In my March 29th post, “On Group Think and Catastrophe,” I reproduced a very pointed argument made at our local APSCUF-KU Meet and Discuss table made by former APSCUF-KU Vice President, Ken Ehrensal.  His argument called out KU Administration budget officials’ problematic use of “worst-case-scenario” logic, in particular, the logic of a budget catastrophe.  Here is an exert from that post:

Second, Ehrensal argued that the budget presentations given by Ken Long, Assistant VP of Administration and Finance, assume every catastrophic scenario.  For example, KU’s budget projections assume a 2.5% annual increase in tuition.  However, the Chancellor has been talking about a 4% increase.  If the Chancellor’s numbers hold, our “budget crisis” will be cut in half.  Long also built-in a 3.5% increase in salary for all union employees (including faculty).  However, all contracts are up for negotiation this year.  New contracts for all university unions will be in place starting July 2011.  If the salary increases are lower than 3.5%, the “budget crisis” could be cut in half (I didn’t write down the percentage that Ehrensal was working with).  Further, Long built-in to h

is analysis that the PA Legislature will not fix the problem with PSERS (PA State Employee Retirement System).  Failure to fix the problem, while possible, is not likely.  In short, the budget presentations represent a catastrophic scenario…not a likely scenario.

Despite our best efforts at the table, the administration continued to use these “catastrophic” budget projections in its presentation to faculty, staff, KU’s Board of Trustees, the Chancellor of PASSHE, and, of course, the media.  Just about every local news story about Kutztown administration’s move to retrench faculty and staff was willing to print the administration’s story of a dire budget crisis without question.  I personally reached out to a few reporters, pointed them to this blog, emailed them, and spoke to them on the phone about the problems with the Kutztown administration’s argument.  But, frankly, the adminstration’s narrative was compelling, especially since it seemed to echo that of the broader “economic crisis” narrative in the U.S. today.  In some ways, I can understand why our arguments, Ehrensal’s arguments in particular, did not gain traction.  It’s not easy to swim against the current of a dominant cultural narrative, especially when that narrative takes the form of a torrential downpour.

But just because a cultural narrative is compelling doesn’t mean that it’s accurate or true.  As a scholar and teacher of rhetoric you are taught to be very critical of cultural narratives that seem to “sweep people up” into them.  Such narratives are the ones that allow governments, businesses, con-men, and cult leaders get masses of people to do things that in “normal” times they would never do.

Well, that’s where we are folks.  KU’s administration has used the “catastrophe” narrative to cut jobs, removed fired administrators and staff from their offices with police escorts, reorganize programs, eliminate majors, all under the cover of media reports that reaffirmed what many people feared: “there’s nothing we can do.”  Well, the narrative hasn’t held.  As a matter of fact, in turned out that Ehrensal underestimated the degree to which KU’s administration was padding its numbers in order to create the appearance of crisis.  Here’s and article from yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

Pa. system approves 4.5% hike in college tuition

Undergraduate tuition at Pennsylvania’s state-owned colleges will increase $250, or 4.5 percent, under a $1.5 billion budget approved Thursday by the system’s board of governors.

Annual tuition for full-time resident undergraduates beginning this fall will be $5,804, which the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education said was the lowest among all four-year colleges and universities in the state. The system said it would receive $503.4 million in state and federal funding to support the current-year operating budget.

Resident graduate school tuition in 2010-11 will be $6,966, an increase of $300. Nonresident graduate tuition will increase $480, to $11,146. - Inquirer staff

You with me here?  Recall Ehrensal’s argument:

For example, KU’s budget projections assume a 2.5% annual increase in tuition.  However, the Chancellor has been talking about a 4% increase.  If the Chancellor’s numbers hold, our “budget crisis” will be cut in half.

Put simply, KU’s “budget crisis” has just been trimmed over 50% without a single faculty member losing her or his job, no program consolidation, no outsourcing of vehicles (yes, KU is now outsourcing to Enterprise Rent-a-Car at a cost of $41 a day.  I have heard, but haven’t yet confirmed that this is a PASSHE initiative).  So, there’s half your budget crisis.  It also looks like the PA Legislature is going to resolve the “crisis” in PSERS.  That “crisis” was supposedly going to put KU back by around $6 million.  Assuming that crisis have been averted, as predicted by Ehrensal, that cuts the “crisis” back even further.  You still following?

