved in the email. Along with this, one of the last lines of the email read: ‘For those of you who left your guns on campus, you may contact me to make arrangements to take them home.’ Not only was all of this sprung on us with no notice after taking home another national championship in March, but we could not even confide in our coaches, as we had to collect our belongings from the shooting room through security.

Busho and McConnell also explained that the team feels as though they have been barricaded out of their own locker room and are unsure whether they can even receive their national championship rings.

“After walking to campus services, where the shooting room is, to collect my belongings, I saw maintenance putting brackets and padlocks on all the shooting rooms, and my coach’s office,” McConnell explained. “It felt like we did something incriminating, and we were being punished. When I asked to be let in the room, they stated they didn’t have the key; security had it. Not only did my teammates and I need to be escorted into the room that we’ve had authorization to for the last two years, but the security guard had to watch us take everything and sign off on all that we took.”

McConnell said he was forced to wait on security for five hours. Once in the locker room, the guard wrongly tried to unlock the ammunition room instead of the shooting room, nearly giving students access to what McConnell stated was $28,000 of ammunition.

McConnell also stated that his coach, Dan Martin, told the team that security invaded his personal space and attempted to escort him off campus while he was cleaning his belongings and wrapping up his career at Simpson after also being laid off.

“The way this situation is being handled is only fueling further tension,” Busho said. “Having to go through this a second time is something I’m not coping well with.”

SPEECH AND DEBATE

The Speech and Debate team is the only of the three programs facing cuts, not to be eliminated. However, Peter Lundrigan, the brand-new assistant director and teaching specialist, did not have his contract renewed after just one academic year.

The students in Speech and Debate received an email from Director Tiana Brownen on Wednesday, May 20, at noon.

“The administration made the decision to not renew Peter’s contract for reduction of the workforce purposes,” Brownen wrote. “They acknowledged the value that Peter brought to the team and clearly expressed that the decision was not performance-based. I understand how difficult it is to receive this news, especially when it comes unexpectedly.”

For rising senior Mya Postel, the loss of a coach was completely unexpected.

Brownen and Marisa Mayo have consistently led the team, but Postel feels it is overall more successful with a third coach.

“The team was ecstatic to have a new coach; we knew Tiana and Marisa needed the help, and our team was only getting bigger and bigger,” Postel said. “The support that Peter brought to the team went far beyond being someone who had meetings with students to take them off Tiana and Marisa’s plates. Throughout his time here, Peter encouraged, listened and truly believed in his students. He pushed students daily to do their best and then better their pieces.”

The Speech and Debate team finished their 2026 season as national runners-up and earned numerous individual and team awards throughout the year. Postel says the success, for the most part, is attributed to the coaches who lead them.

“Losing Peter takes away a support system for students in an activity where they are asked to face and discuss hard and important topics,” Postel said.

SO WHY ARE SPORTS AND STAFF BEING CUT?

In an email shared to faculty and staff on Wednesday at 11 a.m., President Stuebner addressed the progress Simpson has made in reducing its “structural deficit.”

“…there remains considerable work to be done to achieve a balanced budget,” Stuebner wrote.

Structural deficit refers to a chronic imbalance in which an entity’s continuous expenses exceed its permanent, fixed revenue, regardless of economic conditions.

In colleges and universities, a structural deficit occurs when recurring operating expenses exceed earnings. In other words, when a college has to spend more than it earns.

According to Higher Education Inquirer and Forbes, the root causes of structural deficits in private colleges often include tuition dependency, high discount rates and rising expenses.

Private colleges typically generate between 70% and 90% of their operating revenue directly from student tuition and fees due to limited state funding. But to stay competitive, private colleges offer steep tuition discounts, such as Simpson’s 99 County Full-Tuition Program, the 100k Simpson Promise and merit scholarships of up to $40,000. These types of discounts significantly shrink a college’s overall net revenue.

Many public institutions in Iowa receive state tax appropriations, money the Iowa government sets aside specifically for public higher education, to help them pay for staff salaries, campus operations, programs and student services. Something Simpson does not benefit from as a private entity.

According to audits from the past few fiscal years, nearly 20% of Simpson’s expenses are salaries and wages. In 2024, $15.4 million in expenses was allocated to “other salaries and wages.”

Because of this, the college is not guaranteed a financial safety net like public institutions and must cover any operating losses by taking drastic measures. These measures can be exemplified by what’s occurred this past week: budget cuts, layoffs and the discontinuation of sports.

Simpson is not the only small, private college falling victim to structural deficit. According to University Business, nearly 20 institutions have closed or merged with larger universities in the last two years due to such financial pressures.

In the last three years, the college has closed approximately $7 million of the gap, but still needs additional savings.

According to an independent audit at the end of the fiscal year in May 2024, Simpson had total revenue of $66.7 million but total expenses of $78.7 million, resulting in a loss of just under $12 million due to outstanding expenditure costs.

Similarly, in the fiscal year 2023, according to another audit, Simpson reported a net loss of $12.4 million, meaning that between 2023 and 2024, they only closed the structural deficit by $400,000.

However, in the fiscal year ending in May 2022, the college recorded a $3.5 million loss, indicating a $8.9 million loss between 2022 and 2023.

President Stuebner stated in her email that throughout this past academic year, she mentioned in staff and faculty meetings that recruitment and retention goals needed to be thoroughly combined with identifying new revenue sources and maximizing current operations to help close the gap.

“From the outset, we have sought to minimize the impact on faculty and staff positions by first targeting all other avenues for budget relief as we concurrently investigate sustainable revenue growth opportunities,” Stuebner explained. “However, as previously communicated, we knew we would have to make targeted personnel reductions.”

Stuebner then broke the news that she and Cabinet members had informed six individuals that their positions had been eliminated, effective immediately.

It has not been made public how much these position terminations, program reorganizations and sport discontinuations will save Simpson.

WHAT’S TO COME

Sports were not the only things impacted by this week’s budget cuts. President Stuebner also shared that International Education and Study Abroad will operate under a different administrative model and that intramural sports will shift to a revised leadership structure.

She added that Simpson will remain committed to offering both intramural and study abroad opportunities and that more information will be shared later regarding these changes.

However, students have already taken to social media, eager to figure out if the programs they value may also be eliminated.

One student wrote on the anonymous app, YikYak: “Lowkey funny to see people not upset about Simpson cutting the things they did, who knows when it’s your team next? If it’s not your problem now, it could be next year.”

Another student wrote: “The real question should be who, for sure, is going to be cut next year?”

For many students involved in undervalued teams, clubs and programs, every academic year carries the fear that it could be their last doing what they love.

As future May Terms end and summer begins, the campus is on edge, knowing the Simpson administration may eliminate programs seemingly out of nowhere, leaving students and staff with little to no time to process, prepare or even pack up before the changes take effect.

The fate of the campus may feel uncertain to some students, but for nearly 30 athletes, they’ve been forced to reckon with the possibility of either giving up the sport they love or following a path into the unknown.

“All the time put into this sport, early morning practices, late-night bus rides, multiple-day meets, hours spent training, traveling and team bonding,” Robinson said. “These were choices I made because of my deep love for my sport. Losing this structure is losing a huge part of my life.”

Editor’s Note: The Simpsonian staff is off for the summer but is committed to writing about important campus updates when possible.