As the school year begins, students are filling campus and wondering what changes will look like for them. Faced with a budget deficit and decreasing enrollment, officials at Seattle Pacific University announced their extensive plans for fiscal restructuring near the end of the 2022-23 school year.
Program cuts and reductions are finalized and set to take effect next academic year. Students currently in programs marked for removal or downsizing – which include undergraduate programs film studies, interior design, classics, criminology, theatre and more – will have the opportunity to graduate and complete their degree, but no new students will be admitted.
Kim Sawers, the vice president for business and finance at Seattle Pacific University, explained that although the plan was passed in early 2023, effects will not truly be felt until 2024.
“There are very, very few programs that were actually reduced or eliminated,” Sawers said. “Typically, they were ones that students weren’t in anyway.”
Restructuring includes major cuts to faculty positions over the next three to five years, with an ultimate reduction of nearly 40% of full time professors. Most faculty members had signed contracts for this academic year, which are being honored even if their position was eliminated.
Many faculty members who accepted SPU’s early retirement and buy-out offers will likewise teach through this school year, then prepare to bid the university adieu. A handful of professors will teach through the 2024-25 academic year.
Dr. Deana Porterfield takes on the role of SPU’s president in the midst of this immense loss of faculty and structural change. Porterfield feels for all those affected.
“We have a number of faculty you know and love that will be with us this year and know they will not next year,” Porterfield said. “That’s painful, really painful.”
Even as programs and faculty remain largely unchanged in the next nine months, returning students will still notice some differences. Those directly related to budget cuts include some service reductions, for example:
CIS help desk hours reduced.
The number of printers on campus decreased.
Mail services change due to outsourcing to FedEx.
“Financial questions and reductions are always hard,” Porterfield said. “It’s been a challenging time and that’s reflected in our enrollment and some of the things that have been happening on campus.”
Other noticeable changes, unrelated to budget cuts, include Ashton Hall for renovations, a new system for buying textbooks and the search for a new tenant of what was previously U.S. Bank on the edge of campus.
Students will also notice new faces on campus beyond a new president.
Porterfield announced new Vice Presidents for Enrollment Management and University Advancement, Ken Cornell and Doug Taylor, hired with the help of FaithSearch and internal committees.
Dr. Les Steele, who will continue as Chief Academic Officer while the university searches for a permanent hire. Dr. Porterfield additionally voiced a desire to introduce a position focusing on diversity and belonging at SPU.
Sawers explained there is not a comprehensive list of every change on campus, so students should pay attention to announcements made by the university and individual departments and get connected with Student Academic Services and their academic advisor.
“We’re in a transition time of figuring out how to reposition our work and the institution in a way that keeps moving it forward,” Porterfield said. “We’ve got work to do.”
