PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A proposed merger of Temple University and University of the Arts is off the table, after nearly three months of negotiations failed to yield an agreement for both sides.
An announcement from Temple, signed by President Richard Englert, Senior Vice President and Provost Gregory Mandel and Senior Vice President and COO Ken Kaiser, said the school was unable to find a solution in its best interest to merge with UArts after an “exhaustive effort.”
Temple first explored the idea of a merger with the historic art school after its abrupt closure on June 7, leaving hundreds of UArts students scrambling to figure out their next steps.
Just last week, 330 of them became Temple Owls as transfer students. According to Thursday’s announcement, Temple has allocated financial aid dollars to cover tuition hikes and other costs, and fast-tracked two fine arts degrees for UArts transfer students.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the fissure in negotiations appeared after a major UArts donor balked at the prospect of its endowment being transferred to Temple as part of the deal.
The Inquirer identified the donor as Main Line-based Hamilton Family Charitable Trust, which has not returned KYW Newsradio’s request for comment.
Despite the failure of the deal, Temple says it will continue to search for other partnerships to try to reactivate some former UArts facilities.