Rocket Nation Recovery Part 25 – thank you UToledo Deans, Administrators, Faculty and Staff for your messages! Your message below summarizes one consistent theme.
“People are willing to pay for things of value. In other words, people will pay a high price for a great product. It appears that the current UT administration has failed to recognize this basic tenet or have chosen to ignore it.
UT administrators have exclusively focused on gathering and presenting the analytics pertaining to budgets and enrollment, as well as on developing cost-cutting measures. Cost cutting is understandable up to a point.
Where has academic leadership been? Over the past 17-years a string of interim Provosts have failed to take ownership of shaping UToledo academic programs to the ever changing needs of students. UToledo has been significantly outpaced by our competitors. We need to immediately invest in programs that students want and cut those that do not. The enrollment trend shows that our customers are speaking and UT administrators are not listening. Hard choices need to be made.
Multiple years of costing cutting at UT has taken us well beyond the effectiveness of such an approach. The impact of cost costing measures on the delivery of high quality education at UT has been largely ignored by administrators. Academic leadership needs to step up to reconned UT to student’s needs.
To continue to assume that plans to address enrollment shortfalls do not negatively impact the delivery of academic programs is a grave mistake. Again, who pays a high price for an inferior product?
Marketing is most effective when the product is strong and desirable. Thus, UT administrators should direct their effort into the development of implementable plans to strengthen the product (i.e. academic programs) in a cost effective way. Those plans need to be visible to all of us.
Which will prevail in the minds and actions of UToledo leaders and trustees – – continued apathy and a blind eye to our customers or swift accountability and urgent customer focused decisions?”
As a forward looking UToledo trustee, would you commission a third-party assessment to gauge the level of buy-in, alignment, and overall morale at all levels within UToledo?
It’s ok to feel uncomfortable in a crisis. Please pray for thoughtful, compassionate accountability and urgent actions to revitalize The Rocket Nation.
