OU President James Gallogly confirmed that there will be more layoffs at OU, but denied a rumor that the number of employees terminated would be in the hundreds.
"There will be more layoffs," Gallogly told The Daily after a Dec. 11 Board of Regents meeting. "There was a number floating around that was in the hundreds and hundreds and that simply is inaccurate at this point. I don't know where that number came from."
He said layoffs will affect a "variety of different departments" but gave no further information.
The administration layed off approximately 50 staff members in a Nov. 1 reduction in force that included cuts to the landscaping department, several research offices, Information Technology and others.
Gallogly said these cuts were made to correct inefficiencies on campus in order to save money and ensure OU is able to hold tuition flat and give faculty raises. For example, the One University store will close this month because it was losing too much money — roughly $1.5 million in its best year, according to Gallogly.
"That money in essence comes out of students’ pockets at the end of the day, or tax payers' pockets at the end of the day...so we shut that down," Gallogly said. "That’s an example of something that didn’t really make a lot of sense."
Gallogly said he does not like doing layoffs because they are difficult on the community, and they will not occur over the holidays.
"It's a very tough time and we're trying to be sensitive of that," Gallogly said. "But we'll get into the next year and see where we are on that."