What this basically means is that KU’s administration and the administration at other PASSHE universities are not simply carrying out German-style austerity measures.  They are restructuring the State University system under the cover of the “budget crisis.”  As if citizens of the Commonwealth haven’t already experienced more than their share of “belt-tightening.”  Now, KU’s administration is given us all a spooky story right before bed in order to decrease citizens access to higher eduction–the very thing we’re told that is required to lift us out of this downturn.  Unjust desserts for the majority once again.

As the fall semester quickly approaches and more PASSHE universities have announced plans to retrench over the summer, it is going to become increasingly necessary to continually ask the question: what’s the plan?

As several faculty members at Kutztown have pointed out, the administration’s retrenchment moves have seem haphazard at best.  The only organizing principle for their decision to close the Nursing program, for example, seems to have been made by rather crude accounting that the program was not currently “making money” for the university.  Yet, it would be wise for all of us  to place these “local” decisions into a a broader context.  Take, for example, this article from yesterday’s GantDaily.com.  The article discusses a recent report, “Offshorability of Pennsylvania Jobs,” issued by Penn State’s Workforce Education and Development Initiative:  Here’s a link to the article:

Penn State Experts: PA is More Susceptible to Job Offshoring | GantDaily.com.

The report points out that Pennsylvania jobs are more susceptible to offshoring compared to the rest of the nation.  That is because that many of the jobs–most of the jobs in some areas of the Commonwealth, actually–are in jobs that are considered high risk for offshoring.  What are some of the jobs that are NOT as susceptible to offshoring?  If you guessed health care jobs–in particular nursing–you’d be on the right track.

And yet, Kutztown chose to cut the nursing program.

The administration’s decisions have shown a persistent pattern of making decisions based upon short-term thinking, immediate cost-cutting, or what the magic 8-ball said.  Pennsylvanians deserve more than being treated like a number in an accountant’s ledger.  We need to demand that those people tasked with “managing” our educational lives (and lives in general!), plan for our future, not simply look for ways to wield their hatchets.  In the case of PASSHE, this means university administrations, university Boards of Trustees, the Chancellor and his staff, the PASSHE Board of Governors, our State Legislators, and the Governor (current and future).

So, if the plan involves only a hatchet with little consideration of long term planning, then maybe it’s time to “offshore” the administration and our State legislators to give all of us and our families a chance to live our lives with dignity and hope.

Earlier this evening I received the official list of academic program action recommended from the Chancellor’s office to the PASSHE Board of Governors from our State Meet and Discuss Chair, Mark Cloud.  In his email, Mark indicated that “discussion of these program changes will be this Thursday, 9am during the Academic and Student Affairs Committee session in Harrisburg.”  He also indicated that Ken Mash will be addressing the BOG on behalf of APSCUF and that some faculty members will be present as well.

I wanted to share this list so that we can all get broader picture of what is happening system wide and to situate the reorganization at Kutztown with what looks like a broader PASSHE reorganization.  For example, Medical Technology has been placed in moratorium while at the same time the Medical Technology program at Bloomsburg has been reorganized as a BS in Health Sciences with Clinical Lab/Med Tech as a concentration.  While this information doesn’t by itself mean something, it does provide a useful starting point for critical inquiry.

Here is a copy of the document:

BOG Acad Program Actions July 2010

Since my most recent post to the XChange containing the independent auditor’s report for KU for the year ending 2009, several people have gotten in touch with me asking if I posted this report because it was some kind of “smoking gun.”  The short answer to this question is “no.”  The more nuanced answer is, “but it might be.”  That is to say, I put these documents out because I think it’s better to have multiple eyes on them.  The more information we can put in members’ hands, the better.

Case in point: I received and email from an Accounting Professor at another PASSHE university who is doing a cross-institutional analysis of the accounting practices of different PASSHE universities.  The faculty member expects to present the findings at the Second Annual APSCUF/PSEA Conference on Labor in Higher Education this fall in Harrisburg.  As a side note, I can’t thank former APSCUF Vice President, Amy Walters, for getting this conference off the ground.  The conference encourages this kind of labor scholarship–scholarship that is immediately useful in our current struggles.  Bravo.

