Adrian alumni saves liberal arts

[Wahoo Redux]

I've said before, publicize.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/22/when-adrian-college-threatened-cut-history-and-more-alumni-organized

[polly_mer]

What did they save?

College Factual lists Adrian College as low quality for the price https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/adrian-college/paying-for-college/value-for-your-money/

Adrian College has an on-time graduation rate below 40% https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/adrian-college/#faculty

Only half the faculty are full-time and the faculty are mostly off the tenure track https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/adrian-college/academic-life/faculty-composition/

The college only had 4 English graduates, 3 history graduates, 2 philosophy, and 2 religious study graduates per https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/fields/?168528-Adrian-College

What exactly is being saved at the expense of something that could keep Adrian alive beyond this year?  Fine, jobs were saved this year.  How will the institution still be viable five years from now if nothing changes and nothing can be cut to redirect resources?

They didn't save the liberal arts,which are already dead at Adrian, but they did make it harder to stay open long term.  This is not a success to be celebrated. This is a tragedy if the goal is to keep Adrian a viable college.

[Wahoo Redux]

HA!!!  I knew you'd be the first (and maybe only) one to post, Polly!!!  How funny.

Hey, the alumni wanted it.  The president acceded.  The lib arts live on at Adrian.  So it goes.

[marshwiggle]

HA!!!  I knew you'd be the first (and maybe only) one to post, Polly!!!  How funny.

Hey, the alumni wanted it.  The president acceded.  The lib arts live on at Adrian.  So it goes.

To be clear, what they have is a statement of intent. If they cannot figure out other ways to balance the budget, then the institution will fold, and liberal arts with it. Time will tell.

[apl68]

I wish them well in their efforts.

[polly_mer]

I wish them well in their efforts.

Which 'them':

* the president and the board who are making changes to have a good college providing education and faculty jobs, but that requires making some hard decisions about how to free up resources for new things

* the faculty and staff in their job search because this is at best a holding action until the outsiders lose interest.  Adrian is clearly circling the drain and no one has a job when Adrian closes.

* the alumni who have fond memories, but not good enough post-college outcomes to be sending significant (>$10k/year) donations in large numbers.

This is not a victory for anyone, especially not the fans of the liberal arts education in general.  This is propping up a corpse and calling it alive.

[spork]

It's just... you'd think some minimal planning and consultation would take place before a decision like that gets made, so that you wouldn't have to reverse course once you realize that you can't call yourself a liberal arts university without any liberal arts subjects.

Not directed at you -- I wish people, especially an institution's own faculty and administrators, would stop using this terminology because it isn't supported by evidence. According to IPEDS, Adrian awarded 319 bachelor's degrees in FY 2019. Of these, the top majors:

• Business: 76
• Recreation and fitness studies: 56
• Education: 21
• Social services: 21
• Criminal justice: 17
• Communications: 14
• Health professions: 13

That's 218 graduates or 68% from just seven occupational training programs (there are others I didn't include). In comparison:

• Math: 4
• Philosophy and religion: 0
• English: 4
• Foreign languages: 1
• History: 2

Adrian is yet another one of those low-enrollment schools that was founded as a church-affiliated institution for theological training that now relies on, I assume, attracting mediocre students to a mediocre business program. It probably hasn't been a "liberal arts college" for the last 75 years.

[Wahoo Redux]

Just curious, but why do any of you usual suspects particularly care?

Adrian decided to keep low-enrollment majors.  That is their prerogative as an institution.  It may or it may not work.  And maybe there is more to academia than just the bottom line-----and yes, spare us the obvious statements about paying bills, etc.  We knoooooowww all that, even if you feel like you can't make your point because not everyone agrees with you.

Y'all have some resentments, don'cha?

[Cheerful]

Adrian launched an Esports Management minor this year.

http://adrian.edu/news/adrian-college-esports-program-to-start-in-fall

A mere minor?  So yesterday.  Some colleges have bachelor's and master's degree in esports.

Liberal arts?  So yesterday.

[Hibush]

Adrian launched an Esports Management minor this year.

http://adrian.edu/news/adrian-college-esports-program-to-start-in-fall

A mere minor?  So yesterday.  Some colleges have bachelor's and master's degree in esports.

Liberal arts?  So yesterday.

As long as they offer that esports management program online and nationally, they might get some takers.

[kaysixteen]

I too noted that the professor quoted in the article defending the incompetent president was a professor of 'sports management', a subject that has no business being taught at a liberal arts college (esp since no kid suckered into paying big $ to get a BA/ BS in sports management is going to get a real job in sports management, such as an agent, or a significant position in a professional athletic organization/ team).   And the article makes it clear that the president's incompetent strategy is to shovel money into athletics and bells and whistles, whilst adding enrollment through widespread use of financial aid discounting (obviously they are merely shaving $ off the sticker price, rather than funding the discounts through existing financial aid money reservoirs?).   why do accreditors tolerate this sort of thing?

[marshwiggle]

Just curious, but why do any of you usual suspects particularly care?

Adrian decided to keep low-enrollment majors.  That is their prerogative as an institution.  It may or it may not work.  And maybe there is more to academia than just the bottom line-----and yes, spare us the obvious statements about paying bills, etc.  We knoooooowww all that, even if you feel like you can't make your point because not everyone agrees with you.

