Faculty Senate > Recent Posts > Constituent Concerns > Flaws and Limitations of Recent Posts

Flaws and Limitations of Recent Posts

Forum Post

Dear Colleagues,

Recent posts on the Faculty Senate Forum have raised concerns about WSU and its leadership but are themselves flawed. Overall, the concerns are understandable, and more is needed from our leadership. However, as representatives of higher education, it is essential that we apply objectivity and critical thinking to these issues before drawing conclusions.

Regarding analysis of WSU’s enrollment issues in Countering Misinformation (2-28-2024), the authors adopt aggregate, estimated headcount enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center for the state of Washington (1), then subtract WSU’s enrollment. Not clearly stated, however, is that the result disproportionately represents the remaining university with the highest enrollment (e.g. the University of Washington), a serious omission. “Headcount” also fails to distinguish part- and full-time enrollment. Verified institution-specific data for 12-month full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment (Appendix 1) is freely available up to the year 2022 (2). They show that WSU’s fall 2019-2022 FTE enrollment fell by -13.7%. Those for UW-Tacoma, Western, Eastern, Central and The Evergreen State College fell by -10.0, -10.1, -14.6, -21.8 and -26.3%. Thus, declines over this period are roughly similar at the WSU, UW-Tacoma, Western and Eastern Universities, and far worse at Central and Evergreen. Only UW-Seattle fully escaped an overall reduction.

Methods used to gauge faculty sentiments by authors of the recent “Time for a Change” letter are also concerning. The letter, and a link to a SurveyMonkey poll, were emailed to faculty. The email could have been forwarded to non-faculty, and multiple voting was feasible using multiple devices or multiple incognito browser windows (3). WSU enrollment declines mentioned are reasonably accurate but lacked context provided above and below. Ongoing efforts to address the issue were not acknowledged. Saichi Oba was hired as VP of Enrollment Management in 2020, and Andrew Brewick as Director of Admissions in 2021. Their initiatives included streamlining the application process through the adoption of the Common App program and expediting acceptance decisions. New enrollments rose 6.5% between 2022 and 2023 (5). Thus, the true number of valid “yes” votes is unclear. It is also not known how many such votes would have been obtained if more objective information had been provided and the intention to criticize WSU’s leadership in the media made more explicit.

Posts and emails from their authors reveal that some of these issues originate from a group of 18 faculty that has been in private discussions with the President and Board of Regents for over a year. These individuals are some of our most distinguished and accomplished faculty, and their opinions deserve recognition and respect. However, apart from the aforementioned poll, there is little evidence that a credible effort was made to involve other stakeholders during that time. It is unclear whether this group adequately represents ~ 1,800 faculty across 6 campuses. Holding private discussions for over a year is unacceptable for both faculty and leadership at a public university. The WSU Faculty Senate may be viewed by some as ineffective but is the appropriate venue for initiating these conversations and both WSU’s faculty and leadership should endeavor to strengthen its effectiveness, not circumvent it. These issues should have been brought forward long before now.

The above notwithstanding, the overarching concerns expressed by the “Time for a change”, “Countering misinformation” and several other communications on the Faculty Senate Forum website are widely shared and their basis is obvious. “Countering Misinformation” notes declining total enrollments on the Pullman campus between 2018 and 2023. In-state student enrollment on that campus has actually declined steadily since at least 2012 (4). New 2022-2023 undergraduate fall enrollment rose 2.8% in Vancouver and 5.8% in Pullman, but 17.9% in Spokane, 25.7% in Tri-cities and 31.8% in Everett. Global, now our second largest campus, saw a 14.1% increase last year, and Global’s undergraduate full time FTE rose 63.5% under the current administration (5).

