Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[ciao_yall]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2023/12/17/purdue-global-owes-128-million-to-its-for-profit-partner-it-may-not-be-able-to-pay/?sh=11f6c5e27998

Oops. I just applied for a job there.

Don't worry. Every place like this is in trouble, in case you were wondering.

Purdue U. itself legally cannot cover the debt, so if that's where you applied then it this will not have any impact.

Purdue Global is yet another fantasy - declining enrollments?

Sure, let's go 100% online! All sorts of missing students from all over the world will just magically appear!

We won't need to market to them because everyone has heard of Purdue! And besides, online advertising is cheap.

Students will cheerfully pay lots of money to take large-enrolled online classes. Remember MOOCs and how they completely disrupted education?

SMDH.

[lightning]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2023/12/17/purdue-global-owes-128-million-to-its-for-profit-partner-it-may-not-be-able-to-pay/?sh=11f6c5e27998

Oops. I just applied for a job there.

That's OK. Just think short-term, and make your own personal business model all about making as much money off of Purdue Global as you can, in the short-term, with minimal investment. (Just act like you are in it for the long-haul.) If it's a remote job, then your personal investment will not involve a physical move.

[apl68]

We won't need to market to them because everyone has heard of Purdue!

Well, they are know for producing high-quality chicken products.

[methodsman]

We won't need to market to them because everyone has heard of Purdue!

Well, they are know for producing high-quality chicken products.

This wins the internet today.
mm

[Hegemony]

I don't know about their finances, but there's definitely trouble over at Spartanburg Community College...

"...the administration was facing faculty opposition to its new mandate requiring professors to spend all of their 37.5-hour work weeks on campus.

"When faculty senate President Bruce Dillenbeck first tried to set up the senate meeting, the administration blocked his emails, but he called the meeting anyway. Hours before the vote was scheduled, then-Vice President of Academic Affairs Lisa Satterfield dissolved the senate.... The following campaign against Dillenbeck was documented in a report by the State Office of Inspector General. Satterfield had reviewed Dillenbeck's emails in an unsuccessful attempt to find evidence that he and other senators were planning some kind of walk-out or withholding of grades in protest.

"She asked campus police for surveillance footage of Dillenbeck, although there was no complaint made against him. Then she and other school officials lied to the public and the media about what they had done, according to the inspector general's report. It also found Satterfield lied to state investigators...."

"Some faculty interviewed for the report said the administration monitored their comings and goings by having administrative assistants walk the halls with clipboards to see who was or wasn't in their office. One said she would put a note on her door when using the restroom in case someone walked by and thought she was skipping work. Those interviewed said they would see another dean sitting in his car in the morning and afternoon to make sure instructors were arriving on time and not leaving early..."

Something smells rotten...

https://www.postandcourier.com/spartanburg/spartanburg-community-college-low-faculty-morale-aaup-report/article_f8e3b48c-c086-11ee-8ffb-43180359d780.html/?tpcc=sptsocial

[kaysixteen]

What are such mandatory attendance policies for college fac supposed to accomplish?

[Ruralguy]

Rural Conjecture: They want to force faculty to be around for X hours per day for Y days a week so that they cam say to their stakeholders 'Our faculty are so hard working, they are here for X hours per day for Y days a week, and yes , we checked!"

[Wahoo Redux]

What are such mandatory attendance policies for college fac supposed to accomplish?

I think this may be related to the concept that faculty don't really "work." 

That, and some people simply believe that if you have a job you need to be at your desk in your office for 8 hours a day, even if that is not the type of job one has.

[FishProf]

My Provost did this one summer.  Chairs are required to work x number of hours per week in the summer.  So she required it to be on campus.

I did the required "time" in the office by the end of June, and then I refused to d any more Chair work Until September 1.  Everything got routed to the Dean (and the Provost) when Dean was on vacation.  Since ~80% of the current chairs did the same thing, everything ground to a halt.

When the Provost finally called a meeting to discuss this, we could explain that we ALL did way more than the required hours in the summer, but if she was going to require us to be in the office to do the work, we wouldn't be doing any of it outside the office.  And we weren't coming in more than required.

Next summer, business back to usual.

[TreadingLife]

What are such mandatory attendance policies for college fac supposed to accomplish?