Y'all have some resentments, don'cha?

It has nothing to do with resentment. This scenario plays out gazillions of times; I'm sure everyone reading this can think of examples:

Organization (government, institution, etc.) says "Due to fiancial shortfalls, we have to eliminate X."
Public campaign starts to "SAVE X!!!"
Eventually, organization issues statement "Based on public resonse, we're not going to eliminate X."
Public campaign says "WE WON!!!!!"
Original financial problem still exists; until  the organization takes other action to fix the problem, it's entirely unclear whether it is better off or worse off than before.

So until Adrian does whatever is needed to address the budget problem, it's impossible to tell what has been "saved". And if they fail to fix the problem so they shut down, then they have not, in fact, saved anything.

[polly_mer]

Just curious, but why do any of you usual suspects particularly care?

Adrian decided to keep low-enrollment majors.  That is their prerogative as an institution.  It may or it may not work.  And maybe there is more to academia than just the bottom line-----and yes, spare us the obvious statements about paying bills, etc.  We knoooooowww all that, even if you feel like you can't make your point because not everyone agrees with you.

Y'all have some resentments, don'cha?

It's not resentment of humanities or the liberal arts.  It has nothing to do with perceived value of the liberal arts in general.


I read something recently about the distinction between

* knowing, which means being able to repeat the facts,

* understanding, which means being able to put the facts in context and analyze the bigger picture

* believing, which means having to act on the knowledge and understanding to make changes for a better world.


Faculty may knoooowwww about paying the bills, just like they know about exercising and eating for good nutrition.  One of my reasons for continuing to post is hoping that this time something will push someone in need to the next category of understanding or believing to take action.


One more time, for those who need to understand:

* raising awareness that these colleges will close in droves.  Period.  There is no scenario that has enough students in the relevant regions to fill all the seats at a revenue level sufficient to pay the bills.  These institutions are too small to use economies of scale and the number of students required to make a go has risen in the past ten years from 1000 k to more like 5000k if tuition and room/board are the main sources of revenue. 

The true liberal arts colleges like Grinnell will be fine with their large endowments and additional revenue sources while enrolling the vast major of the students who want a true liberal arts education. 

This is not crying poor to avoid paying faculty more; this really is not making payroll in the foreseeable future and not being able to cut any further into the bone.  Individual colleges may pull a miracle, including Adrian, but that's by finding a new mission offering experiences for which students will pay good money to be a sufficient revenue stream.  While humanities faculty may be angry about DIII sports being supported while particular faculty are being cut, students will pay full price for that experience over a humanities degree.


* worry about faculty and staff when the entirely foreseeable closures happen.  Everyone involved will be out of a job all at once. It's far better for the individuals involved to be entering the job market in tiny numbers than in big waves for far fewer academic jobs.  As was discussed on a different thread, being a great faculty member at one of these colleges mean one is only qualified for this type of academic job.  That means most people will have to find a different type of job. 

Spending the years before closure finding a good, stable, next job is far better for individuals than waiting until the official announcement is made and time is short.

* concern for the students.  While any one faculty member may be the best faculty member ever, the overall experience at these schools in the all-but-dead majors for the students is suboptimal compared to colleges with healthy majors in those fields.  Much better discussions are held with classes bigger than three well-prepared participants.  Much better education results from having sufficient faculty to offer a wide variety of true elective humanities courses every term with different subsets of interested students instead of essentially no choice with the same handful students taking all five humanities 'electives' again that term.

* concern for the communities that could have good local postsecondary education by allowing the college to directly serve the community by focusing on the local needs.  The liberal arts are important to the nation, but the individuals in a local community may be better served by a different kind of good in-person education.  When people have already voted with their time and money for something else, the best option is to stop doing the abandoned activities to free up resources for other valuable activities.

* concern for the liberal arts programs currently on the bubble that could survive and thrive if the interested students were redistributed now from the already dead programs and the faculty followed them.  Fewer people would be abruptly out of work if the students were consolidated so the need for the faculty were truly present in the bubble programs.

[apl68]

* concern for the communities that could have good local postsecondary education by allowing the college to directly serve the community by focusing on the local needs.  The liberal arts are important to the nation, but the individuals in a local community may be better served by a different kind of good in-person education.  When people have already voted with their time and money for something else, the best option is to stop doing the abandoned activities to free up resources for other valuable activities.

* concern for the liberal arts programs currently on the bubble that could survive and thrive if the interested students were redistributed now from the already dead programs and the faculty followed them.  Fewer people would be abruptly out of work if the students were consolidated so the need for the faculty were truly present in the bubble programs.

These are both really good points.  Perhaps Adrian can best serve its local community in the long run by triaging away some or all of its remaining liberal arts majors. 

Still, the people actually on the ground know the situation best.  Maybe they can yet find a way to save some of those programs.  Again, I wish them well.  If it proves impossible--well, then I wish them well in their managed decline.

[Wahoo Redux]

One of my reasons for continuing to post is hoping that this time something will push someone in need to the next category of understanding or believing to take action.

Really?  On our tiny forum of academics ensconced in or having abandoned their academic careers?  Repeating the same stuff over and over again?  Saving a family or two?

Did Mayor Theodore Cobblepot flash the Polly Signal up against the Gotham University cloud cover?

Okay, well, best of luck with that.