Valpo Strategic Plan

[valpopal]

Mark my words. You and your fellow faculty members will never see those paintings again.

It is peculiarly remarkable that you appear proud of your comment, as well as the various ramifications for strained university relations, internally and externally.

More accurately, I'm proud of President Padilla. I would be hard pressed to think of another white collar workforce that more deserved to be put in their place than the aforementioned group of faculty rabble rousers. They have damaged Valparaiso University and embarrassed themselves in the process.

Sadly, President Padilla has created a campus climate in which he seemingly needs to stealthily pilfer paintings without consulting the curator and director of the museum for consent or even advising the faculty senate, let alone notifying the individual who acquired all the university's artworks and for whom the museum is named. The atmosphere he has fostered is now so filled with friction that Padilla signals he cannot confide in the faculty or the museum director. He is like Captain Queeg. What kind of image is it when a university administration openly doesn't trust its employees or the security of its own museum, which houses millions of dollars of donors' gifts? Apparently, you are proud of the antipathy now present because of his words and actions, perhaps because it reflects your repeatedly expressed antipathy toward faculty who must "be put in their place."

[DejaVU]

At this point Padilla MUST sell the damn thing. If he caves now, after this stupid long battle, he would prove his is ultimately vulnerable to pressures like this. I was in a meeting when he stood his ground on this issue and he explained he does have the authority to do this and he is not required to ask for consent of faculty, etc, etc. So what I don't understand is why half measures and this poor attempt of trying to explain himself via these memos.

It is also possible that this relocation of these pieces is a middle finger shown to John Ruff and the likes to show them that "not selling" does not guarantee the art is in the museum. So for all practical purposes the Museum looks now as if the art was sold. To the public makes no difference if it is sold or hidden in a basement. Out of sight out of mind.

As I said in earlier posts, what is more damaging now is the distraction from other vital issues by making this issue the stupidest hill to die on.

[valpopal]

I would be hard pressed to think of another white collar workforce that more deserved to be put in their place than the aforementioned group of faculty rabble rousers.

Object to their position if you wish, but keep in mind that the trio leading opposition to the art sale on ethical grounds are Dick Brauer, John Ruff, and Phil Brockington, among the most revered members of the Valparaiso community, on campus or off campus, who have selflessly dedicated their lives to the university—contributed decades of their time, unending energy, and millions of dollars. Brauer is a beloved legend who transformed the university by taking the art collection from absolutely nothing to a prestigious museum housing world-class works, which also made construction of the whole Center for the Arts building possible as well. Together, these three men have more than 100 years of unblemished ethical service to the university. They are the people you label with the derogatory term of "rabble rousers."

[crusadermoe]

I certainly side with the board and president.  And the law certainly does. 

But what a PR disaster to steal them away shortly before Homecoming. it gives faculty and students a chance to complain and protest to our alumni.  Maybe they can get some TV cameras out if they march down Union Street. 

However,....its' truly possible that they have received threats from a deranged individual. You may know there have been several young nut job climate change activists who have ruined prized paintings in our major world museums over the past few years. So maybe an unstable 20-year-old at VU sees a chance for glory?  Art students are not known for steady rationale thinking. 

[valpopal]

However,....its' truly possible that they have received threats from a deranged individual. You may know there have been several young nut job climate change activists who have ruined prized paintings in our major world museums over the past few years. So maybe an unstable 20-year-old at VU sees a chance for glory?  Art students are not known for steady rationale thinking.

If that is the case and such a step is truly deemed necessary to protect the artworks by even removing them from the safety of the museum vault to an undisclosed location off campus, why wouldn't the administration have the curator and museum director—the professional responsible for security of the museum's holdings and someone who has credibility with those in opposition to the sale—agree and sign on to the action? Or is that just too sensible?

[vu72]

to the collapse of Heckler's crazy 6000-student house of cards?

I have zero idea what the Board or Mark Heckler thought about the 6000 student plan or what influences they expected to get to such a goal.  However, of you look at the facts, those that some on this board find difficult, here are a few to consider perhaps.

When Mark Heckler took office in 2008 the student body, as posted by 22, was 3,782.  By 2013, roughly 40% through his tenure, the number had grown to 4,310 or an increase of 14% and and had been steadily growing for four straight years.  Not sure when the targeted 6000 was planned but on this growth curve it isn't beyond the realm of possibilities in a pre-covid world.

[valpo95]

There is much that the Heckler administration did not understand, and it seems like they went out of their way to not understand.  This included attempts to grow the student body while reducing student selectivity in the face of a foreseeable demographic cliff. Trying to maintain the law school (and the reputation) by admitting more and more unqualified students, being utterly surprised when that didn't work and taking a hit to the reputation of the university. Building several new buildings funded only with increased debt (and debt service, see below). Alienating at least some of their traditional pipeline of applicants from LCMS high schools. Operating with annual structural budget deficits.

