Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Chairman X]

It's really sad what's going on at Ohio. It seems the problem is the structural triple whammy of (1) evaporating state support that makes public universities tuition-dependent; (2) demographic decline; and (3) state lawmakers' insistence on undermining university-level general education -- and hence viability -- by legislating that colleges must give credit for co-curricular high school course work and/or AP scores. OU's case may be a bit extreme because of its location in Appalachia, where there is limited demographic growth, and because it has several satellite campuses.

So what to do? The university could de-fund athletics (but would that reduce the university's appeal to potential undergraduates?) find new students, perhaps online (but aren't most other universities doing this too, hence chasing the same would-be students?) or to find some way out of the financial maze (but what could this be other than greater support from the state government?).

Seems like OU is simply a more heavily accentuated case of what so many other public universities are confronting...

[mamselle]

I only know of a couple of departments there, but OU's location in S. Ohio doesn't quite lead to the categorization of Appalachian, or at least to some of the connotations one might expect with that term.

Our dance history prof at OSU left to found their ("new") department there in the 70's, and several decades later, I was asked to help a student there edit and work up parts of her diss.

Her only real issue was time management: she had three exellent books packed into the thesis and was trying to  research and write them all.

People I knew from their associations with that prof have gone on to found significant performing companies (one is a Chevalier in the French honorific humanities awards system) and have been consistently productive, reliable scholars.

In editing the thesis I mentioned, the use of critical scholarship approaches from sociology and anthropology were also evident: I'm less qualified to judge those but they fit the topic and advanced the work (which--sorry, Derrida! I find not always to be the case...) so my surmise was that those areas were strong, also.

Having been raised and schooled first in Ohio, I'm careful not to generalize about its regions overmuch.

My grandfather on my mother's side came from the area near Athens, for one thing, and his readiness for schooling as an accountant was what got his family through the Depression with a reliable job when that was so often not the case.

It's true that populations in many areas are declining, and state governments are more and more resembling idiocracies when it comes to school funding, but one wants not to link quality to regional stereotypes where that might lead to inaccuracies.

(Ok, maybe I'm too close to be objective...)

M.

[Chairman X]

I only know of a couple of departments there, but OU's location in S. Ohio doesn't quite lead to the categorization of Appalachian, or at least to some of the connotations one might expect with that term.

I completely agree that determining "region" is not a science and contextually dependent. There are historical, social, and cultural elements at play in defining any region. But the faculty I know at OU do see themselves as serving Appalachia.

FWIW Appalachian Regional Commission not only places Athens County well within its boundaries but only last year downgraded Athens County to its lowest category of "distressed," meaning it falls into in the bottom 10% in terms of economic performance compared to all US counties. See https://www.arc.gov/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=672.

[mamselle]

OK, with those qualifications I can understand your reasoning.

I just get my feathers up a bit...

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

We as a culture are letting our educational system dissipate, sometimes even aggressively dismantling it.   

[Wahoo Redux]

Northern Colorado to lay off employees.

[apl68]

John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. 


https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2020/mar/03/jbu-cuts-12-workers-to-save-costs-20200/


They are laying off 12 employees, most of them reportedly not faculty.  No academic programs are being eliminated.  Enrollment is down 15% since 2014.  Not good, but not yet dire, apparently.

[apl68]

State legislators have been questioning Henderson State University's former President and former VP of Finance and Administration about how and why the university fell so far into the red.  Former President Jones has resigned but will continue drawing pay into the summer, which has people upset.  For his part, he blames "the University culture already there when he came into the job in 2016."


https://www.kark.com/news/local-news/state-lawmakers-hear-testimony-from-henderson-state-university-leaders-on-financial-distress/



Incidentally, Henderson's $80 million of outstanding bond debt have been degraded, which leaves investors with a loss.

[Hibush]

Frank Lloyd Wright's School of Architecture at Taliesin will close

https://archpaper.com/2020/01/taliesin-to-close/

According to a statement by the Foundation, the decision to close the esteemed institution was made because the school "did not have a sustainable business model that would allow it to maintain its operations as an accredited program."

!!

I read the article and learned nothing, really. The problem must be money--but in what way?

