I don't feel like this is an all or nothing approach. We should pull more local students and should provide steps for those that might not currently meet our standards to find a way into the university (ie Access College and Ivy Tech) But we will not just lose students to the Gonzaga's and Rices due to dorms. We will lose them to Butler or Bradley or DePauw/Depaul etc. Hell even the state schools have much nicer dorms than we do. One of the few areas I still know people on campus is enrollment and they have indicated that dorms are one of the top 2-3 reasons we lose students to our direct competitors.
@rezynezy Yeah, I just don't think there's that strong a demand for the dorms in general, and I'm not sure that students are really making these decisions just on variations of nicer vs crummier dorms. I really think the big factor for Valpo (whether Padilla and his team understand it or not) is that many of the really local/regional ones would prefer to keep living at home with their parents, so don't intend to pay for dorms at all. There's not the stigma against this that existed perhaps a couple decades ago, since now even lots of post-college students continue to live with their families to try to save money. And if they are working half- or full-time in the region, it is a much more logistical discernment of how to get between home, classes, and work with a minimum of housing costs and transit hassle.
@beacon92 yes, there are some students in this kind of middle-ground zone where they stay regional but do want some kind of four-year residential experience. Honestly, not sure how we could ever compete with a place like Depaul. I visited last Summer with my own kid, and it's just a completely different sort of campus -- lots of new/nice facilities, and in a very swanky section of Chicago. if a student does intend to 'go away' for the 'college experience' DePaul does benefit from a kind of urban/ semi-urban campus energy
All true from both Beacon and VUIndiana. The path Padilla seems to be trying to take is getting numbers up first and foremost. When people see all the negative press, and see your numbers on a decline, they aren't going to be very fond of submitting an application to the school. There seems to be a shift with the Padilla administration from "rolling with the punches" to actually trying to heal the wounds and fight back. Ivy Tech will most likely boost the numbers back over 3k at least. Granted this path might lead to some financial strain, but it seems to be the best path moving foreword to secure the longevity of the school. I have spoken with many in town who believe that the school has about 50 years left. Maybe less. Hopefully these moves can prove this incorrect.
As a father of two daughters (one who goes to Rice BTW, and yes their dorms are nice but they better be at the cost!) , I can certainly assure you that dorm ammenities are pretty important.
I agree totally with Beacon92, and I still fully support Padilla in selling the art work.
So I am a senior faculty here. I posted before here that I have very little trust in the current administration. Won't go into details again. But I wish they prove me wrong and, if they do, I will declare Padilla worthy of a statue or to have his portrait in the arts museum in the place of O'Keefe. If students don't want to live in campus, I have a hunch they care even less about the painting.
Anyway, just had to rant on this a little, since this painting scandal (that wouldn't die) seems so pitiful now comparing to the monster problems we have at the moment. At the last Senate meeting there was a little agitation over this and it really felt to me like (some) folks rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.
Now, about the Ivy Tech news, I do kind of endorse the idea that perception is more important now than net revenue. It's just too depressing to be in the news with program cuts, demolitions, etc...Even if all this is needed, perception can have a snowball effect. It's like panic selling in the stock market for God's sake.
Also VU made a big mistake in jumping (more or less) in the bandwagon of hard left ideology and policies. Now, I am biased because my political views are on the right. Regardless, there are plenty signs that this shift will not age well across America. I just read recently a article about a Jewish student who instead of considering elite places like Ivy League, he chose more conservative colleges in the South because he felt safer there. Just let that sink in, as I read this in the year 2024.
Now Ivy Leagues will survive cause they have money and they can afford a loss in applicants. But places like VU should have been more careful. Instead of killing the Crusader, they should have doubled or tripled down on the Lutheran identity. Instill a sense that this place is an island in the sea of crazy. Instead? We are Beacons (how do you make a Beacon mascot?). And, man, don't even get me started with the new slogans on every flags on campus: "we are grounded and we radiate". Are we radioactive now?
Anyway, rant over, back to grading 
Old rant from, my guess, an old professor. It's a mascot!!!! Let it go.
@vu72 Guess again. I am in the 40's. I meant "senior" in the sense of senior in the career. Look, I'm not actually into sports and personally I don't care about mascots and slogans. I just think that these changes were misguided and may be counterproductive. Universities rely a lot on symbolism and traditions (among other things)
@dejavu Glad to hear you aren't nearly as old as I am! Thank you for your dedication to Valpo and all it stands for. I understand your feelings about President Padilla. He came in at a most challenging time and hard decisions by nature never make everyone happy. I'm curious as to the faculty's feelings toward Provost Johnson. I have known him for many years and he has been at Valpo since before your time. To my way of thinking, he is one of the finest people around.
Well I personally dont think that the changes being made qualify as "hard left". To me most of the decisions proposed, and being made, are the only options remaining to correct the ship and make the school live to see past 50 more years. Cutting programs, selling artwork, ect ect. When you fall on hard times, you got to clip a few branches to make the tree survive right? To me it seems like a lot of the issues were outlined in your initial rant. People care too much about reminiscing on the past, and on material possessions rather than what is good for the school. I don't know which changes you might be referencing, but none seem to fit the narrative of "hard left".
