Valpo Strategic Plan

[vu84v2]

Several folks have posed variations of, is there a savior out there? Or, at the very least, are there some folks who can donate seven or eight figure amounts now, rather than an amount tucked away in a bequest?

An interesting question is whether VU has alums out there who have quietly (or not so quietly) earned a boatload of money during their lives and are now in a position to be very generous. I won't presume that the Forever Valpo fundraising campaign exhausted all of those possibilities. You just never know when folks are suddenly in a better position to offer a major gift.

From what I understand, I do believe the Valpo's advancement people keep pretty close tabs on potential large donors.

I also think that it is very dangerous for people in a university to just assume that issues get solved by someone else. For a university, its biggest revenue source is tuition and related revenues like housing, etc. Faculty and staff can affect that greatly - not only by offering great learning value in their classrooms and developing great relationships with their students, but also by substantially engaging with prospective students and their families. From what I understand, Valpo may be relying too heavily on the admissions team and a central common message. Prospective students and their parents are making a decision to attend a premium pricing school and, thus, they need to see value in their desired area(s) of study. Any prospective student and his/her family should have the opportunity to meet with at least one faculty member in their desired discipline(s) - regardless of the discipline.

A coordinated admissions team should be able to set up these contact opportunities fairly easily, especially if there's a system that makes it easy. Plus, I assume that the University is back to doing face-to-face admissions open houses, which I recall from way back when typically included faculty from the various departments giving brief remarks about their offerings.

While those activities are valuable, I do not feel that they are sufficient. If a prospective student is interested in nursing, the student and his or her family should be able to have a one-on-one or (at least) a one-on-a few discussion. The College of Nursing in this case should be following up with the prospective nursing student. Same thing for engineering, the various business disciplines, and probably everything else.

[VULB#62]

Your comment 84 prompted me to ask a quick question preceded by some extra words. 

THE EXTRA WORDS:  In athletics, if a kid expresses an interest in participating in a sport on the collegiate level and that interest is communicated to that sporting discipline, that discipline's staff initiates communications and begins "recruiting" (I just made up that word 😜) that kid to Valpo. And the game is on. The staff is in competition with numerous other colleges for that kid's attention and, hopefully, a signed NLI.

MORE EXTRA WORDS:  A kid with good grades and a desire to study, say, engineering, nursing, meteorology, Irish literature, pre-med, pre-dent, etc., is an athlete as well, but an academic athlete.

AND NOW THE QUESTION: Are the same (or even close) strategies and tactics that are used by each sport to get a jock (that, despite what you may think, is a genderless term in this conversation) to sign an NLI employed by the various colleges and schools at Valpo to "recruit" their athletes and where the "coaches" are the instructors and professors?

Hey, college admissions is a competition.  So is volleyball and football. An athletic coach, besides doing their "classroom" preparation, "research" and "lectures" is expected to spend a ton of time recruiting. It's part of the job because if they don't their teams lose and they get fired.  Does a history professor or an assistant dean of engineering, or whatever proportionally put in the same time recruiting, or do they find an ivory tower more suitable for introspection and academic contemplation?

Sorry if I lumped some great outgoing academics who are doing what I am describing into a stereotype. Also sorry for all the quotation marks, but it was the only way I could think of to draw the very close analogies I see.

[ValpoDiaspora]

It differs by program, but I think most liberal arts and sciences departments do some recruiting efforts.

In my humanities dept, I know the chair regularly communicated with potential students who'd expressed an interest in our two majors. Admissions gave us faculty cards & envelopes and addresses to write and send hand-written notes encouraging them to come, etc. Whenever prospective students came to visit, they'd meet with the chair and often have at least one meeting with another faculty member, plus get toured down the hallway to meet others.

In other programs, they did even more. For instance, I know the Music faculty were expected to do a lot in terms of recruiting their own instrument-specific students from local teachers, high schools, etc. And the Language profs were definitely out in the high schools trying to cultivate relations with the those area high schools teaching their respective languages and giving presentations at those high schools.

