Quote from: MCScots2013 on June 10, 2026, 06:27:00 PMBut, higher education acts as though they are immune to things "normal" businesses have to face.  These institutions are employers--were they really going to tell potential hires they are facing financial issues?

If you want to say that you're dealing with the same things "normal" businesses deal with, then hire the way a "normal" business does. Change it to a non-tenure track position.

But dangling the carrot of tenure -- something specific to academia that carries a promise of job security -- to attract candidates*, and then throwing your hands up 12 months later and say "Well, we're no different than any other employer" is nonsense.

*Because the minute you change it to non-tenure track, your applicant pool will shrink drastically.

Quote from: Kuiper on June 10, 2026, 05:49:20 PMHe may have even declined other tenure track offers or visiting offers at better schools to take this position and now he's at a disadvantage going back on the market

Yeah, I think this is really what he's getting at.

I worked for a now-defunct publishing company that --after I left-- closed almost without warning after getting bought out by a larger media company. Basically, they got called in and were told, "We're closing at the end of the week".

When one of the employees talked to me about it, he said he felt that the boss -- who of course was going to be a part of the new company -- told him that he didn't warn people because he wanted to finish the last thing the soon-to-be-defunct company was putting out, and he didn't think people would do it if they knew the company was closing.

I'm very glad I got out of there before that, and most of my colleagues found other (better) jobs quickly. But there was definitely a feeling of rug-pulling, and that anger was justified

I mean, on the one hand, getting fired is unaligned with everyone's career goals, sacrifices, and rewards. We all sacrifice when we take one job and leave another. We all have goals. And most of us don't have the reward of tenure dangling in front of us at all. And, hey, this is higher ed in 2026. Job uncertainty just comes with the territory.

But on the other, the whole point of hiring someone on tenure track -- as opposed to the other lanes for faculty -- is in fact the implication that you do want them in your department for a significant amount of time, and that the person can in fact expect that they'll be there for the foreseeable future.

Quote from: Kuiper on May 28, 2026, 12:00:32 AM

Quote from: WUPHF on May 27, 2026, 08:25:11 PMWittenberg provost: University not closing soon, making improvements.

https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/wittenberg-provost-university-not-closing-soon-making-improvements/article_edaf0911-47ad-5b23-abf1-d4126ebde348.html

This has a Baghdad Bob "Nothing to see here" feel.

It's all very vague and doesn't have much details on how these changes hace impacted enrollment and giving

Quote from: Ron Boerger on May 23, 2026, 05:41:21 PM

Quote from: DagarmanSpartan on May 23, 2026, 03:19:57 PMOR you could do what CWRU does and have a School of Engineering, a School of Management, a School of Nursing, and a College of Arts and Sciences, that way, nearly all students can study something they like!

Because there are so many Division III schools enrolling 12,000 students (undergrad/grad), with a 267 acre campus, a 400 acre farm, and $2.5 billion in an endowment to make things like this possible.

Why haven't any of our colleges/universities just considered not being so small and poor?

Quote from: MCScots2013 on May 23, 2026, 10:29:38 AMI think you need to give yourself a little more credit.  Technology may have changed your day-to-day, but you still know how the sausage is made.  That's invaluable.  We may not build roads in the same fashion as the Romans but knowing how they did it paved the path for today's DOT.

As I said before, I'm not suggesting we kill off the liberal arts.  I'm suggesting we become more competitive.

By the way--kudos to Brendan.  Love that story. 

Oh I give myself credit, don't worry, haha. I work as a journalist for my alma mater, and I love my job. I've got the requisite writing skills for sure, but what's shining through a lot is the type of soft skill stuff that get developed when you do more than just hyperfocus on one thing.

Understanding the needs of our audiences, having the ability to discern what stories will meet our goals, critically analyzing information, understanding how to write stories in a way that intersect with a lot of different paths in order to tell a "bigger" story than it might appear, even understanding why certain types of stories may (or may not) resonate in a current climate. Heck, even learning the interpersonal skills needed to communicate with a bunch of different stakeholders in an effective way. They're all things I developed significantly in courses outside of my journalism classes.

If the only thing I took in college was journalism related courses, I wouldn't be able to bring as much of that to the table, and I'd lack some of the technical expertise that this generation possesses. That's what these "Just let kids study solely what they want to do for a living and quit making them waste time learning [something someone says is unrelated]" proclamations are missing.

As for Brendan, yeah he busted his *** and worked his way up the ladder.

Another example might be gym teachers. When I went to high school in Ithaca, every single one of my gym teachers (many of whom were also coaches) either went to Cortland or IC. But if you're going to end up at the same high school teaching the same things for identical pay, why do it while incurring tens of thousands of additional debt? That's part of why Ithaca no longer has the Physical Education degree.

I don't want to weigh in on the full back and forth here, but I'll make two specific observations centered around my field of journalism, as it relates to the larger points being discussed.

