Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[tuxthepenguin]

Hardin-Simmons Cuts 22 Academic Programs

IHE article

cutting 22 academic programs -- eliminating 17 faculty and 14 staff positions -- building on a previous round of program closures and layoffs

In a previous round of cuts, the university eliminated undergraduate programs in environmental science, geology, medical illustration, philosophy, physics, political science, sociology, Spanish and music in performance, as well as graduate programs in English, history, math and environmental management.

They're cutting the religious programs that are distinctive to a religiously-affiliated school's mission--but also their business and education offerings.  Wonder what they have left?

I think it's safe to say all of their employees should be looking for alternative work right now. I have no inside knowledge of the situation, but it sure looks ugly from the outside. If they were one of those institutions with 600 students, I'd declare them dead.

[magnemite]

Interesting budget times at EWU, with cuts sparked by declining enrollment. I have read that administrative simplification- consolidating lots of departments into larger schools or programs is being proposed to save cash. The faculty, however, are looking at athletics: . The linked article has comments from an Assistant Professor who seems to be among the leaders of this effort, which is interesting in and of itself. I am rooting for cutting the athletic program, or at the very least football...

[Hibush]

Interesting budget times at EWU, with cuts sparked by declining enrollment. I have read that administrative simplification- consolidating lots of departments into larger schools or programs is being proposed to save cash. The faculty, however, are looking at athletics: . The linked article has comments from an Assistant Professor who seems to be among the leaders of this effort, which is interesting in and of itself. I am rooting for cutting the athletic program, or at the very least football...

The athletic director's quote is a great example of rejecting a scholarly quantitative analysis; "I think what you've got to be careful about when you see a report like this is that just putting together a narrative around numbers that you pull from charts and graphs can be interpreted in different ways."  I'm betting the physics professor's analysis is the more robust.

[dr_codex]

Interesting budget times at EWU, with cuts sparked by declining enrollment. I have read that administrative simplification- consolidating lots of departments into larger schools or programs is being proposed to save cash. The faculty, however, are looking at athletics: . The linked article has comments from an Assistant Professor who seems to be among the leaders of this effort, which is interesting in and of itself. I am rooting for cutting the athletic program, or at the very least football...

The athletic director's quote is a great example of rejecting a scholarly quantitative analysis; "I think what you've got to be careful about when you see a report like this is that just putting together a narrative around numbers that you pull from charts and graphs can be interpreted in different ways."  I'm betting the physics professor's analysis is the more robust.

Yup. Ask that AD about Sabermetrics. Or ask how they justify D1 scholarships to recruits. I'm betting that they have spreadsheets....

[Wahoo Redux]

Interesting budget times at EWU, with cuts sparked by declining enrollment. I have read that administrative simplification- consolidating lots of departments into larger schools or programs is being proposed to save cash. The faculty, however, are looking at athletics: . The linked article has comments from an Assistant Professor who seems to be among the leaders of this effort, which is interesting in and of itself. I am rooting for cutting the athletic program, or at the very least football...

Seems to me this could be groundbreaking. 

[dismalist]

Yes, a simple problem of bundling. Harder to sustain when competition increases.

The athletic director should be asked whether it would be a better idea to close down the academic activities to save the sports! :-)

[Hibush]

Interesting budget times at EWU, with cuts sparked by declining enrollment. I have read that administrative simplification- consolidating lots of departments into larger schools or programs is being proposed to save cash. The faculty, however, are looking at athletics: . The linked article has comments from an Assistant Professor who seems to be among the leaders of this effort, which is interesting in and of itself. I am rooting for cutting the athletic program, or at the very least football...

The athletic director's quote is a great example of rejecting a scholarly quantitative analysis; "I think what you've got to be careful about when you see a report like this is that just putting together a narrative around numbers that you pull from charts and graphs can be interpreted in different ways."  I'm betting the physics professor's analysis is the more robust.

