DejaVU - How does "niching" to traditional and conservative values work? Who defines the "traditional and conservative" values? And since "niching" by definition means making a hard choice to not offer solutions to those outside of the niche, how would Valpo deal with the 30-50% of alumni/donors who do not align themselves with whatever traditional and conservative values are chosen?
I fully agree with David81's articulate points.
When I talk about the "conservative/traditional/religious" flavor of a University in general and of VU in particular I am trying very hard to avoid potential discussions about one's political leanings (though often they can naturally transpire). So I will try to maybe just clarify some points but take them for what they're worth and note that I want far more for VU to succeed (for selfish reasons if nothing else) than to be right.
1. When I say "niche" I don't mean some exclusive club where you need to check 50 items and the secret pass to get in. But let me tell you, if the answer to the question "Why Valpo?" is something that 90% of other colleges can answer far better and cheaper then we are doomed.
2. Trying to be everything for everybody was a disaster for this school. I work here for more than 15 years and I earned my right to be believed that I want the best for this school. I am not a Lutheran nor particularly religious and even I can tell that whoever ran this place in the last decade or so did not cater sufficiently for the religiously inclined or more traditional student (who does exist but won't stay here if the religion is only and afterthought). It is not enough to just have a chapel and prayer break. The vibe matters. We should be far more aggressive in recruiting students not just Lutheran but religious in general...I don't know how exactly but I am sure presidents worthy of the 500K a year know how to do it
3. As for alumni or donors...first of all the letter to the Torch I posted earlier speaks for itself. How many potential donors feel the same? Did anybody in the administration check? Did they analyze the background of these donors to see if and how much they care about the Lutheran character? Did they check to see if maybe some donors stopped donating because we eroded the Lutheran character? Did this administration increase the donations? I don't know, I'm just asking...
4. David mentioned the "middle" as the ultimate goal and I agree. Now I am gonna say something that many many will hate (including probably the majority of my colleagues). To achieve that "middle" in academia as it is right now, it means a considerable shift toward the conservative.
Now VU has a shorter path to that middle than other places but still a way to go.
Anyway...as I said, take for what is worth. If everything I say is non-sense and VU survives, even better...
When I talk about the "conservative/traditional/religious" flavor of a University in general and of VU in particular I am trying very hard to avoid potential discussions about one's political leanings (though often they can naturally transpire).
4. David mentioned the "middle" as the ultimate goal and I agree. Now I am gonna say something that many many will hate (including probably the majority of my colleagues). To achieve that "middle" in academia as it is right now, it means a considerable shift toward the conservative.
Now VU has a shorter path to that middle than other places but still a way to go.
I agree with you and David on a move toward the middle of not a spectrum (that is the wrong image more associated with uppercase conservatism), but I see it more as a sphere and the middle its core. In my mind it is not a whole-scale retreat from a precipice, but rather a circling back around to get closer to that core and acting on it. In that vain, can we assume that in your second use of (lowercase) conservative you are, by inference, dragging along the “/traditional/religious” pieces mentioned above? Why, because I think they are inseparable for the purposes of this discussion.
Post-post addition: In my experience (VU, BA, History, 1966), this core/middle/center we are talking about was the life-blood of the OP Kretzman era: The chemistry that mixed accurate reading of the pulse of the times with sound financial judgement in response; charismatic (but reserved) omnipresent leadership; the ability to get students, faculty, alums and, yes, even the citizens of the city, excited; a focus on the Lutheran roots without excluding the world around us; projecting a clear sense of a faith-based, but openly welcoming, community; and a well thought-out vision of Valpo’s future pulled together by, IMO, the perfect alchemist.
Hmmmm….. should what I just added be part of the job description, slightly adjusted for 2025, of our next president?
Post-previous-post addition: OMG, after re-reading what I wrote, I did not mean to nominate OP for sainthood or imply he was a magician. But I still can see him walking on campus, always smiling and wearing his clerical collar (an image he intentionally projected) and rumpled tan trench coat (an image he also intentionally projected). Sorry 😇
Valpo always operated in the middle ground. Not LCMS, but not ELCA. It was a balancing act for the university but they made it work. The culture/mood in this country started to shift around 2009-2010. At the same time the LCMS elected a Ft Wayne seminary guy as President, Valpo hired its first non-LCMS President. Suddenly the middle ground disappeared.
Maybe Valpo was always doomed. Maybe the changes in this country made the middle a no-man’s land. But I think the university alienated a lot of people who previously supported this institution. And now here we are.
What’s the way forward? Do you go back to an LCMS affiliated person? ELCA? Another non-Lutheran? I think you can make an argument for each.
@mj08, you correctly identify the timing of the shift. However, it is not just mood - in August of 2009 the ELCA Churchwide Assembly (basically their main convention) voted to allow the ordination of LGBTQ individuals to serve as ordained pastors. It was a close vote, approximately 55% / 45% in favor. (For a bit more history, the AELC lasted from 1976-1987 and was the third church body that was part of the ELCA when it was founded in January 1988 - The AELC was almost all former LCMS congregations who left the LCMS during the Seminex split - people like the late Rev. Walt Wangerin were students at Concordia Seminary and ended up with degrees from Seminex.) In 2010, the North American Lutheran Church was formed and now has more than 500 congregations; since 2010 more than 600 congregations left the ELCA.
As you point out, Valpo appointed Mark Heckler in July of 2008. Dr. Heckler was an ELCA member and not an ordained pastor. All of VU's prior presidents in modern history have been either ordained LCMS pastors, or else had deep and longstanding ties to the LCMS.