One of the problems has been that the place has been driven by acolytes of Wright and adherents of his impractical organizational style. Tt has been difficult to maintain an institution that way sixty years after the charismatic leader's death. Wright's buildings and organizations both require an incredible amount of expensive maintenance, so the operating costs are far higher than conventional ones.

Here is a clip from a 2005 NY Times article that gives some relevant background:

Academic recognition came only in 1987, when the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture received accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, a regional organization. In 1997 the National Architectural Accrediting Board also approved accreditation, enabling the school to grant architectural degrees.

But some people in the architecture world say that despite the accreditation and Wright's accomplishments and fame, Taliesin West has lost its way.

"It's an architectural theme park," said Reed Kroloff, dean of the architecture school at Tulane University, adding that "the rigid adherence to Wright's system is destroying the institution." Graduates of Taliesin, Mr. Kroloff said, "have to struggle to place themselves in the larger architectural community."

Thanks for the additional information. I imagine it is very difficult to balance fidelity to FLW's vision with (more) modern training standards. I'm less sympathetic to the problem of the buildings being expensive to maintain--that's true of a lot of great historic architecture--but if it's only half the problem it's a pity that someone couldn't have worked harder on the other half.

A revival effort is in the news. The program is uniquely small among other things. It has only 30 students, with $0.4 million in tuition revenue and $1.7 million in expenses. The school does not own the campus, and cannot afford the rent. It is not allowed to use the Wright name. The leadership is historically ambivalent about being accredited. Those are long odds.

Is there an optimistic version of the information in the linked article?

[apostrophe]

Frank Lloyd Wright's School of Architecture at Taliesin will close

https://archpaper.com/2020/01/taliesin-to-close/

According to a statement by the Foundation, the decision to close the esteemed institution was made because the school "did not have a sustainable business model that would allow it to maintain its operations as an accredited program."

!!

I read the article and learned nothing, really. The problem must be money--but in what way?

One of the problems has been that the place has been driven by acolytes of Wright and adherents of his impractical organizational style. Tt has been difficult to maintain an institution that way sixty years after the charismatic leader's death. Wright's buildings and organizations both require an incredible amount of expensive maintenance, so the operating costs are far higher than conventional ones.

Here is a clip from a 2005 NY Times article that gives some relevant background:

Academic recognition came only in 1987, when the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture received accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, a regional organization. In 1997 the National Architectural Accrediting Board also approved accreditation, enabling the school to grant architectural degrees.

But some people in the architecture world say that despite the accreditation and Wright's accomplishments and fame, Taliesin West has lost its way.

"It's an architectural theme park," said Reed Kroloff, dean of the architecture school at Tulane University, adding that "the rigid adherence to Wright's system is destroying the institution." Graduates of Taliesin, Mr. Kroloff said, "have to struggle to place themselves in the larger architectural community."

Thanks for the additional information. I imagine it is very difficult to balance fidelity to FLW's vision with (more) modern training standards. I'm less sympathetic to the problem of the buildings being expensive to maintain--that's true of a lot of great historic architecture--but if it's only half the problem it's a pity that someone couldn't have worked harder on the other half.

A revival effort is in the news. The program is uniquely small among other things. It has only 30 students, with $0.4 million in tuition revenue and $1.7 million in expenses. The school does not own the campus, and cannot afford the rent. It is not allowed to use the Wright name. The leadership is historically ambivalent about being accredited. Those are long odds.

Is there an optimistic version of the information in the linked article?

"Fight unfolds" doesn't seem optimistic.

[Hibush]

Palomar College, a 24-000 student Southern California community college, was assigned a fiscal monitor in an attempt to rein in its ongoing financial crisis.  State officials that it could go broke in two years, having a growing deficit and what state auditors called "a long history of inadequate practices."

In faculty governance-related angle, the faculty voted 92% no confidence in the president last fall for squandering money on a presidential suite. She will resign now with a golden parachute of $600,000.

[polly_mer]

USA Today has a readable overview of the current problems for small colleges, especially this year.

[Academic_cog]

Art Institute of San Francisco:

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13877340/san-francisco-art-institute-to-close-at-end-of-spring-semester

[ProfessorPlum]

Note Dame de Namur University is not accepting any new students.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/03/24/notre-dame-de-namur-not-accepting-new-students

[mamselle]

It's sounding like a Pac-man scenario: the big get bigger and the small get smaller...or eaten.

M.