@valpo95 Wouldn’t it be more logical to install a new president at the beginning of the 2025-26 academic year rather than wait for the mid-year?
At the end of the day, they need to find someone who is going to facilitate healthy relationships between the board and the faculty. A large reason, from my outside perspective, on why Padilla failed as a president despite having a healthy resume is that he alienated the faculty. I understand that drastic measures needed to be taken, and I supported a large amount of these measures, however the letter from the staff was that these decisions would be made and they would have to just sit back and watch. I think if staff had a lot more feedback on why these decisions occurred, the pushback could have been softened.
@david81 I don’t know, David, if there will be any kind of rising-tide-floats-all-boats effect here that might help with the transition to a new president, but recently released DOE figures indicate that we are experiencing an upswing in college enrollments nationally this year which, hopefully carries over to this coming Fall.
@vulb62 yes, a bigger pool cannot hurt. Perhaps it reflects some of the young folks who delayed college during the pandemic and those caught up in the FAFSA mess who opted out for a year or two???
But it's really on VU to select the right leader and -- as we've talked about soooooo much on this board 😀 -- whether the university can more effectively sell the marketing message with VU's genuine strengths to the potentially receptive applicants.
@valpo95 Wouldn’t it be more logical to install a new president at the beginning of the 2025-26 academic year rather than wait for the mid-year?
I agree with you, having a new president by August would be good. That said, unless there is an internal or known candidate, it will take some time; time moves slowly in academia especially if the president-elect is under contract somewhere else. In addition, if it is an outside candidate, that person needs some time to get to know the institution, the key leaders, the students, the donors, etc.
Whether the candidate starts in August or January, one key is for the new president to have a good relationship with the board and board chair. It wouldn't be good for there to be division in the board about whom to hire, then have the supportive board chair retire soon after. Having the incoming board chair involved with the presidential search is one way to improve the outcome.
I like the idea of an academic start in August. In reality August is the true start of an academic year, and you have the summer to make the transition, get Padilla out and the new person in.
A mid-year start is something of a lost year, IMO, though I've noticed that for both admin and faculty moves, it has become more common over the years.
There's something about the opening fall build-up on a university campus that tells me that I'd want my new prez on board at that point.
FWIW, I don't think there are too many enrollees still coming in after having deferred during COVID. The current incoming classes were just in middle school when COVID started (weird to think about!)
The revised statistics on national college enrollment is heartening and should give pause to any US higher ed administrators inclined to just deterministically kill everything based on doom-and-gloom projections. On the one hand, it seems most the 2024 bump was at community colleges and public universities so regional privates like Valpo shouldn't get too excited about a boost. VU has a steep battle ahead even just to stop the enrollment slide, let alone grow. But on the other hand, it does show that the GenZs still fundamentally do see college as a valuable or necessary path to take in some form or fashion. There are prospective students out there!
Yes, it would be great to have a president start in the Fall if feasible. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that VU has a chance to turn a new page and do something other than conflict and decline. With multiple key positions to be filled, there's a lot of potential upside at the moment?
One other positive note (I guess I'm feeling cheery this morning) is I've seen a couple VU faculty colleagues on higher ed social media commenting about salary compression, with apparently a few recent replacement hires getting offers on par with people coming up for tenure or in the associate ranks... Of course the salary compression problem is a serious one and mid-career folk are still not getting any raises/adjustments and probably never going to catch up with market rates. But if it's true that current hiring is bringing in new hires notably higher (admittedly, this was just 2 anecdotes), that's a good thing on a macro-scale for the university. It has not been institutionally sustainable these past few decades to be pitching offers at 1980s starting salaries, 20-30% below even the averages of other relatively poor and struggling 'peer institutions.' Even if it means current faculty are kind of screwed and a bit pissy about getting passed over, it would be great if the uni did actually start to make up ground and operate less embarrassingly/difunctionally with the new generations of employees.
Let's be functional, guys! (maybe that can be new uni administration's motto!)
Couple of things. No matter how you slice it, the fact that enrollment is up nationally is another damning thing about this current administration of VU that takes credit for any morsel of success (after a tortured re-definition of the word) and blaming failures on trends, FAFSA issues or bad weather.
Regarding salary compression. I'm gonna be as vague as possible in the interest of anonymity but the issue of having new hires earning as much as senior associate or full professors in the same field is really not to be taken lightly. Because this is yet nail in the coffin of the morale. Far more damaging than it may seem. We are talking in some cases not just about seniority but quality as well. Folks that earned merit ratings year after year and still being below a new hire salary. Because the underpayment was left to fester for decades, now of course VU is in a bind because it has to fill a necessary new position. So then it chooses the demoralizing method: pay enough to get the new person and show the middle finger to the existing one. In fact, probably they would love the senior person to leave if they want and can.
It's again this crisis of a combination of bad faith and lack of creativity. Why not for example propose increasing the teaching load with extra pay for the existing faculty on a case by case situation. Say you need a new hire, you cannot get one with the current level of junior position salary. Then propose to that department that some folks take on extra teaching hours (if they want and can), and pay them extra. This need not be a permanent solution and a new hire can still be sought if and after the salary compression is resolved. One should at least TRY an ethical solution.
At these trying times when people ponder whether VU will close or not, of course, this issue with salaries seems like not urgent enough but in the long run it's still a cancer that slowly spreads in sync with other ailments
@dejavu, Yeah, I do agree with you on all of the above.
I guess I'm just feeling not cynical for once because a) I truly didn't see the Padilla/Board leadership change coming, so was surprised by that and do wonder if there's some chance for institutional improvement, and b) My kids didn't wake me up at all last night and I've had a lot of caffeine already this morning, so I'm feeling great, haha!
With regard to loyal and accomplished senior professors and salary compression issues, I and other colleagues at my university feel your pain. For many years following the Great Recession, our salary structure for current profs was essentially in freeze or minimal, not-even-COLA mode. Furthermore, although there are plenty of super solid people on the teaching market, the new and lateral "stars" (yes, quotes used intentionally) we've sought drives up salaries for new hires.
At least at the law school where I teach, many of those shiny new hires see their gig with us as a chance to "write their way up" to a higher ranked law school, and more than a few (predictably) have done so. In the meantime, many senior faculty, a good number of whom have stayed despite scholarly achievements that could open doors elsewhere, find themselves feeling undervalued in terms of compensation. (We've also got issues with sky high executive salaries despite a lack of strong fundraising, but I'll put that aside for now, because it's not healthy for me to dwell on them on a Friday afternoon.)
Similarities aside, I do think that Valpo has long exploited its most committed and accomplished faculty when it comes to what's in the pay envelope. Its budget modeling has probably been built around that assumption for who knows how long. It is among the challenges to be inherited by the new prez.
