In February of the 2014-15 school year, Northwestern students were informed in an email from President Greg Christy that NW would implement a right-sizing process.
Right-sizing is a task that includes evaluating NW’s current financial situation and cutting positions on campus to meet budgetary constraints. The administration said the process is needed in order to balance the school’s budget for the 2016-17 school year. As students left for the summer, it was still unclear what departments and faculty and staff would be impacted by the budget cuts.
Faculty and staff were informed in July that the administration had decided to discontinue the music ministry and journalism majors. Other departments impacted by operational or personnel cuts include: global education, the Career Development Center, music, nursing, registrar, religion, English, computer science, communications and athletics.
The budget was reduced in these departments either by open positions not being filled or by some positions being eliminated. The music ministry and journalism majors will no longer be an option in the 2016-17 school year. The faculty and staff whose positions were reduced to part time or eliminated will remain in their current positions for the 2015-16 school year. Personnel cuts will also take effect in the 2016-17 school year.
One faculty member impacted by the budget cuts was Heather Josselyn-Cranson, who has been at NW for 11 years. After this year, Josselyn-Cranson will no longer be the chapel music and music team coordinator.
Instead, she will move to a part-time position as a music professor. Josselyn-Cranson was heavily involved in teaching the classes required for the music ministry major that has been eliminated.
“The loss of the music ministry major is a very sad loss to the music department because I think students majoring or minoring in music ministry have made great contributions to the department and are very much a part of what we do,” Josselyn-Cranson said.
Josselyn-Cranson said she believes the music department will suffer as a whole without the music ministry major.
Christy said the administration evaluated which majors and positions to cut based on a four-part criteria laid out in a plan called the Strategic Plan 2012. This was a plan adopted three years ago by faculty and the Board of Trustees
The criteria are 1) is it central to the school’s mission, 2) does it provide a distinctive high quality academic experience, 3) does it give the school a comparative advantage or potential to distinguish itself, 4) is the program in high demand by perspective students and employers?
Christy said majors such as music ministry and journalism met one or two of the criteria but not all. The college is committed to helping seniors through freshmen complete their music ministry major but are only able to help seniors through sophomores majoring in journalism.
The elimination of the journalism major did not result in any faculty member being dismissed since an 18-month search for a new journalism professor was unsuccessful.
Along with the journalism major, the administration also decided the communications department would close after this year. Professor Ann Minnick is the current head of the communications department and the only faculty member in the department.
The public relations major will continue under the business department. Ann Minnick will continue to head up the PR major. Samuel Martin’s position in the English department was completely eliminated.
Minnick worries that with writing classes associated with journalism no longer available to public relations majors, the public relations major and students may suffer.
“I am not sure what this next year will look like,” Minnick said. “The details have yet to be worked out. My goal is to not jeopardize the quality of the PR major.”
Some faculty are concerned that the departments most traditionally associated with a liberal arts education were hit the hardest by the budget cuts; departments such as music, religion and English.
Christy said the school will not change its emphasis on a Christian liberal arts education, although it may have to eliminate some traditional humanities majors like journalism and music ministry.
“We value journalism,” President Christy said. “We value music ministry and yet, when we look at everything, at the end of the day we can’t continue to offer these programs.”
Christy said that while the college will continue to offer a Christian liberal arts education, the school needs to invest in majors in highest demand by prospective students and their families.
“We need to invest in programs that we see opportunity in for the institution to further distinguish itself and build on the strengths we already have,” Christy said. “What that unfortunately means, too, is that we have to look at what we should stop doing.”
In the 2014-15 school year, the top three majors at NW were in business, education and bio health professions such as kinesiology, biology and nursing. Christy said that it’s in majors like these, especially the bio health professions, where NW sees especially great potential for growth.
Christy said this explains why faculty positions in some departments were eliminated or cut in half, while seven more full-time faculty were hired. The new faculty filled positions in departments the administration believe met the four criteria laid out in the Strategic Plan, especially the fourth criteria, student and employer demand.
“As an example, we had two positions open in the education department,” he said. “Education is a top five major in terms of numbers of students, and employers are hiring our education majors all the time…so we filled those positions.”
For some students, the personnel and program cuts may have come as a surprise, but Christy said NW’s budget has slowly been getting tighter for the last three years. He attributed this to up and down enrollment and the need to provide students with additional financial aid.
“Private college enrollment is down in state of Iowa,” Christy said. “This is not just a Northwestern problem.”
Christy said he hopes that additional budget changes and increased enrollment over the next three fiscal years will result in a balanced budget by the 2017-18 school year.
Faculty impacted by the budget cuts said they understand the school has economic needs.
“The reality is we can’t spend more than we have,” Minnick said, though the cuts still hurt the faculty, staff and departments impacted.
Despite the difficult changes coming in 2016, Minnick and Josselyn-Cranson said the reason they and the school are here will always remain unchanged.
“We are here,” Minnick said, “because we believe in the students.”
