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.
I don't want to hijack the thread on a single issue but I am genuinely interested in this view related to cutting the majors. Not trying to stir debate for the sake of it but I just want to know for my own sake what's wrong on my argument.
Suppose a major has only a handful students as you say. Suppose nearly ALL courses taught for that major are also taken by non-major students which means eliminating that major does not result in a reduction of courses taught nor in a need to reduce the number of instructors. So same courses taught, same number of professors. Where is the meaningful saving in that case? How much money is saved if we take it out from the course catalog? Will Registrar work less (and be paid less)? Will personnel be reduced on the administrative side?
Where is the money saving in that case? I really want to know. And, more importantly, where is the analysis of the loss of cutting that major due to bad publicity. I can't go on details because of privacy but I know for a fact that a prospective student decided to not come to VU precisely when one of these majors were cut. We lost that student yet the courses relevant for that major are as populated as ever.
I am not denying that some majors being cut will result in reduction in courses and personnel. But this is not a one size fits all. All they did was whichever major has less than 10 students or so then it needs to be cut. With zero analysis of the type I mentioned above. And, by the way, the metric is deeply unfair because, for example, by default in the College of Engineering, every student is an Engineering major. So of course they meet this arbitrary benchmark though no sane person would argue that should CoE get down to 20 students is still healthy
By the way, CoE percentwise, sees the largest drop in enrollment. Should we consider cutting the Engineering program?
I could go on, but this argument of cutting without thinking is the single most damning mistake this administration has done. I don't care what other schools did. If someone amputates his hand for whatever reasons, it does not mean automatically that this is good measure for everybody.
All we wanted is show us the freaking money savings/projections/risk analysis etc before swinging the axe. Is it too much to ask from the captain of the ship?
DejaVU:
Two comments:
1. You are absolutely correct that there should be financial modeling on the savings from cutting a program. However, one thing that needs to be considered in that model is that students who take a course in a program as an elective can take another course in a different discipline to meet that elective requirement. That needs to be included in the model.
2. Engineering enrollment seems to be down across many universities. I think this is an outcome from poor teaching of math, etc. during COVID (a ripple effect that we will still see for years). Engineering programs need to figure out a way to proactively deal with this.
Valpo has one engineering major? I do not understand.
@usc4valpo - Valpo has eight engineering major programs (nine if you count pre-engineering).
Valpo has one engineering major? I do not understand.
What I meant to say is that all students taking engineering classes are engineering majors so therefore it is obviously easier to meet that arbitrary 10 students per program benchmark whereas other courses despite having few majors in the department that offers a course, there are plenty students from other majors taking that course.
Anyway, I don't mean to say I am envious or otherwise have something against CoE. Just that the criteria for discontinuance was one size fits all that was not based on a true cost analysis and did not include the effect of bad publicity which we continue to feel (lots of prospective students have the impression that things are actually worse than they really are. For now...)
There have been multiple cost analyses done for years on the discontinuance of majors. Schools across the county are dropping degrees. The major cost saving mechanism is that you don't have to staff a full department for a program that doesn't have a degree. This can save you no money, or it can save you millions. It all depends on a large quantity of factors. I think most conflate the dropping of degrees to the closure of departments when that is not the case. Prospects certainly don't conflate the situation to be worse than it is when lots of other schools (big schools might I add) are also closing underutilized degree paths
This can save you no money, or it can save you millions.
I think @dejavu was making the point that many of the cuts saved no money. They don't seem to have come with concomitant cuts in faculty... just rearranging deck chairs to say "we made cuts." If programs and departments were eliminated, then you might see savings. But cutting a Bachelor of Music degree while still offering the Bachelor of Arts in Music (and music education, and so on and on) doesn't seem to offer any real savings.
Though I think @dejavu is comparing apples to orchards... cutting a major is different from cutting a college. I would imagine/hope each of the eight engineering majors was evaluated in the way that, say, theology or Spanish were.
