By: Jon Dusza and Mikayla Boyd, Managing Editor and Assistant Opinion Editor
The co-chairs of the Canisius Institutional Sustainability Task Force, Canisius Dean of the School of Education and Human Services Dr. Nancy Wallace and Canisius alumni and Board of Trustees member Anthony Habib, spoke to the United Student Association (USA) last Friday, Feb. 21.
The Institutional Sustainability Task Force was tasked by Canisius President Steve Stoute last semester to reduce Canisius’s annual operating budget by $15 million over the next two fiscal years. It was created in response to the recurring deficit which Canisius has operated at during the last number of years. The task force is supposed to submit a report to Stoute during March. Wallace and Habib answered questions from USA members regarding the task force, what it has done and what it plans to do.
Wallace and Habib highlighted how the Task Force is a campus-wide effort. “This is the first time everybody’s got a seat at the table, and that’s really significant,” Habib said.
Habib addressed the cuts to faculty which took place in 2020, which cut 25 faculty members, and said that the Institutional Sustainability Task Force is operating differently than Canisius did in 2020. “I wasn’t here,” Habib said, “but it seemed like it was in the vacuum with admin doing it, and that’s not good.” Referring to the current task force: “This is the best way for us to succeed as an institution. To have stakeholders at the table that are from every single avenue of the school.”
“We are not talking about doing wholesale layoffs at all,” Habib said. “In fact, I told the faculty senate, one of our goals is to increase their salaries. We want to maintain a really good faculty for you.”
Still, the task force has a difficult job at hand, the two co-chairs acknowledged. Wallace said that the recommendations from the task force “may involve some restructuring and changes but we’re trying to hear perspectives from all areas of the university.” “It’s hard work,” said Wallace, “it’s unsettling, it’s disconcerting, it’s necessary and it’s just gotta be done over time. And we have to do it in an inclusive, thoughtful manner.” The key is to keep sight of the long-term survival of the university, she said.
Wallace said that “we will have to make some reductions and cuts.” Habib added that “I don’t think it will affect anybody in this room,” and that current students will graduate with their majors. Should a major or department be eliminated, Wallace said, “students will be taught out,” but both Habib and Wallace added that “we haven’t even had those discussions.”
The task force also has a focus on ways to grow revenue, the co-chairs said. “You need to look at how you grow revenue first and foremost,” explained Habib.
One of the focuses of the committee is on how to tap into the adult learning market. Citing the upcoming “demographic cliff,” when the amount of traditional college-aged people will be smaller, Wallace said that the task force is looking into “how we can create advanced certificates and programs for those people who may have some college, but not having finished college,” for example. That is one source of increased revenue. Focus is also being put on traditional undergraduate students, including appealing to potential transfer students.
While the initial recommendation of the task force is due in March, Wallace said that they expect that the process of implementing recommendations “is going to extend over a period of time until the institution has more students and a balanced budget.” Ultimately, the work of the task force is “most likely nothing that you’ll see for next year,” said Habib, “but probably in the next few years.”
Habib and Wallace ended their talk by crediting Stoute for putting the task force together, and reiterating how such a task force with people from all parts of the university is a first in the history of Canisius. They also expressed appreciation for the other members of the task force.
With that, the rest of the senate meeting is addressed more in depth in this week’s editorial.