Honestly, it seemed not to matter at all in terms of the university choosing to keep faculty or not. For instance, the classics (Greek and Roman) professor had recruited super successfully for Classics and really grown the program especially in drawing African American students to her classes (rather remarkably for a pretty stereotypically majority-culture Western field). But they cut her anyways.

I guess for universities to have faculty operate more like recruiting coaches, maybe they could free up faculty from some of their teaching responsibilities or reimburse some of the travel costs? I did some weekend promoting but it was pretty hard most semesters if I was teaching 4 courses a week x 3 classes = 12 actual sessions of face-time classes per week, plus all the prep to prepare for each class and then grade all the essays. It was also pretty expensive to recruit as a volunteer at churches and such on the weekend, since babysitters in valpo are not cheap, easily $15+/hour. I was already hiring a lot of babysitters on the weekend just to keep up with the course prep and grading & going into a financial hole trying to pay full-time daycare plus the additional evening/weekend hours to keep up with grading. So unfortunately I could only rarely hire babysitters on the weekends to do additional recruitment outreaches or events though I did really care about trying to bring in majors. And once the pandemic hit, it was all too hard.. I gave up doing anything beyond  the Admissions-arranged stuff.

I think faculty might be open to the 'coach' recruiting model if there was a sort of reconfiguration of compensation. My sense is the coaches make a lot more, they are probably doing less than 12 games or practices per week (not sure though, and not sure how much lesson prep it requires), their time recruiting is built into the job rather than add-on time, and they are reimbursed for travel expenses for traveling around to region high schools and the like. I think that might attractive to a lot of faculty if the incorporation of recruitment could lighten their teaching load, so it could definitely help everybody and be a kind of win-win.

From learning on this board, I've been kind of shocked honestly to see how much the coaches make, so I think most professors would stand to see a pretty significant raise in quality of life and pay if the uni shifted to the coach model, and it could be pretty popular.

[VULB#62]

Thanks, Diaspora.  The head coaches make decent wages (with MBB an aberration). The assistants not really. That's why there is a lot of assistant turnover. Think dean/department head vs. instructor disparity.

Also thank you for clarifying how on the academic side faculty are actually involved in the recruitment process.  And I would like to think that applying some of the recruiting tricks done on the athletics side could benefit the academic side as well. I'm not talking travel (they pay admissions, marketing and recruitment for that) just maintaining ongoing contact with individual prospects to build bonds. 

[valpopal]

As we discuss value and viability of university assets, I believe the most interesting aspect of the Valpo Strategic Plan is the Vitalize Valpo Property Overview, which has some curious details. Especially significant is the Eastgate / Sturdy Road section for which an RFP (Request for Proposal) has already been done. While we are understandably and rightfully distracted by possibilities of a new ARC or Nursing School, my hunch is this could be the administration's more immediate main focus for near future economic development by the university.
https://vitalizevalpo.com/property-overview/

[ValpoDiaspora]

Yes, that's true... the structures/incentives for formally expecting and compensating recruitment would probably need to differ slightly for different ranks and types of programs.

For instance, let's say currently the typical humanities department chair is a full prof making $60-68K with some bump for chairing that gives them a bit extra (not sure how much more). They are often under a lot of time-pressure since they may still be teaching 2 courses a semester if they have a partial load -- but are also managing the other faculty's reviews, dealing with curriculum issues or updates, dealing with students of concern, doing the existing recruitment work, having chairs' meetings with the dean, uni service, etc. For them, time is definitely the biggest crunch, so probably the most realistic way to buy them time to do the Admissions recruiting is to give them additional course releases, like only teach 1 class per semester while the university hires other faculty to cover the difference if necessary.

For the regular lower rank faculty members making perhaps $50-55K, they are probably teaching 3 or 4 courses per semester but its a toss-up whether course release or stipend would be more helpful. For faculty teaching big gen ed courses with heavy writing/essay components and fairly high caps (like 30 students), most of them would probably also prefer the course release of the time to do the recruiting. But if they are small courses (like music classes that are fundamentally tutorial-oriented or small-group or something), maybe then maybe cash would matter more, and it could make more sense to give them a stipend or something to do additional Admissions work, so they can afford to give up their weekend income gigs and focus more on recruitment.