You likely aren't going to see anything related to how much savings was done. Or the exact analysis done to verify a program was being cut. Even at other universities, some of which are public and in good standing, who are cutting programs. They aren't too keen to tell you what went on behind the scenes that warranted a cut. Unless a faculty member was directly involved in said process and divulged that information under the table. From what I have seen from people who work at universities. Cutting a program is never a simple a question as someone wants it to be. Neither is that question a "one size fits all" decision. Each program at a university goes through its own "academic assessment" on some sort of timeline. Mostly for program accreditation. Such assessments are weighed against the market value of that specific program. Unfortunate as it is. The market value of majors like theology, or Spanish, are much lower than the market value of an engineering degree. That assessment is a factor that goes into whether a degree should be offered or not. This isnt to say that arts and humanities are not important in tech fields.
Attached is a blog surrounding the cost/benefit analysis of cutting a degree. Sure its a blog, but the data presented is sound
Another big factor is focus. Can a university manage and support all these available degrees? How do you sustain the degree quality which is far more important than degree quantity? Long term, it’s hard to maintain energy on a handful for a degree just for the sake of availability.
There have been multiple cost analyses done for years on the discontinuance of majors. Schools across the county are dropping degrees. The major cost saving mechanism is that you don't have to staff a full department for a program that doesn't have a degree. This can save you no money, or it can save you millions. It all depends on a large quantity of factors. I think most conflate the dropping of degrees to the closure of departments when that is not the case. Prospects certainly don't conflate the situation to be worse than it is when lots of other schools (big schools might I add) are also closing underutilized degree paths
Agree if discontinuance results in reduction of staff. DIsagree when it doesn't. In the case of VU lots of programs were scraped without any reduction and savings. It is obvious math. I strongly disagree that prospective students do not perceive the situation worse than it is when I and my colleagues find those examples all the time (i.e. students thinking they cannot pursue their academic objective when in fact they still can but are under the impression that this is a sinking ship)
But that's fine, the discontinuance thing was discussed on this thread a lot. We'll just agree to disagree. Cutting is easy. Building is hard.
You know...I want this place to succeed. For selfish reasons if nothing else. And I wanted Padilla to succeed.
Though I think @dejavu is comparing apples to orchards... cutting a major is different from cutting a college. I would imagine/hope each of the eight engineering majors was evaluated in the way that, say, theology or Spanish were.
Sure and, of course, I am not suggesting to cut CoE. I used it as an example that the minimum 10 students per major metric used is unfair for some departments (that teach lots of non-majors) and maybe too easy for, say, CoE that teaches only majors.
Basically, at the end of the day, it is about a ratio of teaching stuff versus students taught. There are other things but when we look at just this metric: how many instructors you need to cover the students we teach? there are better ways to measure this with more fairness than just an arbitrary number of majors. To be fair, there are some efforts now to come up with better metrics that gauge the health of a program/department.
I agree with DeJavu there has been no financial analysis cost-benefit analysis, at least not shared with programs under scrutiny. VU has just been cutting programs that have low numbers of declared majors, based on faculty-to-majors ratios. This does not take account the extent a lot of factors that actually matter financially: the number of declared minors, the extent to which some departments' courses are serving required courses for other programs, the size of the actual classes taught especially in the big service classes that do this work for the wider university and sister colleges, the particulars of what faculty/staff are paid variously in the different disciplines or colleges they occupy, or the enrollment costs of cutting x program that may actually effect xy and z departments' enrollments, or the general hit to the university's perception in the public.
Basically, cutting by '# declared majors' as about as analytical as if Boeing went thru to cut various teams that work on making their airplanes, but really only used the metric of 'how many airplanes did you finish?" to decide whom to retain. Clearly, the parts supply management team and the hydraulics and electrical wiring teams would have pretty sucky stats for 'planes completed', so they'd get cut based on those metrics, without any financial analysis of the cost involved or any down-chain effects.
From what I can tell, VU's 'process' is really that dumb.
And now for something completely different:
https://www.valpotorch.com/news/article_d81b14f6-effc-11ef-9b66-575be1bf2a3a.html
Breaking News: College of Business Dean faces charges
And now for something completely different:
https://www.valpotorch.com/news/article_d81b14f6-effc-11ef-9b66-575be1bf2a3a.html
Breaking News: College of Business Dean faces charges
🙄🥺
