2/24/17
Letter-to-the-editor:
TTU Faculty and staff recently received more bad news from university President Phil Oldham. For the second year running, unplanned or unanticipated budget reductions were announced. For the current 2016-17 year the reductions amounted to over $3 million dollars and for 2017-18 they are reported to be $2.6 million. The cuts will be spread between instructional and non-instructional activities. The main reasons for the latest revenue shortfalls are said to be the continued decline in student tuition money (especially from declining foreign student enrollment) and excessive scholarship awards. The impact of these cuts on the university’s ability to teach and service its students has already been felt as academic and administrative departments have had to forego hiring while some administrative departments struggle with fewer staff employees. All of this has demoralized many faculty and staff and undermined the university’s core mission of providing effective education.
Greatly complicating TTU’s fiscal position is the fact that higher echelon administrative posts—those that come with large and growing salaries and questionable roles–have blossomed under the current administration. There is now at TTU a Vice President for Research and Economic Development who is paid $305,000; an Associate Vice President For Strategic Research Initiatives who oversees what was TTU’s Water Center (although this person has no background in water-related matters) and is paid$160,000; a Special Assistant to the President for Strategy who receives $174,700; and a Vice President for University Advancement that receives $200,000. The Vice President for Planning and Finance—TTU’s chief financial officer—receives $200,000, a salary that has increased by 55% (from $128,700) in about five years. Many have questioned what some of these positions contribute even as they represent huge, fixed administrative costs. Particularly difficult to justify is that substantial administrative raises have followed what many see as poor performance on the part of TTU administrators and as reflected in the continued and ‘unanticipated’ budget shortfalls. It is not likely that the foreign student enrollment decline—driven by students from largely Islamic countries—will reverse itself in the current climate; nor will non-foreign student enrollment likely surge given the access to free community college education. If belt tightening is called for, many TTU faculty and staff increasingly think that it’s high time to rein in administrative glut and redirect resources toward providing education instead of highly paid employment for multitudes of vice presidents.
Jon Jonakin, Emeritus Professor of Economics, TTU
3/24/17
Letter to the editor:
The latest, mass layoffs of 19 staff employees at TTU and the reassignment in lower-paying positions of an undisclosed number of others underscore the severity of the ongoing fiscal crisis of the university and, again, highlight TTU’s problem as unique among TBR schools. Something emanating from the management of TTU continues to plague the university’s ability to educate and service its students. At a moment when the state of Tennessee is awash in surplus cash, TTU is mired in deficits. The fiscal shortfall does not entirely lie with falling student enrollment and over-extended scholarships as the administration would have it. Huge salaries for increasing numbers of high ranking administrative officials contribute to the fiscal problem. Questionable business ventures such as the TTU ‘satellite campus’ in Lawrence County will drain resources from the core campus while the Golden Eagle golf course is believed to operate in red ink. A failed ‘Health Care Informatics’ center ran up deficits and gave evidence of serious conflicts of interest on the part of its former director. A public, non-profit institution, TTU is increasingly managed as a private, for-profit business, and a failing business at that. The mismanagement has become so acute that the TTU Chapter of the American Association of University Professors recently voted overwhelmingly on a resolution of ‘no confidence’ in the administration’s handling of the university’s business and fiscal affairs. The same resolution called for an outside audit of TTU’s fiscal accounts.
The human aspect of TTU’s crisis should not be lost in all the fiscal accounting woes. In a Nashville, WSMV, Channel 4 interview TTU’s President Oldham called the layoffs ‘gut-wrenching’. And indeed they are, but much less gut-wrenching for Oldham than for those fired. In what seems to be an instance of rewarding failure, Oldham was just awarded a raise of $35,700 and now makes $316,196. I spoke with some of the fired staff people. The vast majority of those let go are women and minorities (and this aspect of TTU’s problems also requires investigation). One of those laid off told me their spouse would now lose health care insurance. And this came from a person whose TTU job paid far less than Oldham’s raise. Such discriminatory impacts and anomalies rank as truly gut-wrenching and deplorable.
