An article on The Chronicle’s Web site today reports that a college in Nebraska has opted to suspend retirement contributions for all workers in response to the institution’s budget crisis and predicts that other colleges may soon follow suit.
Here’s an excerpt from Katherine Mangan’s article:
Two years after budget pressures prompted Dana College to eliminate some academic programs and lay off tenured faculty members, the struggling Nebraska institution is trying a different tactic amid worsening economic conditions: ending its retirement contributions for all employees.
The decision by regents at Dana College, a private liberal-arts institution of 550 students in Blair, Neb., is uncommon, but one that other colleges are expected to consider as a way to stave off additional layoffs.
Dana, which is associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has been suffering financially for years because of declining enrollments and soaring costs. In October regents voted to end the college’s contributions to employees’ retirement plans with TIAA-CREF, just as many of those employees were watching their accumulated savings diminish as stock values plunged.
The college had contributed 7 percent of employees’ incomes into their retirement accounts, as long as the employees contributed at least 5 percent. So an employee earning $40,000 a year who contributed 5 percent, or $2,000, could receive a $2,800 contribution from the college. Employees can still contribute but may be less motivated to do so without the matching contribution from the college. It is unclear when, if at all, Dana will resume its contributions.
The college’s employees were naturally ruffled by the news, but one anonymous faculty member told The Chronicle the he or she would rather lose retirement benefits than a job.
Are you worried that your institution will follow suit?
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4 Responses to A Small College Suspends Retirement Contributions
Laurel Lehl - July 27, 2011 at 8:57 am
I think getting the advising out of faculty’s hands is a good idea. My college adviser barely knew me (because he had to advise so many?) and messed up my courses at least 3 times–his errors added an extra year to my degree. I don’t think I was the only student with this problem either. At least the computer could ascertain the basic requirements, note courses already taken, and cross reference time conflicts in a semester. My professor never had the time to get a handle on those things, and it cost ME more money and time.
tenured_radical - July 27, 2011 at 9:27 am
Laurel: Sounds like a bad experience. And yet, I would say the flaw was not human advising but that your institution didn’t care enough about advising to train people to do it properly and value it. Computer systems can certainly help: at Zenith we have a great preregistration system that allows the advisor to see the things you are pointing out, and wouldn’t let you register for two classes at the same time. But taking away the possibility of a structured, regular conversation with someone who cares about your education doesn’t seem like a reform to me.
matt_l - July 27, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Outside of teaching my classes, student advising is easily the best thing I do all semester as a faculty member. It took me a while to get a handle on the catalog, the General Ed requirements and degree requirements, but once I was up to speed, I was able to help students save some time on completing degrees and talk with them about what they wanted to accomplish in school and afterwards. All that happens once a semester in a 15 minute meeting, Students also know that they can email me with questions or to set up a longer appointment.
My work as an adviser doesn’t guarantee a student will graduate on time or that they won’t have problems. There are times when I’ve made mistakes, but I also have a good relationship with the people in the Registrar’s Office and have been able to straighten out those mistakes pretty quickly. Most of the students in our program who have had problems graduating on time have suffered from self-inflicted setbacks, not from poor advising. I have had a couple students ignore my advice or simply did not take the required courses when suggested. This delayed their graduation. Just because I give advice does not mean students take it.
A good adviser does more than just check in to see if a student is taking the right classes and graduating on time. They can help out when students get behind or make mistakes. I had an advisee who neglected to take a core class for our history major. I was able to structure an independent study in parallel with another course I was teaching during the summer, so the student could finish and start a new job in July. If I hadn’t had the adviser/advisee relationship with the student, I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to help and the they would not have graduated until December. I also write around a dozen letters of recommendation a year for my advisees for scholarships, internships, grad school and job applications.
Lake Woebegone State University administration and students get good value out of faculty advisers. Not all of them are perfect, but the vast majority are interested in helping students succeed. A robot adviser or a computer program isn’t going to have the same personal investment.
tardigrade - October 29, 2011 at 12:51 pm
“Most of the students in our program who have had problems graduating on time have suffered from self-inflicted setbacks”
The requirements of the system they were set back in were written by fallible humans with limited experience. Running into a wall is a self-inflicted injury, but others decided to put that wall up inside the maze.
“I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to help”
And this is why you’re probably merely a decent human being, not a great one.