Leatherneck Nation

Western Looks to Boost Fundraising Efforts.

From Tri-States Public Radio WIUM-FM:
http://tspr.org/post/western-looks-boos ... =#stream/0

We so need to move on to the next chapter of the "History of Western Illinois University!" Move in and the start of classes , the start of athletics, football, volleyball, cross country, soccer!!!! And maybe, just maybe, a "real" budget!!!! jc

Hard to believe in the Early 1970's WESTERN's enrollment was 15,000+ I could be wrong but I don't think WIU Quad Cities was a thing yet so that was 15,000 at Macomb. Take away the QC and distant learning students now and the actual students at Macomb is more like 9,000.

So the Macomb campus today is what 60% of it's "Heyday"?

In Brad Bainter's recent interview on WIUM-FM, he mentioned that the state's financial uncertainty was now impacting on donations to the Western Foundation.

I don't know how much we can expect from the fall session of the General Assembly. That is usually just a two-week session to address any vetoes made by the Governor.

I can remember an interview with former President Goldfarb when he was in charge. He mentioned that Western's enrollment would stabilize in the 6,000 range. A few current faculty members think that the number may be closer to 4,000. Goldfarb would often talk about the "Truman State Model" as a goal for Western.

Perhaps Illinois would be better off going with a one operating system for Higher Education--similar to Wisconsin, North Carolina, etc.

The Governor has appointed President Thomas to the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Perhaps that will be an asset for us.

712,
I hope that the legislature makes good use of their time after the fall elections to complete the budget process. I saw an article in the Daily Herald recently that said that members of the house and senate are paid 100k by the state per year. I hear constant complaining about teachers whose students have low test scores getting paid $50,000 dollars per year, how about reps and senators who have failed to successfully pass a budget for the past two years.

As far as I am concerned, WIU nation has got to remain positive and proactive no matter what! (That definitely includes faculty and staff!). Things are only going to get better! Wiu needs to continue to evolve. I don't care what Goldfarb thought, but I do like the fact that Truman State has done well although they may be feeling the effects of change and state problems also! We have discussed their model before as I recall. 10,000 - 11,000 is a perfect number for WIU IMO! jc

The crisis surrounding Illinois' Higher Education continues.

For the second straight year, the University of Illinois will not provide general raises on its three campuses, at least for the time being.

UI President Tim Killeen sent an email to faculty and staff members late Monday, saying the budget stalemate in Springfield made it “fiscally imprudent” to fund a general salary program for 2016-17.

"Crains Chicago Business" has an article this week about Illinois state university professors who are moving to positions out of state.
Why are so many professors moving out of Illinois?
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... ate-budget


Chicago State University layoffs come at a cost.
From today's Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-c ... story.html

More bad news announced today:

S&P Global Ratings lowered its underlying rating three notches to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB+’ on Governors State University Board of Trustees, Ill.’s series 2007 and 2012 university facilities system (UFS) revenue bonds and series 2008 and 2009 certificates of participation (COPs), issued on behalf of Governors State University (GSU or the university). The outlook is negative. Governors State has now been downgraded to Junk status.

S&P Global Ratings lowered its long-term rating to ‘A’ from ‘A+’ on Illinois State University Board of Trustees’ auxiliary facilities system (AFS) revenue bonds. In addition, we lowered our long-term rating and underlying rating (SPUR) on existing bonds and certificates of participation (COPs), issued on behalf of Illinois State University (ISU), to ‘A’ from ‘A+’. The outlook, where applicable, is negative.

UIUC: More faculty leaving over state finance crisis.

From the Associated Press:

Figures from the University of Illinois show that its faculty members have received job offers and have resigned to move elsewhere in increasing numbers over the past 12 months.

School officials have said over the past two years that uncertainty over the state budget and pension funding has led more faculty at the Urbana-Champaign campus to look for work outside Illinois.

According to The News-Gazette in Champaign, 151 professors received outside job offers and sought incentives to stay over that period. That is up from 104 a year earlier.

And 70 faculty members have resigned over the past year. That is up from 46.

Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson said she fears it will become even more difficult to keep faculty without some resolution of the budget crisis.

Ten-day enrollment figures at the state universities will be announced next week. Initial projections are showing significant enrollment declines at Eastern Illinois, Chicago State, and SIU-Carbondale.

Just a couple of things...

Everyone who was let go earlier in the year (late May, I think) has been called and anyone who was interested in getting a job back on campus has been offered that opportunity. A few have left, some have gotten jobs elsewhere, some have just decided to retire, but everyone who was let go has been offered the same or a similar position on campus. They also ran out of people to call before they ran out of open positions, so Western is actually hiring now for a couple of select positions.

Regarding enrollment...obviously we don't know anything for sure until the "10th Day" numbers come out early next week (that's the official numbers that schools generally go with...gives 2 weeks for students enrolling late, early drops, etc.)...but, early numbers are showing that we will likely be effectively "static" as compared to last year in terms of the size of the freshman class. Now, that still means that overall enrollment should drop a bit, since the group of students leaving/graduating had a larger freshman class than the recent year or two, but for incoming freshmen classes, it looks like the "downward spiral" has essentially halted at this point (give or take a few students here or there). If EIU, SIU, and CSU are projecting significant enrollment declines, then they're probably looking at smaller freshmen classes again this year as compared to last year. Next week I'll dig around the various universities websites and see what I can find out for enrollment changes for IL public universities for 2016.

Things are going from BAD to WORSE in this state.

Today (August 31) Moody’s Investors Service warned that Illinois' bill backlog could skyrocket and increase pressure to raid special funds because the state hasn’t passed a permanent budget for a second straight year.

The ratings agency also warned that the state’s financial pressures could even lead to borrowing from funds that are set aside to re-pay bonds.

Moody’s noted that state spending is increasing even though a full budget isn’t in place.

Moody's project that the state’s backlog of bills will grow to as much as $14 billion this fiscal year, surpassing prior peak levels reached in the wake of the last recession.

As of August 31, the state’s bill backlog stood at just over $8 billion, according to Comptroller Leslie Munger’s website.