I was in Houston over the weekend seeing my daughter who is a sophomore at Rice majoring chemical and biomolecular engineering. Assuring my exercise time, I walked around the campus a few times, and from observations and chats I was very impressed with the activity, enthusiasm and friendliness of the students and faculty. Students preparing for the annual beer bike weekend, lots of intramural activity and various events. I also attended an awesome all day seminar/celebration of the 50th anniversary of the college of engineering which was done in a beautiful set up tent with awesome speakers and time to talk. On campus there is competition and rivalries with the residential colleges and there is no Greek system which I find unique and cool.
I get it, Rice is an elite and expensive school and they have old Houston oil wealth and not comparable to Valpo. But it was refreshing to see such great enthusiasm which I used to see at Valpo decades ago.
For those outside Valpo, we were hit with a storm yesterday that caused quite a bit of wind destruction with numerous downed trees and power lines. Though Ivy Tech Valpo is yet without power 24 hours later, VU seems okay, and the first home game at Brauer Field is still scheduled for tomorrow. However, nearby there was one person killed by the storm. My home lost one tree that I have already chopped up and a section of the gutters over my front porch was taken down, but others in town had much more damage.
Folks, this isn't news yet, but it will be...at VU and countless other universities.
Absent a sudden and complete recovery, the performance of the stock market is going to have a devastating impact on university endowments that are heavily invested in the markets, which is many schools. I don't know what % of VU's endowment is in the stock market, but I assume it's a big enough chunk that the fallout will be noticeable.
A fair assumption is that 40-50% of a university's endowment is in equities.
Regarding the endowment, this is good information yet we should not over-react. Valpo (like many universities) has a stated policy to allocate 4% of the endowment each year. As I recall, their endowment was $324M at the end of the 2023-24 fiscal year (June of 2024, which may be the last numbers available).
So, if we assume 50% is in equities (and the remainder just stayed flat), if equities drop 15%, the new endowment would be $299.7M. In terms of annual impact, if the endowment was $324M at a 4% withdrawal rate, that would allow for withdrawals of $12.96M. If it is $299.7M, that would allow for a withdrawal of $11.99M. Clearly, a larger endowment is better, yet it results in a difference of about $1M to VU on an annual basis - this is noticeable but not devastating.
To say it another way, if VU were to get 10 more new students this fall and they pay $25K in net tuition, that would result in $250K of new revenue. If they stay for four years, that is also $1M.
Yeah, I expect a lot of precarious schools to go under. It was dicey for many institutions before, but Trump has been pretty clear he's actively trying to destroy higher ed as it exists, and he's being quite effective between the federal funding cuts, disruption of international/green card student applications, and crashing of university investments. Whether you like him or not, he said he was going to destroy universities, and he *does* follow thru on his promises and get done what he says he's going to do!
Though I hope for personal reasons VU survives the enrollment/endowment crash, I am definitely not holding my breath. Too much of VU's operating budget was dependent on positive endowment returns, and I just don't see any way for things to bounce back quickly like they did after COVID. I was listening to a podcast over the weekeend, featuring some American business owners and they were not optimistic... for instance, there was a guy whose family business has made audio speakers here since the 1940s -- and he was lamenting that while the Trump's first-term tariffs on China did mean they had to readjust, at least that time there were other non-China countries they could source parts from; whereas this time around the tariffs are so widespread basically on the entire globe, that there is not going to be any clear path for finding way alternative sourcing for parts they need but cannot get in the US. He did not think his company would survive let alone rebound anytime soon. Anecdotal, of course. But it just drove home the point that this seems pretty different and a much wider/deeper kind of structural disruption to industry than COVID, so I doubt universities can rely on any kind of quick bounce back of their endowments like we saw after COVID. It may be years before this all re-stabilizes into reliably positive territory, and in the meantime schools like Valpo who were relying on positive returns for a huge chunk of the day-to-day operating budget are not going to survive easily. For some schools, the endowment is a nice cache helping to cover extras - but at places like Valpo, a good chunk of the spinoff was necessary for just keeping the lights on.
It's a good time for everybody to plant their vegetable gardens and plan to live off the land, haha!
I think they PROBABLY use a typical university formula to calculate their spending based. If so, they base spending on a trailing 3-4 year market average. That avoids the rollercoaster effect on the budget.
@realist77, I don't have the policy front of me, yet VU does use a smoothing factor to help avoid the volatility you mention. I was more trying to illustrate the possible impact rather than say this is exactly how it occurs.
To say it another way, if VU were to get 10 more new students this fall and they pay $25K in net tuition, that would result in $250K of new revenue. If they stay for four years, that is also $1M.
Huh, I appreciate the optimism but I don't get the point of saying this. For about 5 years now, people keep saying, 'oh, well if we just get 10 or 20 or a 100 more students, then it will help the budget so much!' But also for about 5 years now, we have been LOSING 100+ students each year over year. It's like me saying to my spouse, 'Well, you know what would help our budget is if we inherited a house'... It's like, sure, yeah that would hypothetically help a lot, except there's there is absolutely no reason to anticipate that windfall.... It just seems kind of pointless and even distracting line of thought in a situation where the university has been pretty committed in its determination this past decade to kill the academic reputation and enrollment, just like it would be pointless to think about some alternative luxurious family budget in a situation where one's spouse just wants to talk about how to spend hypothetical inheritances but refuses to do the basics like get a job.
@vuindiana , the important thing is to separate out the endowment issue from the enrollment issue.
I was reacting to the point that the stock market declines would have "a devastating impact on university endowments" and trying to put that in dollar terms for the impact to VU. A loss of 15% in the market is significant, yet I would not view that as devastating for VU's finances if it changes the payout by $1M. (Not to diminish a loss of $1M, yet not overreact to it.)
The burning platform issue for VU is NOT annual endowment spending, it is student enrollment and retention and the accompanying revenue losses.