Washington state’s population is aging and becoming more economically and culturally diverse (6,7,8). Older students have obligations that preclude traditional college residencies. Cultural and economic factors affect a student’s ability and willingness to relocate. Resources needed to conduct world-class research and educational efforts, including high performance computer clusters and vast repositories of data, are accessible from anywhere using a cheap laptop. Seen through this lens, the above enrollment changes are predictable, and the overarching goals of One WSU (9) appear forward looking. However, this is conjecture. Lack of understanding of One WSU and how it addresses WSU’s specific challenges are evident in posts to the Faculty Senate website. More details addressing this are needed, yet many communications from administration are vague.

As but one example, the president’s response to “Time for a Change” states that he “takes [these concerns] very seriously”, and “we have been working collaboratively with the Board of Regents, Faculty Senate, and our colleagues across the system to address them.” How? When and what results can be expected? Such statements are not sufficient to allow current and prospective WSU employees to make informed life decisions. WSU’s employees and students deserve the same transparency from WSU as that of any shareholder in any publicly held corporation, such as regular, complete, verifiable financial data and clear forward projections. The recent calls for budget data on the Senate Forum website (Budget Transparency, 2-27-24) highlight this.

The president’s efforts to promote external philanthropy and navigate the PAC12 debacle are commendable, but the sum of these efforts represent less than $160 million/year of revenue. WSU is a 1.2 billion dollar/year institution (10). Athletics and philanthropy should be secondary to discussions about our institution’s efforts and future, rather than dominating our narrative. The need to provide consistently positive public statements is understandable, but posts to the Faculty Senate website reveal a stark disconnect between the perception of WSU’s employees and the messages received from its leadership. Faculty representation on the president’s Athletic Program Budget and Athletic Program Oversight committees has been beneficial in addressing concerns. Faculty representation should now also extend to system-level budget review and planning efforts.

The focus of the question that WSU must address if it is to flourish is not the value of past national ranking but how best to serve the future needs of the State of Washington. Doing so will likely require substantial changes in both how and where we do so. Effective leadership through these changes will require transparency, compassion and the conviction needed to convince or ignore critics. Unlike the apparent opinion of the authors of recent posts, I do not believe our leadership is incapable of this. But it is time for change, albeit by all concerned.

      1. https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/CTEEFall2023-Appendix.xlsx
      2. https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/InstitutionByName.aspx?goToReportId=1&sid=dbc2f23a-fced-4490-be67-ca49efa4e1ff&rtid=1
      3. https://help.surveymonkey.com/en/surveymonkey/send/allowing-multiple-responses/
      4. https://ir.wsu.edu/total-student-enrollment/
      5. https://ir.wsu.edu/new-student-enrollment/
      6. https://www.kuow.org/stories/washington-state-population-tops-8-million-and-it-s-not-getting-any-younger
      7. https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/Washington.pdf
      8. https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2022/07/08/census-washington-less-white
      9. https://strategy.wsu.edu/strategic-plan/one-wsu/
      10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B-nThMfaAs [2:32]
Year 2019 2020 2021 2022 % Change
Central Washington University 10710 10134 9227 8376 -21.8
Eastern Washington University 11413 11077 9851 9751 -14.6
The Evergreen State College 2661 2098 1923 1960 -26.3
University of Washington-Bothell Campus 5300 5641 5408 5121 -3.4
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 44088 44380 46514 46300 +5.0
University of Washington-Tacoma Campus 4856 4845 4565 4369 -10.0
Washington State University 28770 27983 26787 24841 -13.7
Western Washington University 15198 14109 14001 13658 -10.1

Response

Please see the response below from Faculty Senate Chair, Eric Shelden:

For those following this discussion, Stephanie Kane in the WSU Office of institutional research recently shared with the faculty senate links (below) to the most recent state institutions’ enrollment data in an easy to access format provided by the Washington State’s Education and Research Data Center, and to their most recent report.

