Chancellor Harvey Perlman of UNL sent this announcement out today to all UNL faculty and staff (abridged version):
Yet, we continue to face a significant challenge caused by our enrollment
decline this year and the tuition shortfall that decline precipitated. The
shortfall could be as high as $6 million dollars. This means we will not have
sufficient dollars to fund this year's budget and unless enrollment increases
rapidly for fall, we cannot sustain next year's level of expenditures either.
I am afraid this means that we will have to begin looking at very real changes
in how we manage our resources and, yes, some reductions in current
budgets.
I believe the enrollment decline is in large part a lingering product of
the budget cuts and the significant increases in tuition rates over the
last four years.
....
Right now we are focused on minimizing the damage. We have enlisted faculty
and others to work hard to retain the students we have and to attract
additional students to the University.
.....
Because this shortfall has been
created by enrollment declines, one of the factors that should be
considered in making reductions will be patterns of enrollment within
academic departments.
HMMMMMM. This could be Perl-speak for "departments with low enrollment rates might get axed." Let the rumors, finger-pointing, and hysteria begin.
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
Attract students to Nebraska…I guess this means attracting all out of state students and illigal aliens.
Ah I remember my junior/senior year of high school well. A mailbox full of every university advertisement from around the region, but alas none from NU. I had to ask NU to send me an application form.
Sounds like they’re really working hard to keep the instate talent within the state borders (/sarcasm).
Like I mentioned to you on the phone, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some departments are “merged” rather than outright eliminated. The top candidates, in my estimation, are Classics, Judaic Studies, and Religious Studies. The overlap among those departments is pretty substantial.
As for where to get students, the theoretical solution is actually pretty simple: any individual college needs only to recruit a few more students each year to increase enrollment substantially across the entire campus. Additionally, if each college can retain a few more students each year—rather than losing them through normal attrition—the overall enrollment numbers will be boosted. It really wouldn’t take much effort or money for individual colleges to undertake just a few more recruitment efforts, like personal phone calls. If a student worker making phone calls gets just one new or returning student per hour, the University reaps thousands of dollars in benefits at the cost of about $7.00.
The Athletic Department learned long ago the value of personal communications in getting and retaining recruits. Academic departments could stand to learn a few of those lessons.
Merging departments makes sense, to at least cut overhead costs associated with maintaining separate departments that would otherwise seem very compatible combined into one such as those you mentioned. Someone (perhaps in academic affairs?) is going to have to do some research into enrollment trends at various departments to determine which ones are drawing the students, and which ones arent, as well as weigh that into research opportunities and grant income per department.
The whole Orn Bodvarsson thing still seems to resonate. From a students perspective, I cant see a really good academic reason to go to UNL unless you’re on of those elite who get into JD Edwards or one of the other strong programs here or something. Otherwise I would think there seems to be more pragmatic reasons to attend UNL (distance or tuition).
When I got out of highschool, I had a choice of either going to the U of Minnesota where I would have been a nameless face in classes of 200+ and pay a low tuition or go to the liberal arts school I ultimately chose which had a higher price tag but also had a maximum class size of like 40.
Also I honestly think that because football sucks now it is a big reason why UNL has lost, at least temporarily, some of its glamour. Nebraska without a good football team is basically Wyoming.
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