The next VU president has to know and be devoted to the different facets of the university. It can't be someone who sees this as a "good opportunity" to show how they can turn around a university facing challenges, as a way of buffing up their c.v. for the next appointment up the rankings/prestige ladder.
I don't know if there's a VU alum out there who has been a successful professor and higher ed administrator (hopefully with decanal-level fundraising experience), ready to return to alma mater to immerse themselves in creating the next big, promising chapter of the university, but that would be my kind of candidate. Lutheran affiliation would be a plus factor.
Besides money, what this University lacks is time. If things go by the same pace as before (planning elaborate searches, taking the time to envision grand strategies, etc...) we are doomed even if a solution exists. Whatever people think about the man, Padilla is a lame duck as of now. If he truly cares about the place he would step aside before the contract ends and/or dedicate his time to speed up the search and the transition as quickly as possible. Until December 2025 is an eternity.
I don't know if there's a VU alum out there who has been a successful professor and higher ed administrator (hopefully with decanal-level fundraising experience), ready to return to alma mater to immerse themselves in creating the next big, promising chapter of the university, but that would be my kind of candidate. Lutheran affiliation would be a plus factor.
I think you need someone who has been affiliated previously with a Lutheran university.
A name that I would float out there is Patrick Ferry. Valpo interviewed him back in 2008 but decided to go with Heckler. I know he retired from Concordia Wisconsin but he did run for LCMS President a few years ago.
Would he be willing to serve for a few years to get Valpo back on a steady footing?
any actual evidence [...] that Valpo is going to pull out of this
i think they [The Board] genuinely want what's best for the university, and I think they're trying their best. They hired a disruptor who did just that but couldn't quite prove able to rebuild after he'd shaken out all the pieces.
But I do tend to agree with whomever said it earlier on this board -- this one is for all the marbles.
Great observation. And that marbles quote was David’s, which I, too, subscribe to.
Besides money, what this University lacks is time. If things go by the same pace as before (planning elaborate searches, taking the time to envision grand strategies, etc...) we are doomed even if a solution exists. Whatever people think about the man, Padilla is a lame duck as of now. If he truly cares about the place he would step aside before the contract ends and/or dedicate his time to speed up the search and the transition as quickly as possible. Until December 2025 is an eternity.
Agreed. Momentum is hard to build with a mid-academic year arrival. Ideally, the right person already knows VU well, arrives early in the summer, establishes a presence and forges connections right away, greets the incoming class during orientation, and dives in with gusto in the fall.
I feel as if they have the right person spearheading the search. That is someone who knows how to run things. Steinbrecher should be able to find someone with the qualities we are looking for. The catch 22 is as you have pointed out. Time
I would like to drop this Torch article into the conversation: https://www.valpotorch.com/news/article_3a429250-ea79-11ef-ae82-3f6ff08414ad.html
A few interesting highlights:
- Padilla explicitly does not see himself as a lame duck
- Nursing building will cost $80M and is seven years away (that seems… long?)
- Padilla is “fairly certain” dorm renovations will happen.
8 years does seem long but it could be that they 1. don't want to hem them selves in with too tight a period or 2. the campaign may include more than just the building but also more funds for the program overall that are rolled in. So conceivably they could start building while still fundraising.
Johnson's comment that they need to get better about reviewing programs so they don't go into discontinuance was interesting. Is this common at other universities? Do they do like regular program evaluations and have different interventions at different levels of students in the program? It seems that would make sense as a way to avoid large mass cuts and help departments be more proactive.
I’m skeptical that dorm renovations are the panacea that will turn things around. Valpo cant compete in the arms race of luxury dorms. Yes, the dorms can’t be falling apart. But if a prospective student ranks dorms high on their list, then Valpo isn’t the school for them.
Valpo has 300 empty beds yet has also stopped recruiting students from around the country. Maybe that’s a mistake?
In an effort to grow enrollment to 6K, they walked away from an enrollment strategy that produced steady results. They moved into a bigger pool of prospective students, but also more competition. We need focus on our strengths and what makes us unique, instead of just another Midwest university.
Re nursing: Sounds like we’re going back to the old method of not building until we have the money. Maybe we’re being more financially prudent. Or maybe we can’t borrow any more money…
More on the O'Bannon grant issue mentioned in the article: https://www.indianainsight.com/2024/12/13/obannon-aid-squeezed/#:~:text=For%20instance%2C%20the%20maximum%20award,reduction%20from%20%244%2C700%20to%20%244%2C050.
The Torch article is pretty much a rehash other than the $80M campaign concept for Nursing.
What amazes me is the "spin" that CFO Volpatti puts on VU finances. He implies that there is a $350 million safety net that "includes" endowment.
If I am correct (help me here David81), the university board is able to technically spend the market earnings from the endowment gifts, but not the original gifts. But skimming the "earnings" off those specific endowment gift accounts will infuriate the funds' donors and stopping or slowing distributions until it runs dry.
If you scoop into the dollars that were actually given by donors you might be in court again like the court case over the Sloan Trusts. You can win that battle, but you will lose the war.
Wow, students are complaining about Brandt Hall, which was recently renovated in 2016? Maybe I'm getting old, but when I lived in Brandt for my first 2 years on campus (1999-2000 and 2000-2001), it hadn't been renovated for ~25-30 years. Brandt was basically the dorm for folks that came from faraway places, so you had a few of us Texans, Floridians, Bayou folks, and many international students. Poor and unsuspecting Pgmado was tasked with keeping us in line (he benefited from being on the opposite half of the floor from the majority of us BHGz), but we didn't whine about our dorm condition, which was admittedly pretty bad at the time. Air conditioning or heat? Forget about it, you sucked it up, buttercup 😎
Another red flag I had with Padilla since the beginning is this Mafia boss attitude and way of talking. Take this "if anybody thinks that I'm going to be a lame duck, or my administration is going to be a lame duck, you would be sorely mistaken". There are hundreds of ways to say the same thing in a more presidential way. INstead, he says, you think you could get rid of me earlier, think again.
And I am so tired of the argument "I need to make tough decisions" without providing a clear estimate of the money saved AND proving that those cuts do not backfire. I said it before I will say it again: many majors were cut without a single credible dollar saving figure. Instead those cuts added to the impression that VU is a sinking ship undoubtedly scaring more prospective students. So probably the net effect was negative. But do you think Padilla or his team will ever admit such a possibility. Can anyone imagine in this Universe that someone like Padilla will say "maybe we should have done this or that differently"?
And the fact that he is so keen on sticking to his agenda till the bitter end has more to do with pettiness and sticking to the critics rather than his devotion to making VU last 100 years. I just cannot take anything that comes out if his mouth seriously. And, by the way...first town hall with students 4 years into the job? I mean, what's the rush...
@dejavu, Sure, Padilla kind of painted himself as an anti-intellectual from day one and I don't think anybody much takes him that seriously. But I was glad to see he him talking about fighting the state funding reductions, at least to get current students grandfathered in so they don't see huge jumps in the loans they have to take out to stay enrolled. Since he likes running around talking like a mafia boss and creating enemies of everybody, at least do direct it outwards to fight the state on these kinds of issues!
Let’s face the facts that Heckler left Padilla with a huge mess to clean up, and sometimes the leader needs to take control. He had to make tough decisions that will piss off one faction or another. Cutting majors with an enrollment of 2400 for the long term is strategically the right thing when you only have a handful taking that major. Regarding his demeanor or acting presidential, well he wasn’t as bad as Jaime Dimon last week!
that being said, Valpo must be expeditious to find a decent leader, and Padilla needs to assist in the transition and go away. Time to move and get a strategy and execute it right away.