Part of the reason that President Padilla is in such a bind is that there is next to no borrowing capacity left. The June 2022 financial statements showed $105M of notes and bonds payable. In specific, only $2.5M of the $82.7M principle had been repaid from the 2014 and 2017 bonds (including none of the $42M 2014 IFA Educational Facilities Revenue Bond). There were two lines of credit (one expiring 10/31/2023) with $11M borrowed, and another expiring on 11/29/2022 with $10M borrowed. Both of the lines of credit were at interest rates of 2.05% (LIBOR + 60bp). Today, those lines of credit would cost the University 6% or so. To put it in perspective, the University incurred $4.3M of interest expenses in 2022 against $48.6M net tuition and fees, and I'm guessing that the interest expenses would be worse for FY 2023. So, when dorms need to be re-done to attract students, if the funds can't be raised from donors, there is little chance of borrowing more money. 

I'm sure President Heckler had fun spending the money, and dedicating the new buildings. It is like President Padilla is the one who has to clean up after the morning after a house party.     

[crusadermoe]

Wow, your homework is extensive. Here is very quick math on the two lines of credit that total $21 million and expired Nov. 22 and Oct. 2023.  Raising the cost of the interest payments from 2% to 6% would add $800,000 per year in additional carried interest.  So on a per student basis, the interest cost of these two bonds alone is $300-400 per student. 

Yes, the Fed rates are now compounding the nightmare of the VU debt Padilla faces as he cleans up the mess. He will move on in 3-4 years. The position was a "no lose" situation to land a President job for all the reasons above. He came in with eyes wide open.  He will end up heading a large state university somewhere by 2027.  So I think selling the artwork might be paying off bonds as much as building a new dorm (which may not be needed.)

[vu72]

Not here to defend Heckler or those who helped develop the plan.  I just find it interesting to look back and perhaps take a closer look at what the critical mistakes were so they don't happen again. Here is a Torch article on the plan dated 10/25/2013:

http://www.valpotorch.com/news/article_5a54cc80-3d7d-11e3-aa55-0019bb30f31a.html

Interestingly enough, the bigger mistake was assuming the Graduate programs would grow to 1500 versus the undergrad goal of 4500. Obviously, the grad portion included maintaining 400 or so in the law school.

[David81]

There is much that the Heckler administration did not understand, and it seems like they went out of their way to not understand.  This included attempts to grow the student body while reducing student selectivity in the face of a foreseeable demographic cliff. Trying to maintain the law school (and the reputation) by admitting more and more unqualified students, being utterly surprised when that didn't work and taking a hit to the reputation of the university. Building several new buildings funded only with increased debt (and debt service, see below). Alienating at least some of their traditional pipeline of applicants from LCMS high schools. Operating with annual structural budget deficits.

Part of the reason that President Padilla is in such a bind is that there is next to no borrowing capacity left. The June 2022 financial statements showed $105M of notes and bonds payable. In specific, only $2.5M of the $82.7M principle had been repaid from the 2014 and 2017 bonds (including none of the $42M 2014 IFA Educational Facilities Revenue Bond). There were two lines of credit (one expiring 10/31/2023) with $11M borrowed, and another expiring on 11/29/2022 with $10M borrowed. Both of the lines of credit were at interest rates of 2.05% (LIBOR + 60bp). Today, those lines of credit would cost the University 6% or so. To put it in perspective, the University incurred $4.3M of interest expenses in 2022 against $48.6M net tuition and fees, and I'm guessing that the interest expenses would be worse for FY 2023. So, when dorms need to be re-done to attract students, if the funds can't be raised from donors, there is little chance of borrowing more money. 

I'm sure President Heckler had fun spending the money, and dedicating the new buildings. It is like President Padilla is the one who has to clean up after the morning after a house party.     

The Law Faculty thought they could pull off a miracle by applying VU Law's highly personal instructional approach to classes of students with median LSAT scores at a level that predicts, with fair accuracy, serious difficulty passing a bar exam. It was either that or (1) admit tiny entering classes (we're talking ~40-60 students, an unsustainably low number); and/or (2) heavily tax the other components of the University to provide largely tuition free scholarships to students who otherwise might go to a higher-ranked law school (think DePaul, Loyola, Chicago-Kent, IU-Indianapolis, etc.).

As a relatively small law school even during its heyday (~500 students total), VU Law didn't have much room to shrink until it started running into trouble. When the ravages of the Great Recession hit the legal profession, the impact on law school applications was brutal, and schools like VU were especially vulnerable. It was a no-win situation.