I think this may be related to the concept that faculty don't really "work." 

That, and some people simply believe that if you have a job you need to be at your desk in your office for 8 hours a day, even if that is not the type of job one has.

I am at a small LAC and our marketed 'distinctiveness' is our residential learning community, complete with engagement with faculty in and outside the classroom. (I put distinctive in quotes since most LACs are doing the exact same thing.) Anyway, post-COVID, our campus community culture among faculty is to teach classes and the leave campus. Why be on campus for one second longer than necessary? Why be in your office to chat with students outside of formal office hours? Why chat with colleagues (inter or intra departmentally) for research, collegiality, etc?  This sort of culture probably works just fine at larger institutions but the reason students choose a smaller school that markets itself as "there for students" is no longer delivering on that promise.

I am not for mandating anything in terms of time on campus. We know our schedules and our students' needs best. But how do you rebuild a culture where faculty do want to be around students and colleagues and everything isn't "clock in and clock out". The entire reason I am a professor is that to me it isn't merely a job based on a set number of hours, it is a lifestyle. I do my job until I've completed my work. If that means I go in on a Saturday for an admissions event, so be it. If that means I write letters of recommendations over the summer for students, so be it. I don't "clock" that work. I do it when it needs to be done. And for almost every other day of the year, I can set my teaching schedule to my preferences (times, days, topics) and come in when I want.  The erosion of the lifestyle of being a professor has been sad to watch over the past 5 years, and I've been living this lifestyle for 20+.

I have no solutions just observations and sighs.

[Ruralguy]

I'm at a school like TL's. I think most professors here realize that there's more to the job than teaching classes, and that doesn't mean just working from home on scholarship when not teaching. However, many professors have tons of demands on their time, such as children, aging parents, a long commute (done to allow spouse/partner to be in a nearby city so can get a "real" job, etc.), medical care and more. This is all besides the usual crunch of high-ish teaching load, expectations for non-perfunctory service and scholarship. I think the multiple demands and then COVID, probably did reduce presence on campus a bit, but I believe it has recovered. In any case, I think most Deans now (though we have a new one) are aware of what we want to be ("there for the students") and aware that sometimes reality gets in the way and we can't be all things to all people 24/7. I think more administrators (and T&P committee members) are no longer of the "gotta clock in some face time" variety, and are more appreciative of professors with balanced lives that still can provide a good environment for our students. That's here though. I realize that not every student, parent, professor, administrator feels this way. I imagine some are fairly traditional in their view of professor-ing: either you are teaching in front of a class, or you are behind a desk in your office, and that better be more hours than it isn't during the 9-5 period, M-F.

[kaysixteen]

You suppose that the deans are also always around, eager to have extended contact with walk-in students?

[spork]

[. . .]

I am at a small LAC and our marketed 'distinctiveness'

[. . .]

I'm waiting, probably futilely, for administrators to recognize that these marketing efforts have increasingly diminishing returns given that college has become a predominantly transactional experience for both students and employees. 

A few examples:

Students need to work part-time jobs to pay for dormitory housing, which composes the majority of the all-important "auxiliary revenue" on which the university financially depends. Students can't be "engaged" when waiting tables off-campus.

About a third of our open staff positions--including those that are "student-facing"--are now advertised as hybrid, because at the salaries being offered, new hires can't afford to live near campus, nor do they want a two-hour round-trip commute five days per week.

Faculty are subject matter specialists, not chirpy salesmen. It's a waste of their expensive time to put them behind tables in an auditorium to chirpily greet clueless parents who have sullen, uninterested 17-year olds in tow -- especially given that no one in admissions has ever shown that this activity generates more enrollment than the food that is served in the dining halls when prospective students are on campus.

[ciao_yall]

You suppose that the deans are also always around, eager to have extended contact with walk-in students?

No, they are too busy taking meetings that are about the Leadership of the organization.

From Zoom. At home. 

[Ruralguy]

Most of our Deans are around quite a bit.

Also, if you are at a tuition driven school, especially one with declining enrollment, then you have to be partly a salesperson, regardless of training. That's just the reality. It doesn't mean you have to show up to every admission's event, but you should probably be willing to lend a hand to *something.*  Other than money and very new facilities, probably not much else helps, though I suppose smiling faces are better than service with a snarl.