Another creative option would be to more formally set up a trade-off between Admissions and the departments, like if faculty could trade hours spent in the cultivation/communication with prospective students for hours where the Admissions staff could help serve as TAs to help tackle the grading. Obviously there's a lot that the admissions staff couldn't help with if it's really content-specific. But definitely they should be capable of grading multiple-choice exams, create an assignment prompts and rubrics, or mark up essay drafts for basic grammar etc to help free up the faculty to recruit. Valpo always stresses that there are no TAs and professors do everything.... but so long as they weren't actually prepping and teaching the classes, the advertising would still be true and meanwhile these 'admissions assistants' could still make a huge difference to the faculty in taking off some of the back-end load so they can take up this additional Admissions recruiting work instead.

Right now, faculty are just doing the recruiting entirely on top of their normal workload, so even if it doesn't mean raises, I think any shift towards the sports 'coach' model in this area could be a good idea to help make it more formally factored in as an expectation of faculty duty and compensation

[David81]

Diaspora's descriptions of the still brutal teaching loads at VU, matched by the truly inadequate salaries, calls into question just how much more student recruiting outreach can reasonably be expected of them.

I had assumed that, over the years, the considerable increases in tuition and expenses had at least brought the faculty into an era of slightly gentler teaching loads and better salaries. Wrongo!!! The faculty workload/salary situation hasn't improved much from the time I matriculated at VU, several decades ago.

In ways that are becoming clearer to me -- and thank you, Diaspora, for sharing these faculty experiences -- VU's sustainability continues to be carried on the backs of a very dedicated, overworked, and underpaid faculty.

[David81]

....and I will add this to what I just wrote, above. This understanding of the current state of faculty workload and compensation makes it much harder for me to justify a potential buyout of the men's basketball coach at a tag that could run between $350k-$700k.

[usc4valpo]

If Valpo cannot buyout Lottich because of insufficient, how can we stay Division 1 in athletics at this day and age?  There is no justification on keeping him based on performance, and the school need to strive on being successful rather being existent.

Also, if the faculty is overworked and underpaid, why stay?

[DejaVU]

Also, if the faculty is overworked and underpaid, why stay?

Personal circumstances can be very complicated (I hope this does not require further explanations).
A person stays on the job because he/she wants to and/or  no other options. When I say no other options I don't mean in a strict mathematical sense. I mean options that fit that personal slate of circumstances. By the way, I am not alluding to me on this. I am not in the worst position with respect to VU.


But let's put it differently: if the administration counts and rests only on those trapped into their position of VU who would otherwise leave if they could, would that kind of workforce save the university? Professors hating their lives before showing up for class? GIving up slowly and steadily and maybe work just enough to not get fired? Do you know how many times I heard "why bother?" in the last couple of years? And do you think students cannot tell? This is why I don't trust Padilla. Not because he wants to sell the paintings but because I believe the human capital is where the existential crisis is right NOW. He hopes to repair the dorm which MAY bring money in 2-3 years from which he MAY give him a way to address the compensation issues which MAY start to recover in maybe, what, 7-8 years?  that's an enternity. By then there will be another president with another crisis and another brilliant idea


So anyway, yes, if you don't like it don't take it. That's fine. Have fun with a school where everybody does not like it but must take it. Let's see how they can sell the product to increase enrollment then.

[valpo95]

It was not always obvious, yet when I was a student at VU, many (if not most) of the faculty I had in Engineering and Christ College had a strong sense of mission. They had PhDs from the best universities (Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Notre Dame, Minnesota, MIT, Chicago) yet were at VU because they wanted to teach, and they were at the Lutheran version of Notre Dame or Chicago. Many also had Lutheran roots.  The were paid well enough to have a good living (at or above most teachers, pastors or nurses for example) yet not enough to be wealthy; they could have made more if they would have been at one of those research universities or in the public sector. 

