By Starla Pointer
Staff Writer, McMinnville News-Register
Dec 6,
2018
Linfield College has a critical need to increase its enrollment,
President Miles Davis told a crowd of employees and students at a community
forum on Friday.
He described a nationwide trend of decreasing college and university
enrollment and, in some cases, withering support for the idea of higher
education.
Since Linfield, a private school, depends on tuition and fees to pay
the bills, enrollment is critical, he said. This year, declines led to a $3 million
shortfall.
“We can’t keep spending the endowment” to make up differences like
that, Davis said.
He reiterated how Linfield must make a multi-pronged effort to market
the college and recruit and retain students. Some strategies are in process,
like focusing on first-generation students, and redoubling recruiting efforts
aimed at transfers and non-traditional students.
He’s been welcomed when he visits community colleges, he said, and he
is eager to persuade students to go on to Linfield. “They’re good people,” said
Davis, noting he started at a community college himself.
In addition, he said, Linfield is working on attracting more diverse
students. The number of students who are white and middle class is shrinking,
but there is great potential for recruiting students of color, he said.
Already, Latino students represent 17 percent of the enrollment.
When a student asked about Linfield’s efforts to raise cultural
awareness and decrease harassment -- which she said she’d suffered -- Davis
told her that those are priority issues. “It’s the right thing to do,” as well
as good for the college, he said.
He invited the student to participate on Linfield’s new bias response
team.
“Please don’t leave” Linfield, he implored her.
Davis discussed a wide range of other topics, from finances to
Linfield’s continuing commitment to the liberal arts, during the hour-long
forum in Ice Auditorium on campus. A direct video feed let people on the
Portland campus listen and ask questions, like their counterparts in McMinnville.
At the outset of the forum, the president said he wanted to provide an
opportunity to air concerns and to address rumors, such as recent speculation
that the college will cut positions or eliminate programs.
Between the McMinnville and Portland campuses and the Office of
Continuing Education, which attracts adults who work while attending classes,
the college in 2017-18 had 162 faculty members, not counting adjuncts, and 430
other employees, ranging from administrators to groundskeepers.
Davis, who joined Linfield in July, said the budget for 2019-20 has not
been drawn up yet, so no decisions have been finalized. Programs growing and
attracting students will be supported; others, in which enrollment is
declining, need to be critically analyzed.
Every year, he said, the administration considers the potential for
serving students represented by each department. Then the president has to
present a balanced budget plan to the Board of Trustees based on realistic
projections for revenues and costs.
If growth were projected annually at 10 percent for the next five
years, he said, that would “get us back to where we were” before enrollment
started to decline.
He likened the process to gardening: “To grow, we often have to cut.
There’s no contradiction. We have to decide what’s useful to the growth of the
body as a whole.”
Davis said representatives of all areas of the college have formed a
cabinet to discuss potential budget items. They will be meeting several times
before the budget is finalized in early 2019.
A few of those present at the forum said later that they had received
early retirement offers. College officials confirmed such offers were made in
November to an undisclosed number of employees based on their years of service
and proximity to retirement age.
Those employees have until early January to decide, so the college
won’t know how the offers will affect the budget until then.
Asked about the next 10 years, Davis said his long-range vision
includes stable finances for the college, improved branding and marketing,
flourishing enrollment and a new science facility — a capital campaign for the
latter is underway.
He also wants to expand into graduate programs and increase Linfield’s
online presence. In addition, he wants to continue to “seek to attract and
retain the most qualified faculty” as well as quality students, who are “at the
heart and soul” of the college.
Drawing laughter, Davis said he wants to change Oregon’s landscape so
drivers will see signs everywhere promoting Linfield, rather than George Fox.
In the short term, enrollment declines are driving concerns. Linfield,
like schools across the nation, is suffering from a societal shift in the way
higher education is delivered and considered.
Some people are questioning the need for higher ed. Others, largely
those who look at it as simply job training, think it can be better delivered
by for-profit schools. And many students are choosing community colleges or
online programs, rather than residential schools, due to costs alone.
Like many schools, Linfield has seen enrollment decline. But other
institutions are worse off: 106 schools across the country have closed in the
last few years; seven in 2018.
So belt-tightening is necessary, Davis said. “We’ve had to postpone
some hiring to stop the bleeding,” he said.
Linfield has not filled the position of vice president for enrollment
services, which has been empty since mid-summer. Instead, the president is
overseeing those duties.
To save additional dollars, he said, he is proposing handling data
analysis in-house, rather than hiring an expensive outside company to examine
enrollment trends, recruiting and financial aid packages. In-house analysis
also could be more relevant to Linfield’s particular needs and strengths, he
said.
On the positive side, Davis said, this is a time of great
opportunities.
Linfield just purchased the University of Western States campus in
Portland, which in 2020 will become the new home of the Linfield-Good Samaritan
School of Nursing.
Davis said nursing school graduates now represent 44 percent of those
who receive degrees. The new facilities will provide expansion in Linfield
enrollment and its range of health-related fields of study.
He observed how Linfield could become the go-to school for training
nurse practitioners and physician assistants, as well as registered nurses.
He’s open to all ideas, he said, but he’s already ruled out two types
of graduate programs.
“I wouldn’t launch a law school or an MBA,” said Davis, who was dean of
the business school at Shenandoah University in Virginia before coming to
Linfield.
There may be more specific programs Linfield could offer successfully,
though, he said.
In addition to its cabinet reviewing budget items, the college also has
formed an academic innovation council. Its members — faculty, deans and other
members of the staff — will examine ideas that could draw students.
When someone asked about the potential for summer programs, Davis
quipped, “We’re giving thought to everything. Nothing, from my perspective, is
off the table.”
Linfield may eventually have more programs that combine liberal arts
and professional studies, as the bachelor’s degree in nursing does.
But it will not lose its essential focus on the liberal arts entirely,
Davis said, defining “liberal arts” as “reasoning, history and citizenship ...
to function as a citizen in society.”