(Even today, there are still smaller, lower-ranked law schools on virtual life support, draining money from their parent universities and on the brink of closing -- longer-range casualties of the Great Recession.)

[usc4valpo]

Valpopal - how Padilla removed the artwork with letting anyone know appears to be lacking tact. however, I would bet the there would be discussion and resistance from the director and curator to continue the selling process.

Sometimes you just got to move forward, and if Valpo needs dorms to stay alive and that is the decision and direction, then move on.

[crusader05]

Yeah it's pretty clear the optics were: remove the paintings quietly now or wait until the sale goes through and risk removing them with a large protest outside. I believe that, especially how the potential sale was blown up by someone catching wind to the exploration of it and telling people, there's probably not a lot of trust that they would have been able to be removed quietly with the directors cooperation.

You can't both be a rebel and demand civility in dealings. I don't have issues necessarily with the protests anger law suits et al. Hiding messy stuff under the rug isn't a good way to do things either and ironically, it feels like this threat has caused faculty and others to actually seem to embrace and promote and use the museum in more public ways than I had every seen. But....no one has really "fought fair" in this, the choice is: to sell or not to sell and both sides are acting based on what they believe the best move is right now.

I am on team sell just because the state of our freshman dorms is absolutely abysmal and falling compared to competitors and renovating is much cheaper than rebuilding.

[DejaVU]

Regarding the mistake Heckler did in aiming to grow to a 6000 enrollment school. I am a senior faculty so I do remember some of those faculty meetings with Heckler. My impression at the time, as a person who is not an administrator (my competence is in the classroom) , was that he wasted  an enormous amount of time to get input from everyone regarding the plan for the future. He said in one meeting that to be sustainable we either keep the present programs but we need to grow to 6000 or we become a small university of say 1500 but then programs must disappear. What should we do?

But see, this is why we hire administrators who (should be) are better positioned to steer the herd to the right direction. Cause when he asked that question it was like those surveys on the street asking questions like: do you want keep the benefits as they are and increase funds to cover them or do you want to cut them and be sustainable with what we have? And folks of course will choose the former. Because the choice is presented as equally likely and possible.
You ask a bunch of faculty, some of them disconnected from the real world, of course they will say sure let's grow to 6000 and keep the programs. Why not 7000 while we are at it.

But now, in retrospect, I really blame Heckler for not giving the tough talk when it was needed.  INstead he jumped ship just in time and he's still pulling over 500K (probably deferred pay or some sort of severance) as of last tax filling, ironically, nearly just as much as the current president.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/350868125/202311319349304436/full
One is in the lifeboat the other still on Titanic's deck, same pay.

Anyway, if Padilla manages to save this place, his portrait should be in Brauer Museum in place of O'Keeffee but I don't hold my breath

[KreitzerSTL]

Fairly common for senior administrators to be retained as advisors after a transition year.

Whether Padilla is actively seeking Heckler's advice is another question.

[David81]

Yes, and also the Law School was extraordinarily expensive to run, with some of the Law professors and deans making in the $200s or even 300s range. To have such sky-high costs for running the law school and yet such dubious results in terms of the NY Times article covering how law graduates couldn't get jobs at all, etc.... It just was not tenable and would not have been fair to tax the other colleges heavily to keep it running and keep paying those kinds of salaries. The various other colleges had full-time faculty making more like $40-70K (CAS/CC) or maybe $80-100K (professional schools) depending on rank/seniority and, despite worries over admissions standards, could still often see the BA/BS alumni surpass the faculty in earnings after graduation.

Even taking into account that tenured law professors generally earn significantly higher salaries than peers in Arts & Sciences,  those law school salaries are very high given the cost of living in Valparaiso (no longer cheap, but not a major urban area). But the salaries aren't what sunk the school. It was the sharp downturn in law school applications and VU getting caught in the vortex. You could've sliced the salaries in half and given the savings over to scholarships and it wouldn't have been enough to save the school. (In fact, when it became clear that the Law School had to shrink its enrollment considerably, a lot of senior faculty -- presumably including a good number of higher paid folks -- took a retirement package.)

[crusadermoe]

Skimming through the salaries...yes the Heckler $500,000 is a major bloat and boat anchor.  But it was probably negotiated severance and contractual.  Count me impressed by finance and advancement career salaries. Good for them.  But good for VU? There are three finance people at these high levels. 

The big question for me is this.  The big "Forever Valpo" campaign total was great for touting it across the media. But what amount inside that big $300 million number is/was eligible for paying the ever-increasing salaries and underwrite annual grants?

[crusadermoe]

Sorry Valpo22.  I guess my sarcasm on the high salaries for finance folk missed the mark. 

Your post on the museum going back several posts was epic.  And you bring great perspectives that seem really fair to all.  If you are a 2022 grad (....a very young dunehawk), you have figured out a lot very early in life.

