This Week In College Viability (TWICV) Special Episode: No Confidence - When College Faculty Turn Against Their Presidents',

Gary D Stocker (00:01.044)
Welcome back to another special episode of This Week in College Viability. Hi, everybody, Gary Stalker. Got two special guests today. And two years ago, the book these two gentlemen wrote was Colleges on the Brink. The authors went into great detail on college financial challenges and offered solutions based on their research and experience. I want to welcome back Mike Nitzel and Chuck Ambrose back to the podcast to talk about their new book.

No confidence. Mike, Chuck, welcome back.

Mike Nietzel (00:32.657)
Thank you, Gary.

Chuck Ambrose (00:33.262)
Thanks. Good to be with you.

Gary D Stocker (00:36.01)
So it was about two years ago and you released College on the Brink. You made the case that financial exigency, and you can define that if you want, is not necessarily a bad thing. In No Confidence, the book that will come out later this year or early next year, you argue that these votes of no confidence in college leaders have become an occupational hazard for an increasing number of presidents and their airing of institutional dirty laundry.

has been accompanied by a further decline in the public's perceived value of a college degree. You continue no confidence votes, reinforce some of the stereotypes that naysayers level against higher education, including the charge that entitled faculty members and paralyzed leaders limit the capacity of colleges to change and be sufficiently dynamic to meet the new challenges they face. Chuck, what are the factors you think makes this a timely book?

Chuck Ambrose (01:35.746)
Well, know, Gary, again, we appreciate being on with you and having the conversations and in lot of ways, the focus of your series on just viability, right, has taken on a different meaning for leadership and for governance, for stewardship. And

Obviously, our intent with colleges on the brink was not only to kind of outline some of the structural deficits, but provide, right, a playbook, guide, a toolbox of some of the most important kind of data-informed tools, key learnings, but also an encouragement for us to kind of consider

flipping the narrative, inverting some of the things that we think perhaps are some of our worst challenges into opportunities. I think in a lot of ways, especially for two friends that enjoy collaborating together, both serving as college presidents, this is an extension of the first book. And in some ways,

Gary D Stocker (02:44.97)
Interesting.

Chuck Ambrose (02:46.542)
trying to provide some encouragement that what we all know our presence, right, is the potholes, the deficits, the things that are challenging us. You don't have to get up in the morning without your daily dose of the Chronicle or Inside or Dive or whoever you want to look at to know what those are. But really answer that kind of next question is what do we do? And

We gathered some really great wisdom and some guidance from those we talked to and from each of the cases that certainly Mike helps to outline in publications like Forbes and others, stay current with what all that means to leaders today.

Gary D Stocker (03:28.96)
All right.

Mike Nietzel (03:32.262)
Yeah, it's Gary it's timely mainly because we've seen such a uptick in the number of no confidence votes

in the past five years. If you look at start back in 2020, it's pretty much steadily accelerated since then for probably two or three different reasons, but they have become common. You do not have a month go by anymore out there being at least one new no-confidence vote being registered at a college or university.

Gary D Stocker (04:07.616)
And I spent a lot of time, I read the whole book and thanks for sending that to me. I spent a lot of time in chapter three and it was a lot on the financial piece, I think. And I've got to get a couple of quotes from this that I want you to follow up on. And this is one from page 91 on the draft that I had. In the past two decades, but especially in the post pandemic era, one of the most common reasons behind no confidence votes.

has been faculty objections to president's management of their institution's finances, particularly when those decisions have involved eliminating programs, streamlining institutions, organization, and reducing the number of faculty and staff. many, gentlemen, how many of these no confidence votes are, I guess, the result of maybe cultural intransigence on the part of faculty? Are they based on real financial concerns?

Mike Nietzel (04:55.908)
Well, I don't think I'd use the term cultural entrenchments to describe the faculty's concerns. I do think there's a legitimate case that can be made that in some cases, the faculty have not been sufficiently aware of the depth of the financial problems a college is going through. Now that may be a bit of their own kind of head in the sand.

But it also may be that presidents have not been as clear and as timely in their communications with the campus about the financial problems they face. So rather than thinking of it as being the administration's fault or faculty culture, I think we try to approach this in the book as most no confidence votes when they involve

issues of finances are pretty complicated and they've developed over a period of time. They seldom occur overnight. And faculty are skeptical that the changes that an administration recommends are necessary. Administrations tend to be irritated when faculty raise those

slow down kind of messages. And so you do have a clash set up and those reach a tipping point. Typically there is some sort of spark that sort of ignites the fire and the faculty proceed through their university senate typically with a vote of no confidence. So complicated issues when it involves financial consideration. Some of the other no confidence votes

Mike Nietzel (06:52.2)
of course have dealt with entirely different kinds of faculty concerns, but the ones that involve financial considerations I think are usually pretty complicated with room on both sides of the equation for improvement in how it's been handled.