Jon Jonakin, TTU Emeritus Professor of Economics
4/26/17
Letter-to-the-editor:
Much of the blame for TTU’s on-going fiscal crisis and the related employee firings has been assigned to the over-extension of student academic scholarships and this according to President Phil Oldham. One casualty of this over-extension was the Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management [AVP-EM ] whose office was charged with the actual award of such scholarships. Earlier, in 2014, the same AVP-EM had been asked by Oldham to develop a plan outlining options by which TTU would award scholarships and attract good students. The AVP-EM proposed various options on which to focus scholarship awards: transfer students, high performing students, and medium performing students. Oldham made the decision to pursue all these options, thus assuring that the scholarship pool of eligible, prospective students was ‘large’. In a subsequent meeting in 2014, Oldham, the TTU Provost, the Vice President for Planning and Finance [VP-PF], and the AVP-EM all agreed to pursue the composite of options and the ‘large’ pool. As a result of the new policy, the scholarships awarded in 2014 and 2015 resulted in larger dollar payouts than anticipated. In both years the VP-PF cut the checks needed to cover the costs and no red flags were raised regarding the unanticipated over-extensions. Then, in 2016 and continuing into 2017 there were yet more ‘unanticipated’ scholarship over-extensions. With a developing and now acute fiscal shortfall, funds were cut for academic and non-academic departments, hiring freezes were imposed, and finally job reassignments [to lower paying positions] and layoffs affecting around 20 people occurred. Among those let go was the AVP-EM who became the scapegoat for the whole scholarship affair.
Clearly, the wrong person was sacked. Both Oldham and the VP-PF—TTU’s chief accountant—signed off on the policy that yielded, year after year, the over-extended scholarships. The President and the VP-PF facilitated the problem from the beginning. Yet far from facing sanctions themselves, they were awarded raises in recent years that together have totaled over $90,000. A worrisome aspect of this turmoil is that the scholarship issue is but one component of TTU’s current fiscal problems and which have arisen as a result of generalized mismanagement occurring at very top of the administrative ladder. When the failures of the top-most administrators go rewarded, one understands that such administrators have begun to operate with the expectation of impunity and this is deeply worrisome.
Jon Jonakin, TTU Emeritus Professor of Economics
7/12/17
Letter to the editor:
The second meeting of the Tennessee Tech Governing Board meeting can be watched here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGtMprxWisA&t=4156sa) and it was eye opening. . Early on, the Board undertook a long discussion of whether TTU faculty and staff were deserving of a 3% raise mandated by the State. Several Board members appeared to agree that only those faculty and staff members who were “innovative” deserved even a 1% cost of living raise. One Board member insinuated that [many?] TTU faculty were simply slackers who were just “living another year” and collecting wages. Not only are these attitudes toward TTU employees disconcerting, it betrays an ignorance of what TTU Faculty do and do well. TTU faculty use cutting edge technology and teaching methods; they conduct research; and they are active in professional and community service. ALL faculty and staff deserve raises that at least account for the cost of living. There have been many years when faculty and staff have gotten NO raise. In addition, faculty and staff salaries at TTU are below the levels of comparative schools, or the ‘CUPA norm’. In fact, the only individuals whose salaries are generally above peer equivalents are TTU’s top administrators’, many of whom have received significant raises in the last four years.
When the discussion turned to whether President Oldham should receive a 3 % raise, there was almost universal agreement that he deserved yet another raise on an income of $340,000 given his “motivation” and “dedication”. Many were left wondering how these ineffable, (pandering?) tributes would be measured or clearly demonstrated. This discussion was all the more surprising considering that TTU is the only TBR university facing an acute financial crisis; one replete with large layoffs and all as a result of administrative mismanagement. Faculty evaluations of Oldham and high level administrators already exist but the administration refuses to allow access to them. A TTU-AAUP faculty survey resulted in a vote of “no confidence” in President Oldham in 2016. Before the Board begins evaluating faculty as slackers and denying them raises, they need to demand the release of administrative evaluations that already exist and the Board needs to consult with the AAUP on its existing survey. Morale among TTU faculty and staff is at rock bottom and will likely fall further if the Board and the administration continue to permit the kind of disparaging conversation and discrepant evaluative treatment evidenced in the second Board meeting.
Jon Jonakin, TTU Emeritus Professor of Economics