[David81]

Skimming through the salaries...yes the Heckler $500,000 is a major bloat and boat anchor.  But it was probably negotiated severance and contractual.  Count me impressed by finance and advancement career salaries. Good for them.  But good for VU? There are three finance people at these high levels. 

The big question for me is this.  The big "Forever Valpo" campaign total was great for touting it across the media. But what amount inside that big $300 million number is/was eligible for paying the ever-increasing salaries and underwrite annual grants?

As is typical for a capital campaign, most of the contributions are for specified purposes, and many of the contributions are in the form of pledges and bequests. (This is not a reality limited to VU; it's standard for most fundraising campaigns of this nature, especially schools drawing heavily upon successful upper-middle income folks rather than higher levels of wealth.)

Accordingly, there's usually not much available for annual operating expenses, including salaries, from these campaigns. However, the income from these gifts can allow the University to shift funding sources for line items on a budget, whereby campaign gifts can cover budgeted items, thus potentially freeing up other funds for everyday expenditures.

[wh]

Porter County judge hears arguments to dismiss Valpo University paintings lawsuit

https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/education/judge-hears-arguments-to-dismiss-vu-paintings-lawsuit/article_3830dd04-5d81-11ee-aac3-57b8180b0d91.html#tracking-source=home-top-story

[VULB#62]

Thanks for this timely update. Regardless of legal decisions, VU needs to move forward as fast as possible. This thing is eating up valuable time.

[wh]

Press Release: Art sale at standstill
Caitlynn Shipe Sep 27, 2023 Updated Sep 27, 2023

(0) comments

http://www.valpotorch.com/news/article_c626f186-5d75-11ee-bca3-9f062908f777.html

This story from the Torch has been posted for a week. Apparently, Valpo's resident faculty problem children forgot to manufacture even 1 comment from troubled students the way they manufactured 4-5k signatures for their petition last spring. There aren't that many people on planet earth that care about this "issue."

The next thing I want to see are construction crews on site. IMO this is an outstanding enhancement to Valpo's residential housing options that will turn heads of prospective students and their families. Enough with the game playing. Let's get on with it.

[DejaVU]

There aren't that many people on planet earth that care about this "issue."  Enough with the game playing. Let's get on with it.

To digress a little, this quote reminds something I noticed in the last years. THe "algorithm" (for lack of a better word) that handles the invisible cord that connects people's brain and their phone, reached this point where any "crisis" cannot last too long in the prime real estate area of those brains. Every single day there is a queue of "issues" that demand emotions, involvement, notification checks, likes, comments, emojis and other toys of mental stimulation.


A consequence from this is that pretty much every crisis has much shorter lifespan. It's not like it goes away completely but it moves quickly from high intensity to almost an afterthought. LAst semester I had these students in my classroom wearing various ribbons and pins to support keeping the painting. This semester I don't hear anything about it from them and, from a cursory look, it maybe the last thing in their minds.


This information overload is poorly understood but it explains many things including the stuff that I care about like teaching: it is harder and harder to make folks focus exclusively  on a learning activity for at least 10 freaking minutes or to care about something for more than a month or so. With so many "crises" lined up in the smartphone notification list, past semester might as well be ancient history

[historyman]

With so many "crises" lined up in the smartphone notification list, past semester might as well be ancient history

Some of us love ancient history or even recent ancient history. 

[valpopal]

There aren't that many people on planet earth that care about this "issue."

The current issue of the Torch seems to dispute your statement. According to a lengthy front-page article, the petition against the art sale lists verified signatures of approximately 2,700 students, faculty, and alums. This report also mentions the four national art associations that have opposed the art sale as unethical. Newspaper reports throughout the nation, including in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, have initiated further outside opposition to this move, which is guaranteed to create greater negative publicity and damage the reputation of the university additionally if the sale proceeds.

Elsewhere in the Torch, students report apparent censorship of protest at the university. The administration stealthily pilfered the artworks from the museum—without approval or even notification of the museum's director and curator, responsible for the status and condition of the paintings—during the week before homecoming so that they would not be on display for returning alumni. Then the alumni dinner seemingly was relocated from the VUCA to the Union, again to distance the gathering from the art museum. Further, students who showed up to distribute protest fliers at the alumni dinner were taken away from the event by police, had their materials confiscated, and were told they would be arrested if they even spoke to any attendees. According to Chief Garber, these actions were taken at the direction of the university president. As a dedicated free speech advocate, I believe no matter what your stand is on this issue (or any other), this is not the proper conduct of an administration at a liberal arts university.       

[wh]

President Padilla is trying to prevent you and your faculty friends from self destructing. I know you can't understand that, but you will thank him some day when clearer heads prevail and the university gets back on track. Trust the process.