Better still. In calendar 2023, Heckler got $500,000+ of "Bobby Bonilla money" Wonder if/when that ended?.
The source of salry is VU's 2023 non-profit IRS 990 filing. Lottich at $400k/year in 2023 now has an end point. So two of the 3 highest paid people in 2023 were not working in most of the year. Padilla being #3.
Rez, I think the 5,000 student enrollment "Heckler scam" was worse. His 2013 a strategic plan called for 6,000 students. Then they borrowed to build facilities for that enrollment. Didn't anyone research the enrollment cliff back then? The kids were already born.
The projection of a possible student population of 6,000 in 2013 was based upon the current rising enrollment, which reached above 4,500 in 2015. Then the university encountered a perfect storm of events.
The optimistic outlook occurred when the Law School was fully functioning. However, in 2013, Dean Conison left to go elsewhere. In 2014-2015 the Law School instituted a grading curve. In 2015, the university was exposed for reducing admission standards in recent years to meet lower enrollment applications. In 2016, the New York Times published an extensive hit piece on the Law School, and the ABA temporarily censured the Law School (it was lifted in 2017). In 2017, the Law School announced it would close.
The hope of a 6,000 student population relied heavily on international students, particularly from the Middle East, China, and India, as well as a cohort from Central America. In 2015, the campus was filled with such students. However, due to changing global conditions, that supply dried up in the following years, especially when Covid occurred in 2020 and announcement of the Confucius Institute closure in 2021.The domestic undergraduate enrollment cliff also began to be felt by 2019.
As for the comment about the Lottich and Heckler salary continuation: Padilla says last year was the final installment for each.
Rez, I think the 5,000 student enrollment "Heckler scam" was worse. His 2013 a strategic plan called for 6,000 students. Then they borrowed to build facilities for that enrollment. Didn't anyone research the enrollment cliff back then? The kids were already born.
Yes, they borrowed to build during the Heckler administration.
$42.1M (a term loan in 2014) and thus far VU has paid interest only and the balance is still $42.1M
$37.5M (a term loan in 2017) with a current balance of $36.7M
A note in 2011 with a current balance of $610K (not sure of the original amount)
A note in 2020 with a current balance of $787K (not sure of the original amount)
I also can't tell how much of the current line of credit amount was incurred during the Heckler administration. Those lines of credit get turned over into new lines of credit and/or term loans so that history is not available.
So for lack of a better term, the school saw a light at the end of the tunnel, but that light was really the glow of the "Springfield Tire Fire" with Heckler being the proverbial Mr. Burns
@valpopal, I disagree that the Law School was somehow part of a perfect storm. The Law School (and associated tuition) certainly helped cover many expenses at VU.
However it is not a perfect storm in my opinion; many law schools faced substantial challenges in the mid-2010's and had to be subsidized by their parent institutions. Yet this was well-known and obvious and happened over several years of incoming classes and declining demand for law degrees. Heckler is responsible for the complete black eye that University suffered under his watch due to the Law School.
@valpopal, I disagree that the Law School was somehow part of a perfect storm. The Law School (and associated tuition) certainly helped cover many expenses at VU.
V95, I have not had the sense that the Law School 'helped cover many expenses at VU.' Maybe there was a season maaaany decades ago where it was bringing net positive $ to the university, but not in memorable history. The law profs were always among the costliest, highest paid employees at the university (rank and file Law faculty receiving salaries even on par with top VP/Dean administrators, upwards of 3-5x the salaries of faculty elsewhere around the university) while the Law School tuition sticker price was similar or a bit lower than the undergrad tuition (like in the mid $30ks before they closed). Certainly for the last few years when enrollment was plummeting, the Law School was severe financial drain on the rest of the university, and it was not sustainable to use undergrad revenue to keep the Law School open.
The hope of a 6,000 student population relied heavily on international students, particularly from the Middle East, China, and India, as well as a cohort from Central America. In 2015, the campus was filled with such students. However, due to changing global conditions, that supply dried up in the following years, especially when Covid occurred in 2020 and announcement of the Confucius Institute closure in 2021.The domestic undergraduate enrollment cliff also began to be felt by 2019.
