Henderson State University moved forward this week with a financial exigency plan that involves deep ... [+]
The financial exigency plan that’s underway at Henderson State University, in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, moved forward dramatically this week, with deep cuts to the faculty and sweeping reductions in academic program being proposed on Monday.
The University has known since February that a financial exigency plan was forthcoming. That’s when new Henderson State Chancellor Chuck Ambrose, acknowledging that the school had faced several years of financial challenges, sent a letter to the university community indicating that he planned to begin the process of declaring the university to be in a state of financial exigency.
At that time, Ambrose said the university faced a projected shortfall of more than $12 million, moving into next fiscal year, a problem driven by years of enrollment losses. Last fall, it enrolled 2,919 students, a 7.7% decrease from the previous year. And in the last five years, of the 10,809 new students who have enrolled, 47% have left without graduating. In addition, Henderson State faces total debt of about $78 million, with a debt service payment due this year of more than $6 million.
This week, February’s warning became Henderson’s new reality, with extensive cuts to personnel and programs now highly likely.
Under the plan recommended by Ambrose, Henderson State would eliminate undergraduate degree programs in geography, history, political science, public administration, social science, criminal justice, early childhood development, family and consumer sciences, human services, biology, radiography, chemistry, mathematics, nuclear medicine technology, medical lab science, studio art, art education, communication, mass media communication, theatre arts, English and Spanish.
Also as part of the cutbacks, 88 faculty jobs would be eliminated, 67 of those positions are currently filled, while 21 are vacant. Of those 67 filled positions, 44 are held by tenured professors. Of the 21 unfilled lines, 12 were on the tenure track.
The faculty cuts would ultimately save about $5.3 million. In addition, non-instructional position downsizing will save an additional $1.5 million, and restructuring of administrative positions will reduce another $300,000 in costs.
A Financial Exigency Committee also has forwarded its own recommendations for cuts that were not as deep as those proposed by Ambrose. But even under its proposal, 12 academic majors would be dropped, and all part-time and adjunct positions would be eliminated, as would 33 faculty lines and other positions that are not currently filled.
Ambrose indicated that his plan would allow students currently enrolled in the targeted degree programs, or who are set to enroll in the fall of 2022, to finish their degree programs at Henderson State.
The next step is for the recommendations to be voted on by the Arkansas State University System Board of Trustees at a meeting on Thursday, May 5.
In a letter to the Henderson State University community, Ambrose wrote,
“We cannot grow our way out of this challenge without implementing significant academic restructuring through the financial exigency process. As margins between net tuition and instructional costs widen, our only choice is to re-engineer ourselves to offer the academic degree programs that best fit student and community workforce needs.
The financial exigency process has pushed us to think holistically about organizational size and shape, to align our academic portfolio to available resources and workforce needs, and to forge community partnerships and instructional capacity with ASU System institutions and others to re-engineer ourselves to be a student-ready college.”
According to Ambrose, faculty members who would be affected by his recommendation, if approved by the Board, have already been notified.
“I’m deeply saddened for these faculty members and understand how difficult this process will be,” he said. We did not take these decisions lightly, and it is impossible to minimize the impact this has on members of our community. Henderson is a tight-knit family and community, so we understand this is difficult. We will do everything possible to help these individuals during their transitioning.”
Going forward, as Henderson tries to redefine its academic mission, Ambrose has called upon it not only to eliminate its fiscal deficit, but also to improve its student success rates, and refocus its resources to selected academic priorities. He proposes to organize Henderson State’s continuing or new academic programs into the following four meta-majors aligned with community-based workforce needs: health, education and social sustainability; applied professional science and technology; business, innovation, and entrepreneurship; and arts and humanities.
And Ambrose continues to believe, as he told me recently, that “reimagining Henderson will allow us to redefine the value proposition for public higher education in Arkansas in terms of student success—access, opportunity, affordability, completion, and alignment of degrees to workforce needs.”