How much of the current faculty has a sense of mission, and is that mission shared by most of the faculty? Have the salaries fallen so much that they no longer are able to make a reasonable living? Or, is it that more adjuncts and part time instructors are covering the load yet have far less buy in to the mission? Does this differ by college Arts & Sciences versus Business and Engineering? Has the decline of the Lutheran ethos hit the faculty even more than the student body?

[ValpoDiaspora]

Valpo95, I think it's a combo of the explanations you offer... Yes, salaries have become unlivable in a situation where daycare and housing costs have skyrocketed so much. Yes, the uni relies more and more on VAP/temporary type instructors who may or may not have much long-term buy-in. But also, and this is the one that makes me saddest, I think most faculty and staff (even if they believe in the mission) are fairly certain that the board and administration (at least the 2020s versions) don't.

When I came to Valpo, I was really excited about teaching well, trying to make a difference in personalized attention to students, about the integration of faith and intellect, in service to the world, etc. But over time, it just became clear that the "Lutheran" mission of the institution wasn't about investing in students or trying to be some kind of leaven in the world... but rather than it just meant being really cheap.... a sort of midwestern 'cultural christianity' or corporate efficiency ideal based less in any vision of the kingdom of God and more in a kind of spindthrift effort to extract as much out of people before driving them into the ground. As faculty, I felt it in all the tumult of the salary cuts, layoffs, rising teaching loads, etc. But the students also felt and resented it in their own ways too. One of the big controversies during my time there was that the uni took away the microwaves that commuter students were using to heat up lunches in order to push more of them onto the (expensive) on-campus meal plan -- though the uni backtracked and the microwaves came back. Just an example, but that sort of cheapness and pettiness just seemed everywhere, and as a Christian, even I felt it kind of awkward to talk about 'mission.' I think things were better in CC and in Engineering where there was a greater sense of professionalism and generosity to community members, so maybe talking about Christian witness and mission made more sense there.

This is not to say there weren't real Christians or dedicated teachers committed to an educational, student-focused mission there... As I noted in an earlier post, my (Lutheran) department chair resigned his job in trying to get mine restored -- which is THE most stunning act of kenotic care for another that I've been on the receiving end of! And most the faculty I worked with on a day-to-day basis, whether religious or not, were killing themselves and burning the midnight oil trying to give students the quality education they deserved, in genuine hope that those students would grow up more thoughtful and more capable as they headed off into employed adult life.

But unfortunately, that was just not how the uni-level administration operated, and the institution overall seemed much more secular/corporate.... mostly interested in extracting more classes out of faculty being paid very little and extracting more cash out of students taking on high debt, and focused on real estate development as its main thing. Obviously the teaching faculty see education as the point of the school, but most the people in charge are working on other endeavors, so who knows if they even know what the uni mission statement is? I know in faculty hiring, people have to write up a statement and interview on commitment to the mission. But I think most the board members and top-level administrators are brought in because of their qualifications in legal counsel or real estate investing or fundraising, so they may not have to read or adhere to the mission/vision material as much if it is not part of their hiring or review process. Not sure.

Thus I think many of the faculty in the trenches, both Lutheran and of other denominations, did get pretty discouraged or dubious about the educational mission. This is probably in the background of why some are so mad about Padilla buying these new sections of land while selling the art & cutting academic programs

[DejaVU]

Have the salaries fallen so much that they no longer are able to make a reasonable living?

It's not about making the living (not necessarily at least). If you define making  living meaning having enough to eat and having shelter then yes you can live...But that's missing the point.
Let me tell you a  reliable information: right now, across the board pretty much every faculty makes around 25-35 % less than the MEDIAN salary of peer institutions...For full professors it is about 30%. We need 30% increase just to make the median of peer institution salaries...And if you look at the peer list it's not like you see Harvard's there....
Some departments cannot hire foreign faculty because H1B visa regulations apparently require a minimum income for certain professions and if they meet that minimum it would create unethical inversions: new hire earning more than the senior colleagues...I could go on...But you get the gist...