I do think it's somewhat understandable that VU (like a lot of schools) thought international student enrollment might continue strong. It's easy to forget how much has changed in the last decade, but in 2013 Xi Jinping was just coming to power, the 2016 Trump win was not yet on anybody's radar, US school shootings and gun violence and police violence had not yet become standard fare in news about the US among international/foreign news networks, and the QS type rankings systems/values had not yet gone totally global yet. Granted, there were probably already some big-picture reasons to doubt the long-term international student flow, like the overall rise in the number and quality of institutions in E and S E Asia that would inevitably begin to seem like closer/better options for international students than coming to the US, and we all probably should have been more attentive to undercurrents of growing nationalisms abroad and here in the US. But overall, I imagine that in 2013, it still felt like a continuation of the early 2000s. I wasn't at Valpo at the time, but I was in grad school in various US universities where there were (and still are) very strong international student populations and globally-focused programs, and nobody really anticipated the swing towards nationalisms/localism we've seen. We thought we were in a post 9-11 world where the US remained the obvious powerhouse, and global connections and expertise in international relations & intercultural issues were going to matter or be valued more, rather than less. As we head into a second Trump term, all that definitely seems naive in retrospect, but I just think VU was making its strategic planning unwittingly at a juncture in 2013 where people didn't realize we were nearing the end of a certain model of universities (especially US universities) being seen as hubs of international exchange. Of course the Harvards and Cambridges and Peking Universities of the world will always draw that sort of international student flow, but probably it was an anomaly that relatively small rural colleges in the US were were drawing so many international undergrads for a season.
Perhaps the looked feasible at the time. But somewhere in that discussion there must have been a realization that they would severely dilute the historic mission/motto of the university, "In Thy Light We See Light," and to follow the truth wherever that might lead.
The populations of China, Saudi Arabia, and India don't seem to have foretold a new cohort of students who had least could balance a Christian worldview of Athens and Jerusalem. in fact their dominant religiions are quite strongly antagonistic as dominant Atheist, Muslim, and Hindu. Are these folks open to the mission above? Would they take part in worship in the core building on the campus, the chapel? Donors funded major programs in Lutheran or at least western ethics and music. Yet it was cast aside to chase a new and unproven student source.
I went back to check a news release by VU in 2016 (see below) that gives an indication of the positive atmosphere on campus about enrollment at that time. I remember the cheerful tone of faculty and administrative meetings at that time, the increases in budgets. All that seems so distant now. Likewise, 2015-2016 was the year of the great Valpo basketball team led by Alec Peters that had a 30-7 overall record. A new building was opened almost every year during about a decade in time: Christopher Center Library, Harre Union, Fites Engineering, Arts & Sciences Building, Welcome Center, Beacon Hall, Helge Center, Sorority Housing Complex, etc. The future looked bright....
"With 4,544 undergraduate, graduate and law students, Valpo’s total enrollment is at the highest level in 41 years. Total graduate enrollment, at 916 students, is the largest since the Graduate School’s inception in 1963. As Valpo prepares students to enter an increasingly globalized workforce, it has increased the diversity of its student body. International student enrollment is at 727 students, the highest level in the University’s history. The total percentage of undergraduate American minorities is also at its highest level at 19 percent."
I have said this once before but I will say it again. We, as Christians, are meant to be welcoming to those who may not have the same beliefs as us. Jesus himself regularly communed with those who did not share his believes. With those who were both more and less fortunate than him. With those labeled as stains and blights on society. To claim that the school is loosing its mission, or was going away from its mission by accepting people into its ranks who may hold different beliefs, who at the same time would have been accepted by the Lord made flesh, is a disservice to him and to the institution itself. It matters not where people come from, it only matters that they chose to come in the first place and commune with those who are different than them. You might as well post a "Lutherans Only (LCMS preferred)" sign outside campus and barr any students from attending for daring to step foot inside St. T's
Well stated Rez.