Access to this information is even more critical since there is VERY contradictory information out there regarding Kutztown’s and PASSHE’s “budget crisis.”  You may recall posts on the XChange earlier this year on some of the “budget crisis myths” being offered up by KU’s administration, KU’s questionable use of breakage funds, and PASSHE’s contradictory claims about the “crisis.”

The latest bit of info that points to serious contradictions in both KU’s and PASSHE’s claims about their budget crisis comes from the world of bond ratings.  Yesterday, Fitch.com released bond rating numbers for PASSHE: Fitch determined that

In addition, Fitch affirms the ‘AA’ rating on PASSHE’s $825.3 million of outstanding revenue bonds.

The Rating Outlook is Stable.

That’s nice to know.  You might also be interested in this little nugget:

Generally stable operating performance has allowed PASSHE to maintain an adequate liquidity cushion. Available funds of $958 million at the end of fiscal 2009 covered over half (53.7%) of operating expenses for that year and 103.1% of total pro forma system debt. Unlike many colleges and universities, PASSHE’s conservatively invested financial cushion increased during fiscal 2009, despite the global financial market turbulence.

Once again, there is a serious gap between the claims being made by the local and state administrations and what independent analyses suggest.  [click here to check out Fitch's full report].

OK, I’ve got to run off and do the next round of English placement for incoming students.  Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

OK, folks…it took almost a week, but we finally have a statement from President Cevallos about the administration’s intentions regarding the Chancellor’s remarks regarding College of Business accreditation.  As you’ll recall, the Chancellor made it clear that any move forward toward accreditation needed to be part of a shared governance process.  Here’s what Cevallos wrote to faculty late yesterday afternoon:

From: “Cevallos, F. Javier” <cevallos@kutztown.edu>
Date: November 24, 2009 3:10:22 PM EST
To: COB-Dept <cob-dept@kutztown.edu>
Subject: COB meeting re: AACSB/December 3 at 11:00 a.m.

To the Faculty in the College of Business;

There has been quite a bit of conversation since the Chancellor’s November 18 visit to our campus regarding the College of Business and the pursuit of AACSB accreditation.  Although in the past there have been several conversations regarding this particular subject, and we have made significant investments in the College for this purpose, these decisions were made under a PASSHE mandate to accredit academic programs.  The Chancellor has suggested that we should have additional conversations on the campus regarding this issue in light of his new policy regarding accreditation, and I concur.  Given the importance of this issue, and the tight time line we face, I would like to invite the faculty in the College  (as well as APSCUF and University Senate representatives) to a meeting to discuss the matter, on Thursday, December 3, 2009  from 11 to 12:00 p.m. at DeFran 100.  I look forward to a productive discussion that will help us move forward in the best way for the College and the University.

Let’s hope that President Cevallos does not intend for a one hour meeting in the second to last week of the semester count for “shared governance.” At the very least, I hope that a timeline for future discussions will be established.  We’ll see.

On Wednesday, the same day that Chancellor Cavanaugh met with faculty and announced that the AASCB accreditation mandate was lifted, the Chancellor also met with KU students.  Click here to read the Reading Eagle story on the meeting.

From: Quinn, Paul
Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 20:55
To: Faculty
Subject: College of Business Accreditation

Fellow Faculty,

I wanted to provide you with a brief update regarding the College of Business and the remarks made by PASSHE Chancellor Cavanaugh on Wednesday.  As you may or may not recall, the recent reorganization of the College of Business has been planned based on a mandate from the Chancellor’s office for AACSB accreditation.  This was a mandate issued by the previous Chancellor, Judy Hample, and supported by the Board of Governors.  On Wednesday, the Chancellor stated that there was no longer a mandate in effect.  He further supported this with a direct email to me and Ken Ehrensal.  His email reads as follows.

***********************************************************************************

Dear Paul and Ken,

During my visit to Kutztown this week, I was asked whether I mandated AACSB accreditation. I responded that I did not. However, I want to ensure that you understand that my predecessor, Chancellor Hample, did indeed mandate such accreditation, and did state that failure to obtain accreditation would likely result in departmental or program elimination. Consequently, decisions on campuses were made, including hiring decisions, that were in response to that mandate. My recent change in that mandate reflects a fundamental shift in system requirements. This shift in mandate happened in the past few months as a result of ongoing discussions regarding the new directions for performance funding being addressed by the Task Force.

