State System of Higher Education Chancellor Dan Greenstein released a letter that he has sent to all 14 university presidents concerning the State System Financial Sustainability Guidelines.
In his recent blog post, Greenstein said that while the contributions from State System Universities to the state are strong, they are threatened “by years of neglect on the part of the Commonwealth…to underfund public higher education”. Greenstein said that the state system is also part of that neglect, as they have been slow to evolve to meet the changing needs of students, employers and the communities and state. He also said that they’ve not worked quickly enough to address financial challenges that resulted from long-running structural changes in the demographic and political economy.
The letter that he sent to the university presidents details some of the actions that must be taken right away “in order to more rapidly align university expenditure and workforce with current and anticipated enrollments.” Greenstein has requested that all universities:
- Curtail the use of temporary faculty and instead use permanent faculty from their university or permanent faculty at other universities
- Eliminate low-enrolled programs
- Not filling vacant staff or faculty positions or create new ones until they meet essential needs as determined by the university president
- Ensure effective use of evidence-based practices in supporting and retaining students to and through graduation.
Greenstein said he wants to see the actions go into effect and the anticipated results put in a subsequent draft of the school’s sustainability plans and be available for review by June 1st.
You can read the full blog post by clicking the link below:
