Bowling Green State to Lay Off 43
Bowling Green State University is set to lay off 43 salaried employees at the end of the school year, saving the school almost $2 million, the Toledo Blade reports.
Layoffs will affect the administrative staff, which includes nonfaculty salaried workers such as managers and directors in financial aid, residence life, and student services. The 43 employees represent about 7 percent of the administrative staff. The school also expects more layoffs of hourly employees before the end of the year.
Tags: colleges | Bowling Green State University
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HMMM
BGSU is cutting graduate assistantships in College Student Personnel, too.
Worth the effort and energy?
It is interesting to see that the areas of first consideration of getting on the chopping block are the one's that deal in student services. Is a non-researched based faculty member or any faculty member more important to keep than a seasoned student personnel services member?
BGSU's unique model
I'm a University Administrator, former corporate executive, and an alumnus of BGSU's well-regarded Master's in College Student Personnel program. Points made above (both excerpts) are valid in different contexts. What makes Bowling Green's situation unique is that they have a large staff of bright masters students (probably about 80 or so) who serve in halftime assistantship roles within most of these units (for roughly the last 20 years). While the full-time administrators are extremely necessary to carry out continuity and overall direction of BGSU's student services, the grad students have now an amazing opportunity to run the show, so to speak. This will require (I'm assuming) quite a bit of interaction with the faculty who TEACH in the CSP and Higher Education programs, as those faculty members will likely be consulted like never before on how to run BG's auxillary units. In the past, they were tasked with research and teaching (traditional roles). I have no insider insight on the matter, but I have to think this will change (informally). They are great people and will do what's right for the organization. My heart goes out to those staff who are going to lose their jobs (an avg. salary worth ~$36,000 plus benefits - faculty often make multiple(s) of this figure, btw), and I pray that they will move through this economic crisis with success on the other side.
The key takeaway is that BGSU can do something very few (if any) other colleges/universities can. Before looking at this as an example on how to save $, institutions of higher learning must think about their models of delivering service first.
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