Maybe marketing nursing more is the play for the future?
Nursing will be the #1 major among the fall freshmen class.
I mean I think I understood that eliminating majors and minors would lead to faculty reductions in some way. I think the point of the 3% comment is to reinforce these areas are not being utilized by a large contingency of students...
I'd think about it this way. Previous comments from ValpoPal and some other members who are university staff seem to point towards 0 conversations to keep the professors on to teach the required elective courses. They don't seem to be getting rid of the theology requirements to get your degree. I think they should at least keep on a couple of the tenured professors to continue to teach the required courses and/or whatever minor in these paths is/or may be offered.
@valpopal I for one would like to see some potential partnerships with Franciscan or St. Mary's. Yes these are not Lutheran sponsored hospitals, but they are Christian affiliated.
I think the point of the 3% comment is to reinforce these areas are not being utilized by a large contingency of students...
Except that is misleading, since "these areas" are utilized by many students not listed as majors or minors but taking classes in the department as electives or to fulfill gen ed requirements. Further, areas such as theology contribute greatly in additional ways that impact the student population. The same would be true in other subjects targeted for possible discontinuance, such as Spanish. Getting rid of the Spanish major does not affect the need for Spanish classes, especially in today's society and with Valparaiso's goal of becoming a HSI university. The only thing it accomplishes is to create a loophole that would permit the department to rid itself of tenured professors or tenure-track positions and replace them with lecturers.
I agree they should keep some on. As of right now looking at the website, there are 11 faculty/chairs for the Theology/Philosophy Department, not counting affiliated faculty of which there are two. The question I guess I would have is how many do you need to offer general electives if the Major/Minor is not there?
Except that is misleading, since "these areas" are utilized by many students not listed as majors or minors but taking classes in the department as electives or to fulfill gen ed requirements. Further, areas such as theology contribute greatly in additional ways that impact the student population. The same would be true in other subjects targeted for possible discontinuance, such as Spanish. Getting rid of the Spanish major does not affect the need for Spanish classes, especially in today's society and with Valparaiso's goal of becoming a HSI university. The only thing it accomplishes is to create a loophole that would permit the department to rid itself of tenured professors or tenure-track positions and replace them with lecturers.
Valpo needs that public money to have better odds at surviving. Cutting degrees like Spanish is a bad look to the HSI board.
As of right now looking at the website, there are 11 faculty/chairs for the Theology/Philosophy Department, not counting affiliated faculty of which there are two.
Of the 11, three are endowed chairs (Ekrich, Jochum, and World Religions) that should be funded outside department budget. Two are visiting assistant professors. (As you note, associated faculty do not count because they are funded elsewhere and do not teach theology or philosophy.) Only four listed are permanent faculty in theology and just two in philosophy. Out of those six, I believe 5 are tenured and 1 is tenure track. Due to a loophole sought by the administration, those faculty would lose their tenure status if the major is eliminated in theology and philosophy.
@valpopal Downsizing a department is inevitable when majors are cut, but they should not be completely gutted and stripped of tenure. You should always keep a portion of the department to teach electives or teach out degrees. Replacing tenured professors in order to save a couple bucks is basically asking to be blacklisted from people applying to your school.
Let's talk some facts - for VU, salaries and benefits are typically at least 50-60% of all cash expenses of the university. So, cutting some faculty lines, however painful, is the most expedient way to reduce expenses, especially if few students are majoring in those areas. (You do need to look at total "expenses" carefully, as sometimes universities consider tuition discounts as an expense, yet those are not cash expenses - a student who received a 50% tuition discount is paying half price, yet that does not mean the university spent 50% in cash to get that student.)
As to the endowed chairs argument, most of the time, donation requirements are as follows:
Named Faculty Fellowship $250,000
Early Career Professorship $500,000
Professorship $1,000,000
Chaired Professor or University Chair $1,500,000 to $3,000,000
So, if the chair was established at $2M, an endowment payoff at 4.5% spins off $90,000 per year. Usually, a named chair comes with some level of support for research, travel or scholarly activity (such as $5,000 or $10,000 per year), and often a reduced teaching load. So, even the named chairs would need additional budget support - can you hire a full professor at $90,000 (including wages and all benefits, and have some other support)? Unlikely, so even then, there is the need for budget support from the university/department.
In the case of Theology, if there are 11 professors/instructors, some will surely be needed to teach general service classes at VU. However, there are only 5 (yes five!) students majoring in Theology, and those students would need to have advanced or major-specific elective courses (beyond Theo 100 / Theo 200 / Theo 300) that would need to be taught to fulfil the degree requirement. It isn't the larger classes of 20-40 that are going away, it is the advanced courses in the major that would only have a few students in them. That might mean some faculty members get cut, yet remember, 50-60% of all university expenses are tied up in salaries and benefits. Said another way, if those five students paid a net price of $25,000 per year in tuition, that would hardly fund one professor, so some reductions in staff are inevitable.