[historyman]

If Valpo cannot buyout Lottich because of insufficient, how can we stay Division 1 in athletics at this day and age?  There is no justification on keeping him based on performance, and the school need to strive on being successful rather being existent.

The question about staying Div I is one I've been thinking about for a while since Valpo can't afford the needed facility upgrades for such a long period.

[vu72]

This is probably in the background of why some are so mad about Padilla buying these new sections of land while selling the art & cutting academic programs

What?

[valpo tundra]

Valpo is selling land not buying it.

[crusadermoe]

Not sure of the land buy.  But clearly the finances and the morale are both dire.

Even though this is a sports-driven message board, we really do need to be open-minded about staying Division I in athletics without some massive donations from donors who see the marketing benefits of D-1 and have that passion.  Perhaps that clock is being given a start (now) and end date. If not, perhaps it should. Padilla clearly indicated in the New Republic article that he is publicly aiming at Nursing and and athletic facility for donor gifts.

I would recommend that the course be kept with Lottich for two more years unless he takes another job. In the meanwhile approach any donor over the next 12 months who backs the facilities vision and see if you also have the budget to raise the bar over Lottich will require $500k+ head coach and the high assistant salaries he will demand.  The clock is ticking on Valpo to take or leave that Division I fork in the road.  I may be naive, but I would guess that a great young D3 head coach might take $175-200k.

[crusadermoe]

Well, this ratio of coaching pay is far worse than I thought.

It took me only 5 minutes to find DePauw University's IRS Form 990 listing their top 16 salaries.  Only 14 people make more than $100,000. About half are professors with a few over $200,000.  The head basketball coach must make less than $100,000. 

DePauw is a highly ranked school and an enrollment of 2,161.  Valpo's enrollment is around 2,500.  Ouch!

[valpopal]

Valpo is selling land not buying it.

As I suggested in previous posts (see below), I would not be so sure about that.


***

Just to clarify for those without subscriptions, the NWI Times statement by Padilla about potential future projects is not a news story but an editorial, part of the administration's current PR campaign. I applaud the words, and I think the content sounds great.

Nevertheless, just like the president's original statement on the morning of Feb. 8 about the paintings sale, which was a PR release to get ahead of the news report in the Tribune published that day, it is possible this commentary by Padilla also might be timed to get ahead of another property-related announcement that has been rumored for weeks among faculty, in the local Valparaiso community, and in conversations with journalists. I anticipate updates, and look forward with curiosity to hearing more.

***

As we discuss value and viability of university assets, I believe the most interesting aspect of the Valpo Strategic Plan is the Vitalize Valpo Property Overview, which has some curious details. Especially significant is the Eastgate / Sturdy Road section for which an RFP (Request for Proposal) has already been done. While we are understandably and rightfully distracted by possibilities of a new ARC or Nursing School, my hunch is this could be the administration's more immediate main focus for near future economic development by the university.
https://vitalizevalpo.com/property-overview/

[wh]

Valpo undergrad professor salaries look to be highly competitive when compared to the broad spectrum of 4-year universities.

Average Faculty Salary

Valparaiso University   $66,206

National Average   $64,272
Four-years Colleges   $68,196
Master's College And University (larger Programs) Colleges   $75,240
Indiana Average   $59,386
Four-years Indiana Colleges   $65,182
Master's College And University (larger Programs) Indiana Colleges   $69,579

https://www.univstats.com/salary/valparaiso-university/faculty/#:~:text=For%20the%20academic%20year%202021-2022%2C%20at%20Valparaiso%20University%2C,from%20%2469%2C328%20to%20%2465%2C804%20over%2083%20Associate%20professors.

[ValpoDiaspora]

Valpo undergrad professor salaries look to be highly competitive when compared to the broad spectrum of 4-year universities.