Religion degrees are underperforming across the country, and cutting religion degrees was a major cut seen on the spreadsheet posed earlier. As for the instructors and professors being jipped, that is a other can of worms that frankly shouldn't have been considered to be opened in the first place. I have experienced first hand what not having qualified instructors does to students. (Current class avg on one of the hardest courses in my degree is a 60%. Class is taught by a grad student.) Alienating professors and taking away their tenure is just asking to be seen as taboo for any professors you wish to hire.
As for the mascot, motto, ect. Its a dead topic at this point. 2021 was the twitter cancel war. I don't blame the admin for being scared given the situation that occurred a year prior with the law school and covid. People will do a lot of things for "free internet points". If people could drive the Redskins to change their name, a professional sports org, there was a lot of good reason to assume these people would come after colleges as well(They did to an extent). Do I wish they would have kept the knight and saved money on a full scale rebrand, yes, who didn't, but we are Beacons now and I choose to view it as a "fresh start" for the school. The motto isnt the best, considering they still are a religious university and got rid of a Psalm as the motto, but a full rebrand is a full rebrand I guess.
Traditions are good, but when there is a blind reliance on tradition, and no effort to make new traditions or purely dumping money into the traditions you have, then that just spells future problems. VU put all its eggs in one basket and that basket fell off of a 50 foot cliff into a swamp infested with rabid laser sharks bordered by active super volcanoes. While the situation was definitely a series of unfortunate events, the downfall seemed to be exasperated by old traditions and feeding money where it probably shouldn't have gone. Its about time some new traditions were developed.
Something I have also heard is employers dont see the value of the Ivy Leagues any more due to their "cheating". I have heard tell that the Ivy Leagues automatically give students an A regardless of performance on the first 2 semesters worth of classes. This has caused students to load up their first 2 semesters with the "hard" classes and fail them to get their auto As leaving them to have to deal with a liger class load for the rest of their time at the school. If there is some merit to these claims, this would be wildly concerning for Ivy League integrity.
Alas I am still just some guy giving his opinion on an open forum. You are an actual staff member and the info you have provided is truly interesting. I hope to see more posts of inside looks into just how things are shaking down beyond all the smiling faces on the podium.
@rezynezy They didn't get rid of the motto, but rather added an additional one. To rid Valpo of "In thy Light we see Light" would take changing the University seal, changing the Chapel window and tearing off the entry to the Arts and Sciences building!
@vu72 Well it seems like with the recent branding changes they are trying to put the new motto in front of the old motto. Like duct taping another players name over a jersey in sports.
Grade inflation is a problem everywhere, but I actually think it's more a problem at lower-tier schools than the Ivies.
I was at an Ivie for grad school. There as everwhere in US higher ed, course evaluations make instructors think twice about giving low grades or harsh feedback to a student, since if you were contingent facutly needing positive reviews to get renewed then you need students to like you. But I never faced direct pressure from admins to let a student pass just to keep them enrolled from a financial perspective
Yet at struggling schools like Valpo, the admins are very worried about retention and ongoing tuition revenue, so they do put pretty heavy pressure on profs to pass failing students rather than give them the F they deserve, or to give the A rather than the B/C to keep students from getting upset and transferring. So at the lower tier schools, you have both the course evaluation factor which incentivizes faculty to grade generously for the sake of their own retention/promotion and also the student retention and revenue pressure to turn a blind eye to a LOT in order to keep students enrolled & paying.
@vu72 I do not know personally Provost Johnsons but, right now, the mood is very much against him due to the way he tries to implement the program reductions (in particular the controversial way of interpreting the faculty handbook in an attempt to revoke tenure from certain people). But I won't elaborate further on this as this is a whole different complex matter and it is still unclear how it will unfold in the near future
In fact, it's not even clear how much he is the architect of this as opposed to just the bearer of bad news
I don't know Johnson well either, but I would guess it is some of both. I remember Lissa Yogan (A&S admin person, recently deceased of cancer) once lamenting that Provost Biermann left in great discouragement, always out-gunned in all the C-suite meetings as the only one trying to angle for the academic side of the house. It is usually Board and President's Office/CFO/Legal Counsel/VP types who make these calls, and the Provost is there as a kind of lone academic voice who understands or can advocate for the academic programs. In all these discontinuance and tenure issues, I'm sure Legal Counsel has briefed the Board/Pres Office to assure them they can strip tenure, and then Johnson mostly gets stuck having to deal with the implementation and fall-out. Obviously, that doesn't excuse him, and I've often wished some of these higher ups would just put down their feet in some way and threaten to resign or something.... I mean, if anybody from the academic side has power, surely its the Provost as highest academic officer. But Johnson has grocery bills to pay like rest of us, and at the end of the day most humans will be cowards and go along if they feel they must to keep their jobs.
