Along with the closing of the DePaul Art Museum, DePaul’s budget crisis could lead to the closure of the Loop Library and the Merle Reskin Theatre as early as this summer, according to staff and faculty sources.

DPAM will cease operations on June 30, a move described as “an opportunity to reimagine how we advance the arts at DePaul” in a statement released by DePaul president Rob Manuel.

The final exhibitions at the art museum, featuring Barbara Nessim and Alice Tippet, will show March 5 through June 21, and the last scheduled production at the Merle Reskin Theatre, “Mirror of Most Value: A Ms. Marvel Play,” will run May 14 through 30.

“We were told only a couple of weeks ago,” said Bridget Ryan, an art museum delegate. “There was speculation beforehand, but it still feels terribly sudden.”

Ryan said the plans for the museum’s collection and building are still uncertain and that she is “deeply disheartened” by the decision.

“It not only neglects the arts at DePaul, but the entire Chicago community and all the diverse voices the space has amplified,” Ryan said. “It’s absolutely outrageous.”

In addition to the DePaul Art Museum, the cutbacks will also impact the Loop Library and The Theatre School. 

In a statement to the DePaul community last September, Manuel attributed the university’s budget woes mainly to a steep decrease in enrollment from international students, who tend to pay more in tuition than domestic students due to exclusion from federal and state financial aid. 

At a time of changing immigration policy under the Trump administration, DePaul’s total international enrollment is down by 755 students, according to the statement, including a drop of more than 60% in foreign graduate students this past fall quarter. Manuel said in October that the university needed to cut $27.4 million in spending. 

DePaul is among many universities nationwide struggling financially under pressure from Trump administration policies, lower enrollment and fewer financial aid resources. A recent survey of 275 university financial officers from the Chronicle of Higher Education found that 40% say their institution “either faces an imminent budget crisis or will need to make significant changes.” 

DePaul’s immediate cuts, promising more than $11 million in savings, included a staff hiring freeze and slowdown in faculty hiring. Some open faculty positions are not being filled, though University Communications told The DePaulia the total number of positions is not available. 

The DePaulia reached out to the dean of each college regarding hiring freezes and received no comment.

Cuts to the Loop Library

The freeze comes after DePaul laid off 114 staff members and announced “significant cutbacks” to the Loop Library in December, including a directive not to fill open positions, according to documents from the Library Review Board.

Megan Heffernan, a DePaul library board member, expressed frustration regarding the effect of these budget cuts on her department. 

The university informed Heffernan of the possible Loop Library closure around the time of the quarterly library board meeting in December. 

By winter quarter, seven library employees were laid off and one had quit. Three of these employees were from the Loop location, resulting in a 75% reduction in the Loop library’s full-time staff, according to Heffernan.

“We’ve had zero chance of getting all of this information besides very late, and we’ve had zero chance to weigh in on it,” Heffernan said. “It’s even becoming hard to circulate news of what’s happening.”

University officials dispute that characterization. In a statement, DePaul Communications said, “during the Fall Quarter, university leaders communicated extensively with faculty and staff about budget cuts during in-person meetings with each of the 10 colleges and schools.”

According to the documents from the winter quarter library board meeting, the library is “not currently staffed to maintain service at two locations.”

The library board document states that they were told by university higher ups to “eliminate” three out of the four full-time staff. The rationale behind this is to sunset services offered in the Loop campus and move them to Lincoln Park, the document said. 

The December layoffs largely affected DePaul staff, meaning instructors and student workers were mostly protected from termination. In a statement to the DePaul community, president Robert Manuel said the university “worked to minimize cuts to the student experience, including on-campus employment.”

One Loop Library employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said DePaul’s administration has been “very secretive” about the cuts. 

“It just seems like a broader effort to reduce services in the Loop that are duplicated in Lincoln Park,” they said. “I think they just took a brush and kind of painted the Loop Library under that.”

The employee voiced concern about the future of the library and Loop campus spaces. 

“Our space is not a minor thing. On a Thursday, there can be a hundred students in here,” they said. “I’m not sure the administration knows how important the space is to all the students who do work here.”

These changes have had a ripple effect on the Lincoln Park Library, according to Max Rocchio, a student worker in access services.

“There were a decent amount of full-time staff who were let go,” Rocchio said. “Our cataloging department especially, which makes it harder to catalog incoming material and organize it.”

Rocchio said that if the Loop Library closes, it would be a multiyear project to sift through its nearly 20,000 items and find a home for them in the Lincoln Park library. According to Rocchio, this is a difficult task when DePaul has just cut the staff needed for such a large project.

“It will be hard for the library to run,” Rocchio said.

University Communications continues to insist that no decision about a potential Loop Library closure has been made.

“When decisions are finalized and ready to be shared, university leadership will communicate directly with the DePaul community,” University Communications said.

The Theatre School experiences layoffs 

The budget cuts had similar effects on The Theatre School, which recently laid off three full-time employees.

Martine Green-Rogers, dean of TTS, worries the cuts will have a larger effect on the school, stressing that the employees let go were “student-facing.”

“We’re just going to feel those losses a lot more acutely,” Green-Rogers said. “Everyone knew the people who were being let go.”

The losses faced by The Theatre School stretch beyond personnel. Since 1988, the Merle Reskin Theatre in the Loop has hosted various performances by both TTS and the School of Music.

Now the theater is “being evaluated” by the Loop redesign task force, and the TTS will move all operations to Lincoln Park after the Reskin’s last scheduled show in May, Green-Rogers said. 

“It was kind of clear that we were going to have some issues,” Green-Rogers said. “But it was a lot later that we found out exactly how much we were going to have to account for.” 

As of Nov. 7, 2025, The Theatre School has temporarily paused admissions into the MFA acting program, according to the school’s website. 

“We basically decided to be proactive because we knew we didn’t know how we were going to support those students,” Green-Rogers said.

When asked about the future of DePaul infrastructure, University Communications said they are “reviewing operations and facilities across the institution.”  

University Communications said The Theatre School is working to determine the future use of the Merle Reskin Theatre.

“As part of the Designing DePaul strategic plan, we are reimagining the Loop Campus to better meet the evolving needs of our students, faculty and staff in support of our mission and future success. This work includes the Merle Reskin Theatre,” University Communications said.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to clarify information about University Communications and to accurately reflect that staff at the library were laid off.

Related Stories:

• DePaul lays off over 100 staff members amid budget cuts, makes major cutbacks in Loop Library
• DePaul Art Museum to close in June after 15 years in Lincoln Park
• DePaul faces strain from declining enrollment, Manuel warns of spending cuts