Budget hole has Tacoma-area university considering deep faculty, program cuts
Programs and faculty at Pacific Lutheran University are facing potential cuts as the Parkland university seeks to save $4 million to help stabilize its budget.
PLU president Allan Belton wrote in a letter to faculty in November that a state of financial exigency exists at the university, stemming from declining enrollment, anticipated budget shortfalls and impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.
PLU’s Faculty Handbook defines financial exigency as a “situation in which the university faces an imminent financial crisis which threatens the survival of the institution as a whole ...”
Belton told The News Tribune last week PLU “is not closing its doors” but setting itself up for future success. The declaration of financial exigency was to communicate urgency in addressing its finances, he said.
Belton initiated creation of a Faculty Joint Committee (FJC) on Reduction and Reallocation in Force made up of 20 faculty members in November. The group’s role is to review current offerings by the university and recommend changes and reductions to Belton and the Board of Regents.
“Our charge is we need to come up with $4 million dollar savings from the academic sector,” Tony Finitsis, associate professor of Hebrew Bible and co-chair of the Faculty Joint Committee, told The News Tribune. “This will eliminate positions, as you understand, and it could very well eliminate programs.”
In a letter to faculty dated Dec. 7, the FJC estimated a minimum reduction of 40 full-time employees.
Finitsis said it’s still too early in the process to know where those eliminations might come from. The group hopes to finish in mid-March, but that timeline could fluctuate.
The faculty group is in the middle of outlining the criteria by which it will make recommendations. In the past, the group has looked at which programs are attracting or retaining students.
The last FJC was convened in 2016 and resulted in a savings of $2.7 million, translating to 31 eliminated positions. PLU’s classics program also was reduced to only a minor, rather than a major. About three students per year had declared majors in classics.
Examining the demand by students for certain areas of study also could mean adding academic programs, Belton said. For example, the university launched its major and minor in criminal justice this year.
PLU and other colleges across the country have been facing a decreasing enrollment that’s only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Post-secondary enrollments declined 2.5 percent in fall 2020, nearly twice what was reported in fall 2019, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Undergraduate enrollment was the primary driver for the decline, decreasing 3.6 percent, or more than 560,200 students compared to 2019.
“Given the enormous pressure and the acceleration by the pandemic, PLU has to drastically readjust our priorities and our programming and our thinking, so that we can continue to thrive in the South Sound,” Finitsis said.
PLU’s budget totals about $85 million. PLU employs more than 300 faculty members and serves roughly 3,000 students. There were 100 fewer students than usual this year.
“This last year we graduated a really large class,” Belton said. “What we didn’t anticipate is the impact of COVID.”
PLU tuition costs around $45,000 annually. PLU was ranked No. 1 in Washington state for financial aid, according to a report by LendEDU in November. Each year, PLU awards more than $61 million in university-funded scholarships and grants, with 97 percent of PLU students receiving financial aid.
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 5:05 AM.