Yup. Ask that AD about Sabermetrics. Or ask how they justify D1 scholarships to recruits. I'm betting that they have spreadsheets....

They could cover the football budget with a thousand season tickets at $3,500. If fan enthusiasm is one of the values the AD is inserting, that should be a reachable goal.
But to cover the DI budget on football's back, the tix would be $14,000 each.

If I recall, the bumper stickers in that region say "This is Cougar country"  That may be tough competition for football loyalty.

[spork]

Interesting budget times at EWU, with cuts sparked by declining enrollment. I have read that administrative simplification- consolidating lots of departments into larger schools or programs is being proposed to save cash. The faculty, however, are looking at athletics: . The linked article has comments from an Assistant Professor who seems to be among the leaders of this effort, which is interesting in and of itself. I am rooting for cutting the athletic program, or at the very least football...

The athletic director's quote is a great example of rejecting a scholarly quantitative analysis; "I think what you've got to be careful about when you see a report like this is that just putting together a narrative around numbers that you pull from charts and graphs can be interpreted in different ways."  I'm betting the physics professor's analysis is the more robust.

I love Hickey's argument of "the athletic programs at almost every other university lose money, too."

[spork]

Kendall College of Art and Design: https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2020/02/kendall-college-merging-arts-programs-making-cuts.html.

Longer analysis of independent art schools: https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/02/21/kendall-college-makes-tough-cuts.

[spork]

Oops, that second link should have been: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/02/07/art-schools-show-signs-stress-what-can-liberal-arts-colleges-learn.

[apl68]

Interesting--and surprising--to note that overall art-school enrollments haven't crashed in recent years like numbers of liberal arts majors have.  With the widespread conventional wisdom now being that only STEM, business, etc. are worth majoring in, I would have expected otherwise.

[spork]

Interesting--and surprising--to note that overall art-school enrollments haven't crashed in recent years like numbers of liberal arts majors have.  With the widespread conventional wisdom now being that only STEM, business, etc. are worth majoring in, I would have expected otherwise.

I am totally unfamiliar with how the stand-alone art schools operate, but at my tiny institution, the art department is one of the most technology-and design-forward programs on campus (the others being biology and chemistry with bench lab equipment; we do not have any engineering). Unfortunately the common perception among faculty and administrators is that art means nothing but painting portraits and looking at photos of cathedral murals.

[mamselle]

Graphic design draws students and sets up requirements for modern art history courses, among other things.

M.

[marshwiggle]

Interesting--and surprising--to note that overall art-school enrollments haven't crashed in recent years like numbers of liberal arts majors have.  With the widespread conventional wisdom now being that only STEM, business, etc. are worth majoring in, I would have expected otherwise.

I would imagine that art school always gets people who are really passionate about it, so enrollment isn't subject to a lot of marketing hype. (Which school someone chooses may be, but the fact that they're going to a fine arts program never is.)

If I ran the world, I'd discourage anyone who didn't have that kind of certainty from going to anyplace at all. Work for a few years and see if you ever feel there's something you desperately want to do. We could probably scrap half of the remedial programs and other expensive measures to salvage failing students if we just kept them from entering until they were sure that's what they wanted to do.

[mahagonny]

Interesting--and surprising--to note that overall art-school enrollments haven't crashed in recent years like numbers of liberal arts majors have.  With the widespread conventional wisdom now being that only STEM, business, etc. are worth majoring in, I would have expected otherwise.

I would imagine that art school always gets people who are really passionate about it, so enrollment isn't subject to a lot of marketing hype. (Which school someone chooses may be, but the fact that they're going to a fine arts program never is.)

If I ran the world, I'd discourage anyone who didn't have that kind of certainty from going to anyplace at all. Work for a few years and see if you ever feel there's something you desperately want to do. We could probably scrap half of the remedial programs and other expensive measures to salvage failing students if we just kept them from entering until they were sure that's what they wanted to do.

And half the arts schools.