You can't open the higher ed news and not find a lead story about University X laying off staff to shore up massive budget deficits. The worst of the layoffs and subsequent freezes are just starting to hit the large concentration of mid-tier tuition dependent privates confronting tightening margins and evaporating traditional enrollments. Those of us who've living through similar cycles before know that these tired and stale institutional decisions don't really save the pennies suggested in the press releases. What these decisions always result in is slowed innovation, strained staff and faculty operating with no slack, and systemic morale crises.
Professional & continuing education units have operated under intense budget scrutiny for longer than the rest of most universities writ large because their programs and services are judged directly on meeting their intended outcomes and generating positive revenues. As a result, many PCE divisions have had to operate with lean staffing models built around flexible, cross-trained roles rather than narrowly defined positions. Any private university considering layoffs and a hiring freeze should first study how its PCE unit is structured and operates, and then apply a similar integrated cross-training model to stretched academic and back-office departments.
A round of layoffs and yet another hiring freeze applied uniformly across every department will cut capacity from areas already running on fumes while leaving less examined parts of the institution untouched. This is the way it happens regardless of how intentional or surgical the university claims it's being. Privates that use their PCE unit's lean staffing practices as a model will be more likely to implement salary+fringe budget reductions that result in real savings without gutting the place entirely.
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