1. Cost - I do not have a clue how private, liberal arts colleges can possibly compete with state schools when the first career stops out of college are invariably going to be the small local/regional papers/networks that all pay you a pittance while you earn your chops, hone your skills, etc.

For example, IC alumnus Brendan Burke, who now works for the NHL's New York Islanders, began his career spending nearly a decade in minor league hockey.

I think that while a lot of alums -- and I'm not speaking about Brendan specifically here -- may see the connection between their college experience and those early jobs, by the time you get to the really financially successful levels, you're crediting your own professional growth more than your alma mater. So in the mind of a prospective student, why take on significantly more debt if you're all going to end up in the same place to start anyway?

2. Skills that "Will be relevant in X number of years" - When I took Introduction to Journalism at Ithaca College in the Fall of 2001, we had desktop computers, we typed into a word doc, and saved files on disks/thumb drives before printing out sheets of paper. In my Introduction to Broadcast Production course, taken the Fall of 2002, we literally cut reel-to-reel tape with razors to edit clips.  Working at the radio station, we recorded the ABC News updates on a reel-to-reel machine, then recorded those onto mini-discs to be played in the station.

My "hands on experience" from college ~25 years ago is wholly and completely irrelevant to what the field requires today.

Today, Intro to Journalism students at Ithaca College are going out with tens of thousands of dollars worth of cameras, mics, and lights, and collaborating with drone operators to produce multimedia pieces that get edited digitally to appear on social media sites that didn't even exist in 2002.

Yeah there may be degree paths that are more stable or conducive to professional career success. But the amount of change that can occur in a single generation can make a lot of things EDIT: Obsolete. And it may in fact be, the "soft skills" you learn in some of these derided paths of study that help you weather that change.

Quote from: CNU85 on May 20, 2026, 10:50:26 AMInteresting informtion. I hope BW successfuly comes through this. Also intersting that Economics was eliminated. Hopefully they still offer some courses. I believe it is important for every student to at least be introduced to it. So does ACTA when they evaluate institutions. I know at CNU, every student has to take at least one Econ class, it might be 2.

"A university spokesperson said that while the majors themselves are being eliminated, much of the same coursework and instruction will still be available as part of other programs."

Yeah, the thing to remember is we're all overpaying for everything. Calling and threatening to cancel services frequently gets you savings

Quote from: WUPHF on May 14, 2026, 11:25:45 AMFlo College did publish a greatest sports dynasties story last week, so they are doing things.  Limited things.

It seems strange that Johns Hopkins lacrosse and St. Thomas football made the list by the way


And Calvin volleyball?

https://www.flocollege.com/articles/15882801-the-greatest-d3-sports-dynasties-ever

Apologies to the writer for what I'm about to say, but it's clear that little actual research was put into the list, and they just picked whatever they came across first

Kenyon men's swimming and diving won 31 straight titles. Women's swimming won 17 straight. That's the ultimate standard in any Division, for any sport. Neither even got honorable mention. Neither did Augsburg wrestling and their 15 titles

But, St. Thomas football, which never even won a Stagg Bowl sure did!

But hey, they're giving schools $30,000 a year. They can't do that AND pay for quality journalism

In a similar vein, I'm actually curious how this works for something like a regional or state tournament like we see in wrestling or baseball.

If Oswego Stare is the host institution for a 20-team wrestling New York State wrestling tournament and the SUNYAC uses Flo, does that mean it's behind the paywall for everyone? Because this LL softball tournament seems to indicate that it's the host institution's affiliation with Flo, and not the specific tournament's affiliation that matters.

Ithaca has held separate ceremonies for graduating athletes.

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on May 10, 2026, 09:04:22 PMIt's cheaper to watch Rochester now than it used to be.

Rochester wasn't the only team competing in the tournament, and several games didn't include them at all.

Hope this helpes

Quote from: WUPHF on May 09, 2026, 10:20:48 AMWebster spokesperson Patrick Giblin told local media outlets that the university "was unable to raise a single dollar in endowments to support the program." He noted that it had "invested more than a million dollars per year of its operating budget to support the program during a time when the university was losing millions each year, and its enrollments at the Webster campus declined by half."

I don't know how many alumni count themselves as former members of that club, but that they weren't willing to help support it says...something to me, and it's not a good thing.

To steal from Boyz in the Hood: "Either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on..."

But yes, to a larger point, colleges are simply going to have to be making tough decisions about things that only pertain to a small segment of the student body.

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on May 09, 2026, 10:46:37 AMRochester had a paywall before Flo.

Yes they did -- as I pointed out -- but their prior paywall did not require a full on FloSports subscription

Quote from: y_jack_lok on May 10, 2026, 09:47:45 AMIsn't the relevant question that if it is the Liberty League softball championship and the LL doesn't have a contract with Flo, then why are they putting the tournament games behind the Flo paywall? ... It is, after all, the LL's tournament, not Rochester's.

This is, in fact, the relevant question: Why did a non-Flo conference allow their conference championship tournament to be put behind a FloSports paywall?