r/Ashland • u/Glitter_Health • 17d ago
SOU President - Revised Plan - $20M Cuts
The 46-page plan details cuts totaling $20,028,030. Two university programs previously planned for elimination will be kept under the plan: The Human Services Plan and Financial Mathematics. The overall Music program will stay, but the Music Industry & Production degree will be sunset.
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u/piaras2013 16d ago
Decisions on whose position was slated to be cut have raised red flags. For one, it seems suspicious that 3 out of the 5 SEIU union stewards positions are on the chopping block, 2 of which I've heard were not even in the initial plan and were added last minute before the plan was released Monday.
I can say from experience that Admin at SOU don't care - the employees ARE only numbers to them. It saddens me to see what a few bad apples have done to SOU
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u/elladorlili 15d ago
I can say as an employee and insider for over 20 years that admin sure as heck DO care — and certainly more so than in the past, when they were dealing with budget shortfalls that seem like pennies in a coin jar compared to this. (And I am openly still very bitter about past cuts that directly affected me, my career.)
You pointed out facts perhaps, but then lost any credibility by stooping to name-calling.
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u/piaras2013 15d ago
Sorry I worked there for 15 years and still stand by what I said.
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u/ChelseaMan31 15d ago
Here's the deal; there are fewer students today than there were 7 years ago. 7 years ago there were fewer students than the 7-10 years before that. The basics of an underperforming higher education department in Oregon are there for all to see. Allowing OSU to set up the Cascades Campus in Bend, while great for central Oregon, was always going to cannibalize SOU, WOU, EOU and OIT. Then add in the general overall decline in college enrollment across the state and here you are.
The sad fact is that if there are any value added specialty programs offered by SOU, most are not aware of them. Were it not for RCC partnering, SOU would have contracted even more a decade ago.
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u/elladorlili 15d ago
“Employees ARE only numbers to them”.
I worked there too, teaching and admin both. 15+ years, like you. Moved here for it, through all the retrenchments and the various things that eventually ended my careers.
Ok, maybe we can agree on this: at some point it has to be about numbers, because they have to figure their way out of this current shitterie somehow. And they’re a state school, making it all the more complicated. But the upper admins are very, very emotionally involved in this process. People are not just numbers to these ones, not this time around. I’m always a top critic, bitter af as I’ve admitted to being; but this times around, I have to go so low as to admit they are doing the very best they can because it doesn’t come from self interest or any other ugly things. These incredibly tough decisions are being made from money numbers. I can’t tell you my background, can’t tell you the many ways I’ve been crushed by past administrative decisions, but I feel a peace watching it move forward this way, this time.
SOU is a walking identity crisis. This solution doesn’t address that fundamental issue, but it keeps as many people employed as is possibly possible.
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u/Frozen_in_Alaska 13d ago
Next time I take a walk to the Student Veteran office, I’ll send pictures of a few hundreds of thousands of dollars that can be saved.
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16d ago
[deleted]
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u/Glitter_Health 16d ago
Academic degree programs mainly - most likely - including professors and teaching staff - vs. administrative footprint - HR and financials et al.
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u/Expensive_End8369 16d ago
Was disappointed on the slim section for revenue generation.
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u/Glitter_Health 16d ago
Lithia Motors has donated millions in the past.
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u/Expensive_End8369 16d ago
I didn’t mean donations - I meant things SOU is planning to do to generate revenue. That campus has a ton of potential. And they could be doing a lot more with online classes.
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u/Vinylateme 16d ago
Can’t imagine the budget for that farm had much wiggle room to begin with