Just months after promoting an ambitious expansion plan, the president of Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science says deteriorating economic conditions will force the university to lay off 10 percent of its faculty and staff members, cut executive salaries, and suspend contributions to employees’ retirement funds, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The historically black institution in South Los Angeles will lay off 35 to 40 people as part of a strategy to cut $10-million in annual expenses, the newspaper reports.

Susan Kelly, president and chief executive officer, said the university’s investments had lost about 10 percent of their value since September and grants it has relied on in the past aren’t coming through.

“We were in pretty good shape in June, but … our normal sources of funds dried up,” she said. The economy has “been escalating out of control,” making such cuts unavoidable.

Ms. Kelly’s assessment was a sharp contrast to the cautiously optimistic tone she struck a few months ago, when she spoke of the university’s plans to expand its medical school from a two-year to a four-year program over the next five years (The Chronicle, January 16).

Charles Drew, which has been offering a four-year program in partnership with the University of California at Los Angeles, is also building a nursing school. It was not immediately clear what impact the latest cuts would have on those plans. —Katherine Mangan