John

John C. Cavanaugh, Ph.D., Chancellor
Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education
Dixon University Center
2986 N. Second Street
Harrisburg, PA 17110

***********************************************************************************
This new information changes the rules of the game.

Given this APSCUF-KU thinks the following:

1) the reorganization of the College of Business needs to stop immediately while we have a chance to digest the Chancellor’s Decision and process its effect on our University;

2) the administration and the faculty of the College of Business need to immediately revisit the accreditation process and discuss whether or not to pursue this or any other accreditation

On Monday, November 23 at 4pm APSCUF-KU will hold a special Executive Committee meeting at which time, we will discuss how to best move forward.  The Provost, Dr. Vargas, will be coming to the meeting to answer any questions we have and discuss the change in the mandate with us.  Then, on Tuesday, November 24, members of APSCUF-KU Exec will be meeting with the faculty in the College of Business to discuss how to best move forward. Thanks.

Paul

One additional piece of information regarding when the Chancellor’s office announced changes in the mandate for College of Business accreditation.  Here’s what the Chancellor says:

From: Cavanaugh, John [jcavanaugh@passhe.edu]
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 3:04 PM
To: Quinn, Paul
Subject: AACSB update

My memory failed in relation to state Meet and Discuss. I went back and checked and it’s in the minutes taken at the September 18 meeting. The information that the system would be no longer be mandating accreditation was shared at that meeting. As I indicated earlier, we don’t have any new written policies/procedures. Those will develop over time.

So, according to the Chancellor, the announcement that PaSSHE will no longer be mandating accreditation was made in September.  What happened from that point, according to PaSSHE at least, is now the question.

From: Cavanaugh, John

To: Quinn, Paul

Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 11:14 AM

Subject: RE: AACSB

Paul,

Thanks for your note. See specific replies below.

John

From: Paul Quinn [mailto:quinn@kutztown.edu]
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 10:53 AM
To: Cavanaugh, John
Subject: Re: AACSB

Dr. Cavanaugh,

Thanks you for your email message this morning.  This is the first time we have had real clarity from PASSHE on this issue.  We are still trying to digest the impact of your words here on campus based on where we were in the accreditation process before your statements on Wednesday.

I have a few questions for you in regards to this matter.

1) So when you say that Kutztown needs to determine locally whether or not it wants to pursue AACSB accreditation, do you mean that the Kutztown Administration should determine it, or do you mean that the decision should be discussed through shared governance with the faculty and various governing bodies on campus?  I would say it needs to be discussed in a shared governance fashion, with very thorough discussion of the pros/cons. With AACSB, as I indicated in my remarks, there are real downsides for not doing it that should be considered. Some faculty indicated to me they came to Kutztown specifically because AACSB accreditation was a goal. Student recruitment also becomes an issue, as I discussed.

2) You refer to the shift in mandate that has happend these past few months in your email.  Has this shift been made known to the University Presidents prior to your statements on our campus? There has been general discussion only (i.e., that there would no longer be a mandate) recently. As a result, there have been no policy or procedure documents created yet.

3)Was State APSCUF made aware of this shift in mandate or the process that led to the shift in mandate via some sort of memo or the State Meet and Discuss meetings?  Because this change is very recent, I do not believe it has made it yet to the M&D at the state level (though I could be mistaken). That’s a result of the recency of the issue, nothing more. The actual process and details are still evolving, but in fairness to the campus I thought it would be an advance notice to make you aware of the upcoming changes. The performance funding task force will no doubt be recommending more when their work is completed; those will also be brought forward for discussion in appropriate venues (e.g., M&D). But because it had become clear that the accreditation mandate was not going to be one of them, I did not see a reason to withhold that information so decided to pass it along.

I apologize for the directness of my questions, but since your visit to our university, our College of Business has been thrown into a bit of chaos since WE were under the assumption that AACSB accreditation WAS a mandate until your statements on Wednesday.  I am just trying to construct a timeline to discern what happened and how to move forward.  Thanks for your time.  Your assumption was correct—it WAS a mandate until very recently.

Paul

I will try to provide additional updates later today or tomorrow.