Updates to faculty layoff plan and other stuff

General Campus News, Updates, Discussion
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Tere North
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Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2014 10:59 pm

sealhall74 wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 5:47 pm Oh, to be a fly on the wall next to the river on Thursday and Friday. Do we have any attendees on this board who can take some good notes?

http://www.wiu.edu/board_of_trustees/mi ... INAL-2.pdf
It is absolutely appalling that Student Services is effectively eliminated from the conversation. While the VP for Student Services is not really a student services professional, having been hired by Jack Thomas when Jack became VP so serve as Asst to the VP, and then to fill in the VPSS position with Biller was canned, the true student services professional know more about what makes students tick than all the others on the agenda combined. Those presenting are bean counters who can tell you how many beans we have, where they came from, how long they stayed, what they did while they were here, how much beans cost, how our bean demographics and statistics compare with other universities' beans, etc., but they can tell you absolutely noting about what makes beans want to come and want to stay. There in lies the problem! They need design thinking that understands the customer. If you don't understand the customer, the future of your entire product line is fraught to fail.
Leatherneck10
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Looks like the BOT has already decided that LEJA, Nursing, Supply Chain, Honors, and Engineering are the future. To grow those programs, except for LEJA, will be difficult and expensive. Nursing faculty are almost impossible to find. Nearly every university in the United States is looking for nursing professors. Without a graduate program in Nursing, our program is not attractive for PhDs in Nursing. Is an MSN in our future? Supply Chain professors are in short supply, too, and very expensive. WIU would need to spend 100K+ to attract a Ph.D. in Supply Chain. Is WIU willing to do that? Engineering is also very expensive to hire, and we need a School of Engineering that has a much more expanded curriculum, including graduate programs. Those facilities are expensive to build, too. Our current engineering offerings are simply insufficient. Growing the Honors College is also expensive. Every school wants honors students. The only way to get them is to throw scholarship money at them. Is it headcount we want or revenue?

LEJA is far and away the best option for growing WIU. Throw whatever money that School needs at it to hire tenure track and adjunct faculty. It's not prestigious, but has the best opportunity to increase both headcount AND revenue.
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Tere North
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Leatherneck10 wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 10:17 pm Looks like the BOT has already decided that LEJA, Nursing, Supply Chain, Honors, and Engineering are the future. To grow those programs, except for LEJA, will be difficult and expensive. Nursing faculty are almost impossible to find. Nearly every university in the United States is looking for nursing professors. Without a graduate program in Nursing, our program is not attractive for PhDs in Nursing. Is an MSN in our future? Supply Chain professors are in short supply, too, and very expensive. WIU would need to spend 100K+ to attract a Ph.D. in Supply Chain. Is WIU willing to do that? Engineering is also very expensive to hire, and we need a School of Engineering that has a much more expanded curriculum, including graduate programs. Those facilities are expensive to build, too. Our current engineering offerings are simply insufficient. Growing the Honors College is also expensive. Every school wants honors students. The only way to get them is to throw scholarship money at them. Is it headcount we want or revenue?

LEJA is far and away the best option for growing WIU. Throw whatever money that School needs at it to hire tenure track and adjunct faculty. It's not prestigious, but has the best opportunity to increase both headcount AND revenue.
We already have nearly 1/8 of our students in the Honors College. If everyone belongs, it's no longer an honor. Let's not go the way of participation trophies!

How can you promote Engineering as a key program when it is only general engineering, not like true engineering schools that different between chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical, etc. There are over 40 types of engineering degrees https://typesofengineeringdegrees.org/. We offer just one, though with limited focus options of less than a minor, and even then, junior and senior year only at the QC campus http://www.wiu.edu/cbt/qc/engineering/engineering.php
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Neckfansince71
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Well maybe, just maybe, WIU might begin to develop other lines of engineering with this change in focus! Tere, lets look to the future and what can be and stop tearing WIU/Macomb for what it has not been. ;) jc
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sealhall74
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Neckfansince71 wrote: Tue Jul 10, 2018 7:25 am Well maybe, just maybe, WIU might begin to develop other lines of engineering with this change in focus! Tere, lets look to the future and what can be and stop tearing WIU/Macomb for what it has not been. ;) jc
I will say this. Marketing yourself as the only public university in the QC with an engineering program is not going to cut it. Augie is not public but has a cooperative engineering program agreement with several other places. You spend three years at Augie and then transfer to finish up your final two years. You walk away with a Bachelor's Degree from BOTH institutions. Guaranteed admittance to NIU, Columbia, and Washington U in St. Louis to finish but they are also getting kids into U of I, Iowa, Purdue, and other bigger programs. That is hard to compete with other than cost as Augie is a little pricey.
Embrace the pace of the race.
meganeck
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WIU seems to be better on Twitter putting out tweets about positive news about WIU, they had a good one today. But I wonder if they are preaching to the choir. I doubt any prospective students are following on Twitter, but I guess maybe their parents might be.
wiu712
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WIU Focusing on the Positive to Reverse Enrollment Decline.

From Tri-States Public Radio, WIUM-FM:
http://tspr.org/post/wiu-focusing-posit ... nt-decline
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sealhall74
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Is a BOT Retreat the ultimate oxymoron when they are trying to move the university forward? Anxious to hear how things went.
Embrace the pace of the race.
wiu712
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Monday's University Re-Alignment & Growth press conference will be web-cast.

On Monday, July 16, members of the Western Illinois University community and area residents are invited to attend press events on the Macomb and Quad Cities campuses, where WIU President Jack Thomas and Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Kathy Neumann will unveil plans for the University's re-alignment and growth.

The Macomb campus event will be held from 10:30-11:30 a.m. in the University Union Brattain Lounge, while the Quad Cities campus event will be held from 2:30-3:30 p.m. in Riverfront Hall, rooms 103/104.

The Macomb e​vent will also be live streamed to the University's Facebook page and WIU's YouTube channel.

The QC event will be live streamed to the WIU-QC Facebook page and WIU YouTube channel. ​

Thomas and Neumann, along with Vice President of Quad Cities and Planning Joe Rives, will share the University's plan for investments in high-demand academic programs.
vatusay
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Why do it in QC?
#ALLIN #YOLO
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