The College of Santa Fe's Board of Trustees decided Friday to avoid a drastic step that would have allowed the school to fire tenured professors.

The group met to vote on whether to file for financial exigency but decided instead that steps the school's administration already has taken are enough to overcome a financial deficit and avoid taking further action.

"They had a long discussion where they probed the activity, the funding, the enrollment and all of those things," president Stuart Kirk said of the board members. He said the steps the college would be able to take by filing exigency would not have saved enough money to be worthwhile.

Instead, CSF will depend on $2.2 million worth of faculty, staff and operating cuts it already has made, the elimination of underenrolled majors and additional funds, possibly from donations, to carry the university through to the next school year.

From there, Kirk said, the school is hoping a newly emphasized focus on its art program as well as the resurrection of a five-sport athletics program and an increasing interest by foreign students will mean enough students to raise revenues.

The college also is undertaking a renewed recruiting effort, Kirk said. Traditionally, a handful of staff members have done the recruiting, he said, but more of the college now will be involved.

Part of that effort will include members of the art faculty reviewing high school students' portfolios locally and nationally, the music program performing concerts around New Mexico and creative writing faculty members traveling to high schools around the country to recruit.

Until the school can enroll more students — it has fewer than 700 traditional students but would like to have 900 to 1,000, Kirk said — it will have to continue reducing expenses like travel and utilities.

"If we sustain the right enrollment levels, then we'll start to look at where we can put some of these things back," he said.

But Kirk admitted the school is not out of the woods yet. If enrollment doesn't increase, it might face the need to make more cuts, and possibly file for exigency, a year or two from now.

Leading up to Friday's meeting, the school offered severance packages to 13 faculty members. Nine accepted the packages while two others opted for retirement. One faculty member was able to keep a job by volunteering to take on added administrative responsibilities, and one did not accept the package. Officials have not said which faculty members were chosen.

They have, however, said three departments — science, social science and humanities — will be consolidated into one center of liberal studies. Several majors in those department will be eliminated because of low enrollment, but students already in those majors will be able finish their programs at the school, officials said.

All the recent changes have led to a feeling of anxiety among staff and faculty members. But even those who were offered packages — none has agreed to be named — saw the moves as a necessary evil to deal with the school's financial emergency.

Staff members also have said Kirk and his administration were open and upfront about the changes, eliminating some of the uncertainty that often comes with major upheaval.

Kirk said there is a wave of support from school employees, volunteering to help in any way they can to see the college get back on its feet. Most of that stems from the fact that people feel that everything that can be done is being done, he said. "I think that most people feel that we are doing our best," Kirk said.

Contact John Sena at 986-3079 or jsena@sfnewmexican.com.