HSU, CR look at ‘grave’ budget concerns
Hiring freeze for vacant positions part of future plans
Humboldt State University is projecting a massive drop in freshmen enrollment for the fall, has frozen hiring for most vacant staff positions and will be consolidating academic departments across its three colleges due in part to budget shortfalls brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
A joint press release from HSU and College of the Redwoods on Tuesday evening said HSU was facing a $5.4 million budget shortfall before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the state. Now, HSU is predicting a $20 million deficit.
CR was already facing a $1.3 million budget deficit due to decreased state funding before the coronavirus pandemic hit home, the release said.
“Now (College of the Redwoods) is bracing for more state cuts as well as a shortfall from dormitory
vacancies and a decline in food services,” the release said. “Options being considered include incentives for early retirement, leaving vacant positions unfilled, continuing to make necessary adjustments to operations in non-academic areas that are considered inefficient, and otherwise cutting back on personnel spending.”
Both higher learning institutions are bracing for an uncertain future.
“Clearly, the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic downturn will be challenging for our local businesses and higher education institutions,” CR President Keith Flamer said in the release.
It’s a trend seen across the nation. Scores of colleges say they’re taking heavy hits as they refund money to students for housing, dining and parking after campuses closed last month. Many schools are losing millions more in ticket sales after athletic seasons were cut short, and some say huge shares of their reserves have been wiped out amid wild swings in the stock market.
HSU is worried about steep declines in enrollment. Rosamel Benavides-Garb, HSU’s interim dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, emailed department colleagues Tuesday morning and said the university is predicting 500 students for its 2020 fall freshman class, a drop of more than 1,000 students from 2017’s freshman class of 1,665 students and less than half of 2019’s 1,082-student freshman class.
“The scale and impact of our current predicament is grave,” Benavides-Garb wrote, noting now is the time to make choices.
“We have become, de facto, a much smaller institution, which compels us to undertake a comprehensive reset at HSU,” BenavidesGarb wrote.
A report given to the HSU University Senate by interim Provost Lisa Bond-Maupin on Monday said HSU was already predicting a single year total enrollment drop between 15 percent and 20 percent before the outbreak of COVID-19, which has since forced the cancellation of in-person instruction for the 2019-20 school year.
“We were likely headed toward a reduction to the HSU budget for next fiscal year that was double that anticipated when the (University Resources and Planning Committee) created its annual budget recommendations to (President Tom Jackson Jr.),” Bond-Maupin’s report stated. “… It is clear that the (Cal State University system) and HSU will experience further decline in student enrollment.”
It added students in the short term are likely to remain closer to home.
Enrollment numbers at Humboldt State have been in decline in recent years. In fall 2019, HSU had a total enrollment of 6,983 students (including both graduate and undergraduate students) — 15 percent of them were local residents.
The 2019 fall enrollment was down about 18 percent from the total enrollment in fall 2017, when 8,347 students were enrolled.
“Our focus at HSU has to remain on students and their educational experience,” HSU President Tom Jackson said in Tuesday’s news release. “The coming months will be hard, no question. Ultimately, we will come out of this a different university and, I predict, an even stronger one.”
Jackson stated more information would be available about changes in the “next few weeks”
Like Benavides-Garb, Dale Oliver, HSU’s Dean of the College of Natural Resources and Sciences, sent a letter to his colleagues Monday. Both emails make clear HSU will make changes to a yet-to-be determined portion of its academic departments.
“We are also being asked to reduce the number of administrative units in the college, meaning that some departments will be merged or reformed.”
Bond-Maupin wrote in her report that the university will be “freezing hiring” for most all vacant staff positions and looking at how to “condense” the number of academic departments on campus.
The university also may consider hiring a “COVID-19 retention specialist.”
Oliver listed a few ways in which the college might provide more online learning opportunities to accommodate students and prospective students who will be unable or unwilling to attend HSU amid the coronavirus pandemic.
He urged working to “provide more online sections of general education courses” and an “online degree-completion option for a group of students who have a year or less left.”
Reached Tuesday afternoon, Frank Whitlatch, the university’s communications director, said he was unable to quickly answer questions about how many vacant positions would be frozen and which departments were facing a budgetary ax.
Whitlatch did say the grants to help Humboldt County’s local seniors with funding for college will remain in place.
“No, there will not be a reduction in the new Humboldt First scholarship,” he told the Times-Standard. “The Humboldt First Scholarship is fully in place and ready to support students. We will provide $1,000 annual scholarships for local students who choose HSU and enroll as new freshmen.”
“Our focus at HSU has to remain on students and their educational experience. The coming months will be hard, no question. Ultimately, we will come out of this a different university and, I predict, an even stronger one.” — Tom Jackson, HSU President