Finally, I would add that just because the programs were listed for review, that does not mean all of them will be closed. It just means that the revenues from the students will need to be lined up with the costs for the faculty.
In case anyone is wondering, the number for the theology majors and minors comes from this article in the Torch https://www.valpotorch.com/news/article_95eb8e04-e868-11ee-9559-47f7275d9dbf.html
So, if the chair was established at $2M, an endowment payoff at 4.5% spins off $90,000 per year. Usually, a named chair comes with some level of support for research, travel or scholarly activity (such as $5,000 or $10,000 per year), and often a reduced teaching load. So, even the named chairs would need additional budget support - can you hire a full professor at $90,000 (including wages and all benefits, and have some other support)? Unlikely, so even then, there is the need for budget support from the university/department.
In the case of Theology, if there are 11 professors/instructors, some will surely be needed to teach general service classes at VU. However, there are only 5 (yes five!) students majoring in Theology, and those students would need to have advanced or major-specific elective courses (beyond Theo 100 / Theo 200 / Theo 300) that would need to be taught to fulfil the degree requirement. It isn't the larger classes of 20-40 that are going away, it is the advanced courses in the major that would only have a few students in them. That might mean some faculty members get cut, yet remember, 50-60% of all university expenses are tied up in salaries and benefits. Said another way, if those five students paid a net price of $25,000 per year in tuition, that would hardly fund one professor, so some reductions in staff are inevitable.
Finally, I would add that just because the programs were listed for review, that does not mean all of them will be closed. It just means that the revenues from the students will need to be lined up with the costs for the faculty.
So, can we agree that the endowed chair expenditures would not be impacted by cutting the major and minor degrees, since they would continue to be funded by the endowments and possible university support, just as they are now? Also, we can assume the visiting professor positions would not be re-filled (especially if the major and minor degrees were dropped), which opens two salaries for redistribution.
That leaves four theology and two philosophy full-time faculty, all of whom would have their tenure status removed if the majors are eliminated, to staff the numerous gen ed lower-level classes. Plus, all of them likely teach big Core classes as well. These are the "larger classes of 20-40" that you mention. Surely, these large classes produce enough tuition revenue to assist in funding the few smaller-sized upper classes populated not just by majors but by others seeking electives and diversity requirement credits, especially if we add the money saved by not renewing the two visiting professor positions. Remember, we are also talking about subjects that have very low to minimal overhead costs compared to classes in other areas that require very expensive technology and other research or practical materials.
Anyway, since this is a sports forum, isn't that how the athletic program works: a revenue producer like basketball assists in keeping non-revenue sports afloat?
Look if we really want to tie athletics into this lets crunch some numbers. Only 396 schools in D1 make at least 10 million on their sports teams. I do not know where exactly VU stands but I could assume we make around than 10 million given the state of fan support for our programs. According to college raptor. Our Basketball (Both genders) program saw a net increase of 24% from last year in revenue going from 3.2 mil to just about 4 mil. In fact. All sports at Valparaiso saw a net increase in revenue generation from sports. Doing some math, our total revenue generated according to the site is 10,735,642 dollars. Sadly this does not factor expenses into the equation but it does give a solid look at where we are at popularity wise. VU is getting their image back at least in the sports world, in part thanks to Powell and his emphasis on branding and outreach. Each school has a certain percentage of allotment that goes towards the university itself rather than just the athletic departments. This percentage is usually kept hush hush, but looking around this percentage usually floats around 6-10%. Assuming we take the high mark of this, the school itself receives just over 1 million dollars in payout from the athletic department.
Something else I would like to mention VU is the most profitable sports school under the Lutheran Church of America as well. As well as the most profitable per student athlete as well.
Source
https://www.collegeraptor.com/college-rankings/details/TopRevenue/State/IN/
(Use filter by school)
Just looking at some rough numbers, if there were 650 new students entering per year, and each of them have to take 2.5 theology classes throughout four years, that would mean seats for 1625 students in theology classes per year. (Back in my day, professional students took two, and A&S students took three.) If each section had 40 students, there would be a total of 40.25 sections of theology (100, 200, 300). If the teaching load for a professor is three sections per semester (or six per year), that would mean that 6.8 professors would be required at steady state.
Of course, some sections might have less than 40 students, though the expected teaching load at VU for faculty not holding a chair may be greater than six sections per year. Nonetheless, if the Theology department has 11 faculty yet needs 6.8, this would be a 38% reduction in faculty. (This analysis excludes part-time or adjunct faculty who may only teach an occasional course or two, and other considerations such as a theology faculty member teaching a philosophy course.) These are complex decisions, yet it is hard to keep a major for only five students. Probably, these sorts of discussions and planning are happening in many majors with low enrollments.
The bottom line is that this example shows that there could be a reduction of one to four faculty (including visiting faculty) in the Theology department without it impacting the required service courses.