Best wishes,

Eric Shelden

https://erdc.wa.gov/data-dashboards/public-four-year-dashboard#annual-enrollment

https://wsac.wa.gov/sites/default/files/Enrollment_Update_Fall_2023.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=WSAC

Comment

Comments

3 comments on "Flaws and Limitations of Recent Posts"

  1. I agree completely with the statement that “WSU’s employees and students deserve the same transparency from WSU as that of any shareholder in any publicly held corporation, such as regular, complete, verifiable financial data and clear forward projections.” I urge my colleagues to also have a look at my post “Proposal for Shared Financial Governance” for some actionable steps that the Senate might take in moving towards this goal of financial transparency and real engagement by the Senate in the finances of the university.

    Reply

  2. We read with interest the post ‘Flaws and Limitations of Recent Posts.’ This was in part a response to recent posts titled ‘Countering Misinformation-I’ (02-28-24) and ‘Time for a Change’ (02-25-24). While the writer(s) add(s) some important context and additional perspective, we feel it necessary to point out the irony of noting flaws and limitations in other posts with a piece that is itself flawed and limited.

    The main thrust of ‘Countering Misinformation-I’ is that messaging from the President’s Office and the BOR routinely frames our systemic problems as being “not unique to WSU.” This is simply not true. Our methods in generating both figures were made clear. We a priori sought to use primary data – outward facing data dashboards from each institution to generate enrollment metrics. This is precisely how the second figure was constructed (i.e., WSU and our selected peers). Interestingly, the ‘Flaws and Limitations’ post did not comment on this figure, which clearly shows that undergraduate enrollment trends on the main or “flagship” campuses of our strategic plan peers were generally far better than WSU Pullman over the period 2017-2023. Unfortunately, not all public 4-year institutions in Washington had complete outward facing data. Thus, we relied on other sources, and we chose the NSC. Like IPEDS, the NSC is a secondary data source that relies on accurate reporting by each institution. Furthermore, the NSC provides more timely data than IPEDS and is routinely used by The Chronicle of Higher Education in their in-depth analyses of higher education enrollment trends, and so it made sense to calibrate to this source. Importantly, there are known discrepancies between the two sources (e.g., see: https://onedtech.philhillaa.com/p/clarifications-but-no-answers-on-growing-discrepancy-in-enrollment-reporting) – absolute numbers differ but trends are generally consistent.

    We disagree that the result (of the first figure showing WSU vs. WA Publics) “disproportionately represents the remaining university with the highest enrollment.” The data are shown as change scores, and thus absolute numbers have no bearing, with the focus entirely on trends in relative enrollment over time (i.e., year-to-year changes for each institution). More importantly, the author(s) chose not to include 2023 enrollment data – this is a flaw and limitation. Including that data clearly demonstrates that the UW is not an outlier in positive enrollment – the Evergreen State College had a 14% increase from 2022-2023 in total UG enrollment, the UW 1%, and WWU was essentially flat. Only EWU experienced a higher decrease in total UG enrollment from 2022-2023 than WSU (-7% vs. -3%), whereas data for CWU during this period was not available as of this writing. Thus, the statement that “only UW-Seattle fully escaped an overall reduction” is misleading. Similarly, the author(s) failed to comment on the enrollment growth at IU Moscow; although not a peer, the close proximity and shared rural location of the two institutions fully refutes the common refrain of the administration that WSU is disproportionately harmed by its rural location. Finally, as the state’s land-grant and only other research intensive institution, an argument can be made that we should pay more attention to enrollment at UW-Seattle, but doing so would result in an even more dire, not better, picture of our enrollment issues. The overall message presented in ‘Countering Misinformation-I’ thus holds – UG enrollment trends at WSU are generally worse than our in-state public peers, our out-of-state strategic plan peers, and a neighboring flagship university in a similar rural setting.

    The remaining information regarding enrollment is superfluous. The author(s) present several pieces of non-relevant information, including a focus on in-state student enrollment in Pullman declining since at least 2012, “new” UG enrollment in Pullman and other campuses, and information about Global campus. This is a distraction and does not change the very clear “apples to apples” comparison on total UG enrollment in Pullman compared with peers. Once again, the take home messages remain the same – 1) UG enrollment trends at WSU are generally worse than our peers, 2) WSU most certainly did not experience an increase in total enrollment in the past year, and 3) systemic problems have been exacerbated by poor leadership that lacks a clear vision for the future of WSU.

