Memorial President Janet Morrison is currently at the university’s UK-based Harlow campus after comments that Memorial might be looking to close it down.
The Muse got the opportunity to speak with her one-on-one while she was here. We asked about why the campus would be potentially put on sale, future international opportunities for students and the impact the Harlow campus has for students.
Why sell Harlow?
Morrison talked about MUN’s $20 million in year deficit, and says that it has “demanded we look at every dollar we spend relative to our core or academic mission.”
Morrison says the university’s budget deficit has been “compounded by” the lower student enrollment at Memorial University in the last year.
While selling the Harlow campus is one of the ways the university might try to make up the deficit, Morrison told me that the campus is not being looked at “more intensely than other circumstances.”
She also alluded to MUN’s consistent budget cutting over the last decade, saying: “I think it’s really important that people appreciate that Memorial has been cutting money from budgets every year for over a decade, so anything that was easy is done. There is nothing left that people don’t care about or won’t miss.”
Morrison continued, “but at the end of the day, we have what’s approaching a $30 million dollar problem and we’ve been cutting for 10 years, so there are difficult decisions to come … we need to talk to folks about how every dollar we spend ties back to our core academic mission and our special obligation to the citizens of this province.”
Is the Harlow campus overlooked?
I asked Morrison about comments students made regarding the Harlow campus being overlooked by Memorial in the past.
She said she could not comment on anything before August, 2025 but said that “the challenge is… I’m not in a position to judge, but if it [Harlow] had been better or more optimally promoted, it can serve 151 students a year at full occupancy, and for those 151 students, the experience is, I have every bit of confidence, is going to be awesome, but how do we think about that in the context of Memorial’s bigger challenges?”
Amazing reviews
Morrison said that in the past few weeks she has heard of so many amazing experiences from Harlow alumni.
She said “in my consultations with current students and alumni of Harlow, along with faculty, staff and community members, all I hear about is how awesome the experience was, and I think that’s a tremendous piece of the puzzle.”
Morrison said that she has not heard a single bad review of the campus: “I haven’t heard anybody say anything less than it was transformational, which is amazing because, inevitably, you get somebody whose experience was bad, but I haven’t talked to anyone whose experience hasn’t been awesome.”
When asked if her time in Harlow has changed her perspective of the campus, she told me, “honestly, students and recent alumni have done such a great job of painting a picture of how awesome the experience was.”
“I had a sense this place was magical and that’s been affirmed over the course of the last day … I had a strong sense of how awesome it was before I got here, but there is no substitute for being on site and experiencing it yourself,” said Morrison
She finished by saying “across the board, people are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be here. I don’t use the word transformational lightly, but it’s clearly transformational.”
Other travel abroad endeavors
Before arriving to Harlow, Morrison briefly touched on the fact that the university has relationships with 180 institutions in 50 different countries.
I asked her to elaborate on those comments and should the Harlow campus be sold, what kind of international travel opportunities would be offered to MUN students if they can no longer go to the UK based campus.
She gave me a few examples of different programs and different travel opportunities that could come with them, saying “there are language intensive programs, there are international co-ops that we sponsor.”
She gave examples of students she’s spoken to who have done exchanges in Germany and also who are interested in studying abroad in Germany.
Since the discussion of a potential sale first arose, Dr. Morrison said it has brought up a lot of different conversations about potential international study endeavors for students.
“The conversations have generated ideas about what those experiences might look like,” said Morrison.
“Some students want language intensive programming, some people want to work abroad… other students have talked to me about why Harlow is special, because you come in a cohort with a faculty member, so it can be less scary”
She continued, “part of the conversation has been, not just with students, but with faculty and staff, on how do we create a rich variety of experiences, focused on different outcomes or developing different things for people that can meet a broader array of student interest and need.”
For some programs, going up to the Harlow campus is either required or fundamental, which Dr. Morrison says is leading them to actively explore “other options” in terms of international study.
Potential Harlow sale still very early in its consultation
No matter what happens, the Harlow campus cannot be sold until August 2026, and Dr. Morrison told me “the commitment that we’ve made to students is that, if you currently have plans to be at Harlow in the 25-26 academic year, then those plans are firm. There is no risk to that planning because we do appreciate that students make plans, have expectations, etc … there’s no risk to the commitments out through spring 2026.”
Morrison made it clear that no final decision on Harlow has been made.
“No decision has been made and the decision would ultimately be made by the board of regents.”
One thing seems clear, over the coming months there will be a lot of different conversations about both the Harlow campus, international study opportunities and ways MUN can fix the budget deficit.
As Morrison put it to me, “everything is on the table.”