The university's mission IS NOT to attract students and have them adhere to a certain religious dogma. Realist, you somehow think that students need to partake in worship to align with the mission? Valpo's mission is to help young people develop in ways that allow them to lead successful and meaningful personal and professional lives. The religious aspect of Valpo supports this and is a valuable part of student development for SOME, BUT FAR FROM ALL students. This is how Valpo has been since I was a student there in the early 1980s.
Seeking students from other countries was a good strategy that was followed by many universities. My guess is that few, if any, people here would not have aggressively pursued students who would pay full tuition. I would say that there many have been excessive reliance on this stream of students and little consideration of scenarios where this source of students would dramatically decline. Beyond the business side, I am confident that the students from the Middle East, China, etc. contributed to the Valparaiso University community.
2006- 631/450/24/98 1203
2010- 442/334/21/117 914
2014- 419/249/25/131 824
2018- 280/158/12/159 609
2022- 78/58/6/198 340
2024- 51/34/4/159 248
These are the total number of Lutheran students at Valpo since 2006 (LCMS, ELCA, WELS, unknown/others).
The problem is that Valpo had a niche market which they completely abandoned. I’m not sure if that was intentional or by negligence. They’ve ceded the field and those students are going elsewhere.
These numbers are kind of disingenuous in my opinion. By n Large a lot of my generation simply doesn't align with religious affiliation to as high of a degree as previous generations. The ECLA saw a drop of about 3 million members in the span of 2010 to 2024. LCMS, depending on who you ask. Has either stagnated at 1.7 million members, or dropped to below 1 million. Even so St. Paul's has seen a severe drop in attendees each Sunday, as well as St T's and Emanuel. Heck, the largest crowd I saw at Emanuel in recent years was for a funeral of a well respected member of the Valpo community. There is a reason that a lot of formerly affiliated universities have swapped to the interdenominational format. Unless your history with a denomination is extensive and historic, and you have much more to offer beyond your religious affiliations, (IE Notre Dame) that well is going to continue to dry up. Lets not forget, Valpo was not originally a Lutheran school and has only been such for about 100 years now. There is 1/3 of school history that is time unaffiliated with Lutherans. Valpo does have a niche market, but that market is drying up rapidly. The school don't want another incident adjacent to the law school where the university kept milking a dry cow until the cow spontaneously combusted.
DISCLAIMER: I am not suggesting VU attempt to go to the interdenominational model. I am merely suggesting that a hard sell to Lutherans and only Lutherans is going to come up empty
@realist77 I don't really get the 'dilute' argument, since it's not like enrolling international students (which, sure, meant bringing non-religious or other-religious students to campus, but also brought many international Christian or open-to-Christianity students as well) in any way prevented the enrollment of domestic regional white Lutheran/Christian students. The university was trying to EXPAND enrollment, so it's not like international students were taking anybody's seat. Insofar as the international students were generally full-pay, they were often subsidizing the domestic student body and helping a great deal with overall budgetary cashflow.
If the university failed to make targeted efforts to recruit domestic Christian students from the traditional midwestern Lutheran constituencies (and I do think Admissions dropped the ball on that), that's it's own issue and failure -- not one caused by the effort to also enroll international students.
Valpo does have a niche market, but that market is drying up rapidly.
Shrinking, sure. Drying up? You’re talking about a religion with millions of active members. And many more who have ties, but otherwise might not be active.
Valpo’s troubles are self-inflicted.
This is a matter of institutional focus, not on cultural ranking. So the compassion and outreach concept are moot.
If Notre Dame was asked by its president or board to increase its enrollment by 30% and do it quickly by largely recruiting students from China and Saudi Arabia, I do suspect the ND faculty might feel like the context of their A&S classes had just shifted dramatically.
You can't be all things to all people. A strategic identity is needed no matter which one you choose. It gives you a shared vision for strategic planning. Then the organization can build specifics.
This metaphor of VU to a business strategy will break down almost instantly..... But let's say that you have run a successful family Italian restaurant in a small city for decades. There are two other comparable Italian ones who do it well. Then over 30 years public trends start to move to broad menu generic American fare. But there are 30 of those in your town.
So......do you stay focused on your core identity and double down on quality and marketing? Or.... do you decide to remake your identity and jump into the American fare restaurant market as a new 31st one in that category?
