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DANBURY – Western Connecticut State University officials told a campus ballroom packed with students and staff Wednesday that an unpopular $12 million cost-cutting plan is part of a larger effort to dig the school out from a decade of enrollment declines and fiscal mismanagement.
“First and foremost, we are going to be talking about student enrollment and making sure students are getting the education they want and need … to get us back where we need to be,” WCSU Interim President Manohar Singh told about 200 faculty and students during a budgetary presentation and discussion luncheon on the west side campus. “This is a new beginning. Thank you for being part of that beginning.”
The standing-room-only meeting followed 11th hour talks between Singh’s administration and leaders of the student government on Monday that averted a day of protest that students had planned for Thursday.
At least one person who was due to be laid off at the end of December was told she still had a job after the Monday meeting, although neither Singh’s office nor the student government president would disclose specific details about their negotiations.
The issue of the employee in the university’s Center for Student Involvement whose job was threatened was raised by a student during the question-and-answer portion of the budget luncheon on Wednesday. But most of the two-hour meeting focused on evidence that the university is increasing enrollment and building back up a reserve fund that went from $24 million in 2012 to zero during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When I first heard (about the employee whose job was threatened) I wanted to pack my bags and leave,” said Hillary Adjei, a business marketing major from Hamden. “(The employee) made my life easier. Why are you telling us you have these services you are providing when you are not providing it?”
“We don’t discuss personnel issues in public, especially not by name,” Singh said to the student, who is a senior. “But that issue was resolved.”
“The issue was resolved because the student body was going to protest tomorrow,” Adjei said.
University officials explained that a cut in state aid to all of the schools in the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system left WestConn with a $11.5 million budget gap to close.
“We brought down our expenses from $148 million to $124 million, but we still had to reduce our expenses by $12 million,” said Beatrice Fevry, the university’s CFO and vice president of finance and administration. “We still have a lot of work to do.”
The plan is to save $2.3 million in personnel costs, mostly through retirements and cutting adjunct positions, and to save $4.2 million in “operational reductions” across all departments. The state would kick in the remaining $5 million to balance WSCU’s budget,” said Fevry, adding that the University’s reserve is up to $6 million.
“We are moving in the right direction,” she said.
Singh, who took over as interim president three months ago, came to “institution in crisis” where enrollment had plummeted from 5,670 in 2012 to the current 4,137 number of full- and part-time students.
He said his plan is to look beyond Connecticut and the tristate area to other regions of the country and the world.
“The Northeast cannot support our needs, so we will be looking to the Southern states and to get more international students,” said Jay Murray, vice president for enrollment management and student affairs, who said spring enrollment was up 10 percent over 2023. “Dr. Singh will be traveling abroad” to recruit more students.
And because 27 percent of the school’s enrollment is Hispanic, the university will seek federal recognition.
“We have reached the enrollment numbers that would qualify us to be a Hispanic-serving institution so now we have to do the work that allows us to be recognized as such,” said Missy Alexander, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “Part of that work is … demonstrating our commitment to supporting our Latin American students here. If we get recognized … it also gives us access to more support for students and for the university.”
It remains to be seen how much confidence presentations such as Wednesday’s inspire on campus for the new president.
“Western is not going anywhere but upward and onward,” Singh said.
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