EDITORIAL: SIU begs for a bold reinvention — or there will be no SIU

Southern Illinois University in Carbondale is in dire need of reinvention.

Consider two alarming facts:

♦ The school has 6,000 fewer students than it had just 10 years ago.

♦ A 9 percent enrollment drop since last year means the university might lose $9.4 million in tuition revenue.

SIU’s new chancellor, Carlo Montemagno, has served up a bold proposal to restructure the school’s academic programs, and he is on the right path. In just his first few months on the job, he is thinking big and trying to bring SIU into the 21st century.

Montemagno’s plan includes eliminating 42 academic departments, which is unheard of in higher education, and streamlining them under 18 “schools.” Montemagno also wants to reduce the number of colleges at SIU to five from eight.

People who work in higher education will tell you Montemagno’s plan is drastic. No argument here. But what’s the alternative? He’s trying to reverse a disturbing trend — college students by the thousands spurning SIU. Since 2015, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday, SIU has suffered a nearly 40 percent drop in the number of first-time freshmen, from 2,177 to just 1,319.

“We are in a free-fall, and this is directly impacting the health of the institution,” Montemagno said at an academic forum this month, as quoted in Inside Higher Ed. “It’s occurring because we are not offering programs that are distinctive and relevant to today’s students. As we try to correct it, we face limited resources, declining faculty numbers and no help from the state.”

The university’s finances became so precarious during the state’s two-year budget crisis that it had to borrow money from its sister school in Edwardsville, the Tribune reported.

Certainly, SIU is not alone in struggling to come back from the budget impasse. Other Illinois universities have reported dramatic declines in enrollment. Even before Gov. Bruce Rauner took office in 2015, higher education in Illinois faced a budget crunch. But the governor made matters grave. Public universities took big financial hits in the state budget disaster for which he was primarily responsible, and it badly damaged their brands, with the possible exception of the University of Illinois.

The state is seeing an exodus of young residents. They are enrolling in universities in neighboring states, driven over the border by declining financial aid and rising tuition here.

SIU-Carbondale is particularly hurt because public universities in Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky are within two hours from Carbondale by car. They can more easily recruit within SIU’s traditional downstate area. And those states also haven’t cut higher education support in the ugly way Illinois has.

Public universities across the country are facing new realities. They must contend with a technological revolution, and students are looking more closely at price tags. They must change to remain relevant and competitive.

Arizona State, for instance, in recent years reduced its number of departments from 69 to 40, but did not eliminate them altogether. It also has launched successful online programs.

At SIU, professors and administrators seem to understand that substantial changes are needed. Professors have acknowledged as much to both the Tribune and Inside Higher Ed. SIU’s faculty senate passed a resolution opposing the elimination of departments by a vote of 19-11, but to us the split vote says Montemagno’s proposals have some momentum.

Faculty are concerned about the elimination of departments, the loss of department chairmen and chairwomen, and the redistribution of work. Those are valid concerns. SIU will save $2.3 million a year by doing away with department heads, Montemagno told the Tribune.

We question the speed at which Montemagno is moving. He rightly wants a new academic model in place by July 1, 2018. Or maybe we just marvel at his speed, because we understand the need to move fast. When your freshman enrollment plunges by almost 40 percent, you had better be in a hurry.

Montemagno’s wholesale, even radical, structural changes at SIU will create new difficult issues, no doubt. Here’s hoping he collaborates intensely, pulling the faculty along with him.

But SIU must act boldly. Or there will be no SIU.

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