Looking ahead - April 30, 2024

To all employees,

Last Friday, I briefly reflected on the numerous accomplishments of EMU’s outstanding students, faculty, and staff during the 2023-2024 academic year. In the spirit of reflection, we must look back even further to appreciate how far we have come and to begin taking steps to address future challenges and opportunities. As outlined below, one of those steps includes offering a voluntary early separation incentive program for certain employees in the Academic & Student Affairs Division.

The challenges that faced higher education in recent years

The last 10 years have been tumultuous for higher education.

  • Demographic changes have reduced the population of high-school age students, thus reducing the number of people available to attend EMU and other universities and colleges. 
  • Meanwhile, a larger percentage of that smaller pool of high school graduates is choosing not to attend college. 
  • A rapid decline in international enrollment beginning in 2017 further hindered enrollment opportunities for EMU and other schools.
  • And the COVID-19 pandemic caused many students to delay college or stop-out after enrolling. Retention rates across the country declined – including at EMU. 

As a result, EMU’s enrollment has declined by 42% since 2013. Although enrollment is down at colleges and universities across Michigan, the Midwest, and the United States, the financial impact here is substantial.

EMU strategy over the last several years

Fortunately, we anticipated many of these challenges and we took proactive action.

Beginning in 2017, we launched a comprehensive plan to right-size the University to match the decline in student enrollment. Many of these actions were difficult, but they were effective:

  • We reduced employee headcounts – without layoffs – through attrition and early buyouts that were negotiated with our union partners.
  • We executed partnerships with third-parties to manage auxiliary operations that are not part of our core mission, such as dining, housing, parking, and energy. I acknowledge that some of these partnerships were unpopular, but they all served to dramatically improve the University’s finances and shield us from the financial disasters that impacted some of those industries during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • We sold buildings, demolished obsolete buildings, and will continue to demolish obsolete buildings to reflect the changing nature of our work. At the same time, we renovated buildings in high-demand student areas, such as housing, Sill Hall, and Strong Hall. As a result, the University is expected to have nearly 500,000 fewer square feet of building space in 2025 compared to 2016.

Meanwhile, we also began investing in academic programs that are in high demand among students and employees. Examples include launching programs in mechanical engineering, electrical and computer  engineering, civil engineering, neuroscience, and data analytics. We launched a fully online RN-to-BSN nursing program that experienced dramatic increases in enrollment. And, we added a new musical theater program, among others. 

As a result of all these actions, the University ended years of operating deficits, increased our unrestricted financial reserves, and dramatically improved our financial index score as measured by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), thereby removing ourselves from the HLC’s financial “watch list”. These positive accomplishments occurred at the same time that student enrollment declined and government aid continued to be stagnant.

The challenges moving forward

Thanks to the proactive but difficult steps we have taken over the last eight years, EMU is in better financial shape than we have been in many years.

But challenges remain.

  • The demographic data have not changed: there are fewer people graduating from high school and fewer of those people are choosing college. Of those choosing college, competition has increased.
  • Government aid remains insufficient. Michigan ranks 40th in the nation in providing State funding for higher education, and State aid to EMU remains below 2003 levels – before adjusting for inflation. At the same time, Congress failed to increase Pell Grant awards this year.
  • COVID-relief funding from the federal government has ended.
  • Our retention rate has begun to increase, but has not returned to pre-COVID levels.

We must therefore continue to be realistic about the steps that we need to take to ensure that the University is able to most effectively deliver services to students to support retention and graduation.

Voluntary early separation package

As part of our ongoing efforts to maintain the appropriate number of resources given the challenges mentioned above, certain employees in the Academic & Student Affairs Division will be offered an incentive package to voluntarily end their employment with EMU. Those employees will be notified directly in the coming days.

The purpose of this opportunity is to allow the University more flexibility to re-design how we deliver services to students in a challenging post-COVID environment that includes a smaller pool of potential students.

This opportunity is available only within the Academic & Student Affairs Division because the activities in that division are most impacted by a smaller university with fewer students. Moreover, this opportunity will only be available to employees with specific seniority levels and an Administrative Professional (AP) employee classification.

Other future steps

The voluntary separation incentive program in the Academic & Student Affairs Division is not the only step we will take to help position EMU for continued success. Other initiatives are already underway. 

Katie Condon, our new Vice President for Enrollment Management, is overhauling our enrollment policies and systems to better position EMU in the hyper-competitive market for students. Calvin McFarland, Associate Vice President for Student Success, and Doris Fields, the Associate Vice President for Academic Programs, are updating our plans to retain current students. And Maher Salah, our new Vice President for Advancement, and the EMU Foundation team are reimagining and enhancing the systems and programs that will allow us to expand our engagement with alumni and donors.

These are just a few of the many initiatives underway that will continue to make EMU a vibrant public university that provides a unique experience for our students and helps them to pursue fulfilling careers.

Thank you again for your dedication and hard work over the past year.

James Smith, Ph.D.