    The author(s) also argue that the methods used to gauge faculty sentiments in ‘Time for a Change’ are concerning for a number of reasons. For one, they suggest the hypothetical that devious faculty, using evasive means for circumventing the built in software safeguards against multiple responses by the same individual, could have inflated the yes count in some fashion. If you harbor that level of distrust for your WSU faculty colleagues, and believe they would go to great lengths to dishonestly inflate their yes sentiments, then in that context there could indeed be some additional yes sentiments expressed. We are confident that the author(s) have at least some appreciation for the deep seated fear of retaliation harbored by many faculty at WSU, and the associated necessity for administering a poll under the strictest of confidentiality safeguards.

    Another issue raised was that the poll could have been sent to staff in addition to faculty. But that is a point irrelevant to the purpose of the poll. Staff sentiments are certainly vitally important to the issues relating to the future of WSU. But the focused intent of the poll was to demonstrate to the administration and to the Board of Regents that the issues expressed in the ‘Time for a Change’ document went well beyond a small group of disgruntled senior faculty. The poll served its purpose.

    As for the suggestion that the facts were not objectively presented, the author(s) of the critique themselves admit that the enrollment declines presented were “reasonably accurate” (as we underscore above). Their statement that “New enrollments rose 6.5% between 2022 and 2023” is yet another instance of an incomplete context that obscures the reality that overall enrollment continued to decrease. And it was clearly stated at the top of the ‘Time for a Change’ document that it was a Press Release – there was no intent to deceive anyone regarding its purpose, which was presented in a fully transparent manner.

    And finally, about the comment that “The WSU Faculty Senate may be viewed by some as ineffective but is the appropriate venue for initiating these conversations and both WSU’s faculty and leadership should endeavor to strengthen its effectiveness, not circumvent it.” Interactions with faculty senators, and ultimately faculty senate leadership, did occur. But it was not apparent that any impactful actions would be forthcoming, and that experience was one of a number of reasons that ultimately led to the issuance of the Press Release. Regarding the author(s) statement that the faculty senate is viewed by some as ineffective, we too continue to hope that the senate’s effectiveness is strengthened, but unfortunately regarding perceptions of its current effectiveness, faculty rated the Senate only slightly better than the alarmingly low ratings of Senior Administration in the latest COACHE survey.

    Despite the concerns noted above, we wholeheartedly agree with the author(s) that responses from our leadership have been insufficient. We also firmly endorse their statement: “WSU’s employees and students deserve the same transparency from WSU as that of any shareholder in any publicly held corporation, such as regular, complete, verifiable financial data and clear forward projections.” And we certainly have no arguments against the comments made relating to external philanthropy and athletics being secondary to discussions about our institution’s efforts and future.

    We conclude by addressing the final sentiment of the author(s). Here, we once again simply disagree with the notion that the current leadership is capable of navigating us out of the current morass. Exactly what is it in the historical record of performance of this administration that would suggest it is the naturally logical choice to lead WSU back from the failures that occurred under their watch? Indeed, the lack of forward-thinking, proactive, and impactful leadership resulted in the very predictable set of problems that we currently find ourselves in now. Instead of rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic, let’s steer this ship out of harms way and set a course of excellence under fresh, innovative, visionary, and forward-thinking new leadership.

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  3. For those following this discussion, Stephanie Kane in the WSU Office of institutional research recently shared with the faculty senate links (below) to the most recent state institutions’ enrollment data in an easy to access format provided by the Washington State’s Education and Research Data Center, and to their most recent report.

    Best wishes,

    Eric Shelden

    https://erdc.wa.gov/data-dashboards/public-four-year-dashboard#annual-enrollment

    https://wsac.wa.gov/sites/default/files/Enrollment_Update_Fall_2023.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=WSAC

    Reply

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