Average Faculty Salary

Valparaiso University   $66,206
Master's College And University (larger Programs) Colleges   $75,240
Master's College And University (larger Programs) Indiana Colleges   $69,579

I admit I am not sure what goes into those averages, and of course they vary widely between disciplines/schools. I know for certain that new asst profs in A&S were coming in at around 50-52 these last few years (with the 5% cut and salary reduction clawback, then went down to around $48.5K for me in a humanities disciplines). I know some of the A&S meteorology folk who'd reached associate and been there a dozen or so years had over the years inched up to around the $59/60K mark through promotions. But the going rater for engineering and business school profs is a lot higher, and there are also some specialty faculty (like university level chairs) who have much nicer packages that probably pull the averages up on an institutional level.

I am not trying to argue about the internal differential between humanities vs professional schools here, just noting that the lower end can indeed be low and the averages can be higher, and both those things can be mathematically true. It can also depend on whether they submit deans as 'faculty' salaries to these syndicating websites, since obviously a couple deans making $150k+ can really help 'up' the overall institutional salary averages. And I don't think they count the adjuncts paid more like $3K per course w no benefits or the lecturers.

[DejaVU]

Reminds me a joke: if Elon Musk enters our room we will all be on average billionaires 😀

[ValpoDiaspora]

Valpo is selling land not buying it.

As I suggested in previous posts (see below), I would not be so sure about that.

ValpoPal, you're sounding cryptic and I don't really understand what you're saying. So Valpo is currently trying to buy *more* land? or sell land?

[wh]

I admit I am not sure what goes into those averages, and of course they vary widely between schools. I know for certain that new asst profs in A&S were coming in at around 50-52 these last few years (with the 5% cut and salary reduction clawback, then went down to around $48.5K for me in a humanities disciplines). I know some of the A&S meteorology folk who'd reached associate and been there a dozen or so years had over the years inched up to around the $59/60K mark through promotions.

But the going rater for engineering and business profs is a lot higher, and there are also some specialty faculty (like university level chairs) who have much nicer packages that probably pull the averages up on an institutional level.

I am not trying to argue about the differential between humanities vs professional schools here, just noting that the lower end can be low and the averages can be higher, and both those things can be mathematically true. It can also depend on whether they are counting deans as faculty salaries, since obviously a couple of those making $150k+ can really help 'up' the institutional salary averages

Hopefully, this additional information answers some of your remaining questions:

Faculty Salary By Academic Rank

A total 214 faculties (full-time instructional staffs) work at Valparaiso University, and the 2022 average salary for all faculty members is $66,206 based on a 9-month contract. VU's faculty salary decreased by 3.18% compared to 2021 salary.

For the academic year 2021-2022, at Valparaiso University:

The Professor salary is decreased by -9.01 % from $83,368 to $75,856 over 59 Professors.
The Associate professor salary is decreased by -5.08 % from $69,328 to $65,804 over 83 Associate professors.
The Assistant professor salary is increased by 1.42 % from $59,053 to $59,890 over 63 Assistant professors.
The Lecturer salary is increased by 6.28 % from $47,857 to $50,862 over 9 Lecturers.

Please refer to the link I posted above for more relevant information, such as professors on 12-month contracts are making nearly $90,000.

[crusader05]

One of the problems that Valpo has gotten into that is not unique to them. They have long tenured and serving faculty who have good paychecks but not the extra income to keep new faculty on par with their peer institutions so they gap between the have and have nots have gotten much bigger. Without some of our older faculty retiring or moving on the ability to increase the pay at the lower levels (which seem to be where you have significant underpayment) remains difficult. Combine that with the fact that tenured positions are safe from being let go short of a closing down of their program and you have a situation that make it hard to deal with that problem without spending a lot of money you don't have at the moment. I know several people who work at the institution still although the number has definitely dwindled and one say that there were head of departments making more than double what the next person made and that them leaving freed up a ton of money to help level some salary issues. This is why I don't know why they didn't do the ERIP first like DePauw did vs go for the cuts that really seem to have left a lot of the bitter taste in people's mouths.

Also, buying some land for 2 million if it will be used to develop a new college is not necessarily a problem for me. The university is not "broke" and any plan to move forward is likely to require both cutting and spending in different ways and areas. It also means nothing to me in relation to the art sale because 2 million is nowhere near 10 million and proof the university can spare one is not proof it can spare the other.