A meeting request landed in Molly Smallwood’s inbox at 11:45 a.m., labeled simply as a “check-in.”

It was Monday, October 6, and Molly Smallwood had returned early from her approved 12-week maternity leave to work part-time. She had previously been working remotely from her home in Alexandria. Her daughter, Lydia, was only 10 weeks old. For Smallwood, the brief meeting invite from Gannon Tagher, the dean of the College of Health and Human Services (CHHS), seemed a kind gesture, a quick moment of coming back to her work life after navigating the early and overwhelming days of motherhood.

“I was like, ‘That’s really nice. She wants to check in on me after having the baby,” Smallwood recalls.

She joined the Teams call right at noon. She was mid-sentence, talking about how she was “actually really glad” to be back working a few days a week, enjoying a small break from constant mothering, when the reality of the meeting shifted. An HR representative abruptly jumped into the call, and the Dean cut her off.

“She was like, ‘due to budget cuts across the university, we have to let a number of positions go, or we’re terminating a number of positions, and yours, unfortunately, is one of them.’”

This communication aligned with the university’s official statement, citing “lower-than-anticipated state performance funding, the adverse effect of a change in the state’s delinquent collections practices, and a slight decline in graduate and international enrollments this fall” as factors necessitating midyear budget adjustments.

In those three minutes, Smallwood’s life, job, financial stability and sense of security were completely upended. Her immediate question cut through the formalities of the process: ‘Is this legal? I’m on maternity leave.’

The response she received set the tone for the entire ordeal.

 “The HR lady said, ‘This is legal because you’re not being fired. This isn’t due to performance. Your position is being eliminated,’” Smallwood said. 

Smallwood’s time at NKU began in July 2023 as a processing specialist in graduate admissions. She found her footing in January 2024 as an Academic Coordinator for the School of Nursing in CHHS. 

“I would pay the faculty, submit payments for adjunct faculty. I would upload classes into our systems, move students around if I needed to,” she explains. “I did all the back-end stuff with classes for the school of nursing.”

Records obtained via a Kentucky Open Records Act request confirm the cuts impacted multiple lower-salaried staff. At least three positions categorized as “Coordinator” were eliminated across the university on or near the October 6 date. These roles, which align with Smallwood’s title, had salaries clustering around the $39,000 to $44,000 range.

Throughout her pregnancy, Smallwood suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe vomiting disorder. For five months, she worked with the university to secure accommodations to work remotely. This experience, she notes, proved she could perform her job entirely from home without any dip in productivity, a detail that would later add to her sense of hypocrisy from the university.

When Smallwood’s daughter, Lydia, was born in late July, Smallwood set up a plan that extended her time at home, combining her protected leave with a part-time remote work schedule. The day of the termination, she had been “extremely busy,” so busy that she had to have her mother-in-law come over to watch Lydia just so she could manage the intense workflow. By the end of the call, all of that hard work was wiped away.

The university, in public statements following the cuts, framed the job losses as an unavoidable, small-scale adjustment, eliminating 18 filled, full-time positions, “accounting for less than one percent of our total workforce.” Officials stated these adjustments were necessary “to ensure we do not return to a deficit situation,” noting the university had recently achieved a structurally balanced budget after addressing a prior multi-million dollar deficit.

Smallwood felt the university’s framing, describing the cuts as ‘less than one percent of our total workforce,’ was deeply dismissive.

“That was the other thing that really bothered me is to say, like, ‘Guys, it’s okay, like, we only let go less than one percent of our workforce,’” she says, frustration clear in her voice. “Don’t make me into a small number. You’re trying to cover yourselves, make yourselves feel better, but again, like you get to go home to a family and your house and your nice salary, and then my world’s falling apart.”

The reality hit immediately after the call ended. As a public employee, the university-issued laptop was her primary workstation. The moment she hung up, her access to everything was revoked.

“The second I got off the call, I could no longer access my email, all of the files on my computer were locked. I’ve worked at the shop for two years, so I had, like, my resume on there and things like that. Couldn’t get to that,” she recounts. “I couldn’t even talk to any of my coworkers through Teams anymore. Like everything was shut out. And I didn’t even really have a personal laptop. It was kind of, like, really cold.”

The initial severance offer included two weeks of pay and a payout only for accrued vacation time, but not sick time, which Smallwood felt added insult to injury.

“I had spent basically my entire two years working at the university… saving up all this sick time so that I could stay at home with her, and they weren’t even going to pay me out for that,” she says. The two weeks of pay offered were less than the remaining month she still had on her approved leave.

It wasn’t until the next day, after Smallwood went in to turn in her equipment and spoke with a different HR director, that the terms were slightly improved. She was offered an extended end date to Nov. 6, giving her insurance through the end of November, and a payout for her sick time.

Smallwood believes the contrast between finances and ethics is stark. Noting that the Board of Regents approved a significant bonus for the new president, Dr. Cady Short-Thompson, in November 2024.

“I know that the Board of Regents decided to give her $120,000 bonus in November for good performance.” Smallwood said, referring to President Short-Thompson’s $125,000 performance incentive in November 2024, “and she makes almost $500,000 a year. She got three years’ worth of my salary in a month.” 

Smallwood sent an email to both the President and the Provost, including photos of her newborn daughter.

“I want you to see the real consequences of you taking these massive bonuses and massive salaries and then turning around and saying, ‘Oh, well, we have budget cuts and we need to let people go,’” she wrote. “I was never responded to.”

While the university does not comment on individual personnel matters, in a statement to the Northerner, Chief Communications Officer Corey Best said, “The university values every employee and recognizes the difficulty of decisions that affect people and positions. These reductions were made with great care and only after exploring all other options to protect the university’s long-term financial stability and mission.”

The stress of the job loss fell directly on Smallwood, her husband and their new life. She was already struggling with a severe case of postpartum depression. The financial catastrophe exacerbated her mental health issues.

“I was kind of going through the thick of it when I got the phone call, and so, yeah, I was really scared, like, for myself in the beginning,” she says. “I was just really struggling, and then that on top of everything, and I was like, what have I done to piss off the world? Like, what have I done to deserve all this?”

The young couple had just bought a house in February. The loss of Smallwood’s income meant they could no longer afford it. The financial hit was immediate and severe.

“We’re losing about $10,000 in costs that we have to pay to get out of this house because we can’t afford it anymore,” she says.

The only option was to sell and move, uprooting their lives from Northern Kentucky and moving back to her hometown, Williamsburg, Kentucky, to be closer to family support. It was a difficult decision that placed pressure on her husband, who had to transition out of his job at NKU to follow the family and their new marriage.

“It took a toll on our marriage. It took a toll on both of us, like mental health-wise, took a toll on us financially,” she reflects. “I felt like the rug kind of got pulled out from underneath my feet,” Smallwood said. 

Smallwood was clear that her decision to speak out is not about personal revenge.

“I’m not trying to go about this and be like a scorned employee,” she clarified, “That’s not the reason at all. I understand business is business, and you’ve got to let people go sometimes.” 

Her motivation is focused on accountability and ethics. She believes the university has misplaced its priorities, raising fees for students that drive down enrollment. 

“The little guys, you can’t dog on them too long; those are the people that you build stuff upon,” she said. 

Smallwood said that if the university continues to treat its lower-salary, dedicated employees poorly, they are “not going to have a workforce that wants to put in good work. You’re going to have people leave.”

Ultimately, Smallwood’s story is a personal illustration of the effects of that “less than one percent” cut. 

“Don’t look at me and say, it’s because of budget cuts,” she said, “…And then also, don’t do this to someone who’s on maternity leave. That’s just not right.”