Gary D Stocker (07:07.604)
So Chuck, a brief follow up on that. In your experience, either firsthand or secondhand, do faculty really believe these no confidence votes will change things?

Chuck Ambrose (07:18.414)
You know, that's a great question, Gary, because there's no question as Mike just pointed out, these are complex, usually complex circumstances. You know, one thing, and I say this again, with more of a self reflection than a casting any kind of judgment on other presidents, we can screw up, right? I mean, we can, we can make bad decisions. We can take risks that don't necessarily pan out, which

Mike Nietzel (07:44.539)
.

Chuck Ambrose (07:48.33)
I would say most would do it in what they feel like is the best interest of the campus, but sometimes those things go sideways, right? And in some cases, we as institutional leaders may deserve a no confidence vote, right? But at the same time, coming out of the recession, and again, you kind of helped this with the college viability network, you know,

Mike Nietzel (08:14.066)
.

Chuck Ambrose (08:15.99)
resources, costs, margins, leadership, this cascade has been steadily building and then not able to withstand a pandemic, right? And things like her funding. And I think we pretty clearly articulate in the book that within the shared governance models that exist,

And we heard this from faculty leadership that sometimes it's the only lever they have to really express themselves collectively in a voice that carries enough weight. We're not organized, right, in most cases to have that free interchange of collaboration. And I think at the end of the book, right, that's where we really get to one of the elements. And I, in my current work,

Mike Nietzel (08:47.225)
.

Gary D Stocker (08:51.624)
Interesting.

Gary D Stocker (08:59.231)
Yeah.

Chuck Ambrose (09:11.074)
council presidents and campuses all the time is transparency is a choice. But without it, your ability to bring really complex organizations down to an understandable level of why, how many students we have and how much we actually scholarship them and how that affects our net tuition revenue and why we can't have X, Y and Z.

Mike Nietzel (09:12.448)
So, thank

Gary D Stocker (09:16.926)
Yeah.

Chuck Ambrose (09:35.438)
With 75 % of any fiscal decision having a high likelihood of affecting a person, these issues get human very quick. They have real impact and in many ways, I'm not just empathetic, but an advocate for a voice to be raised and say, need to think about doing something differently.

Gary D Stocker (09:46.026)
Yeah.

Gary D Stocker (10:01.012)
So Mike, the data on financial struggles is clear. Whether using my college viability after the other sources out there that let colleges compare. These are the resources that let stakeholders, define the stakeholders any way you want, but it includes faculty, to see how their colleges compare to other colleges. And my college folks are data-trained folks. Why do you think there's a focus on data?

in their respective academic disciplines and not so much focus maybe on the financial piece for their colleges.

Mike Nietzel (10:36.176)
Yeah, that's a good question. It's one we struggled with in the book. I think a significant part of it, Gary, is that increasingly faculty, I believe, have tended to identify with their individual disciplines as far as their professional identity is concerned, so with their institution. And so

They're busy with their research. They're busy with their teaching. They're busy with their national organizations. And they are not particularly tuned in to the details of their college budget or financial picture until a crisis arises. And then they're often shocked by what's presented, even in some cases questioning whether it's accurate or not the data. So

I think it's a matter of focus and the focus on a college, on a university's budget isn't there for most faculty. It's somewhere else. It's where we'd want it to be frankly on their work, on their research and on their teaching. But that does then set up the possibility of a real problem when the data are unmistakable about the direction that a college's finances is headed.

Gary D Stocker (11:49.567)
Yeah.

Gary D Stocker (11:59.562)
So Chuck, a quick follow up. Do you see that changing? Do you see maybe just a select group of faculty becoming more informed about a college's financial health or lack thereof? Maybe even in part.

Chuck Ambrose (12:10.476)
Well, I do.

Gary, I really do with a sense of somewhat hope and optimism on a couple fronts. I think there's a generational shift. think, not that campuses like to hear we need a new business model or we have to operate differently, but trends in everything from state appropriations, right to college costs, to demographic cliffs, to inflation. People understand that in their own homes, so they're more likely

Mike Nietzel (12:32.352)
you

Chuck Ambrose (12:42.186)
to bring some of those perspectives into work and think differently. But as you know, right, there's a couple elements that make this much more acute, right, liquidity and understanding how an institution works from a cash perspective. The small privates, the under endowed, right, we used to worry about

budgets right and ending up with a surplus. Now we worry if we have to go to endowment and increase spend or do internal loans and

Gary D Stocker (13:14.324)
Yeah.

Chuck Ambrose (13:17.158)
You know, again, you understand cash much better if you don't have it. Mike just mentioned, and I think it's seismic, right, that we've had a funding stream for research on our campuses that have really funded an enterprise that almost stood equal to, in some places, greater than the academic programs in the traditional sense.

Mike Nietzel (13:30.887)
.

Chuck Ambrose (13:41.07)
I would imagine that those faculty members in the sponsored research space are paying much more attention, right, about how they're funded and where their resources come from. I have to smile because the absolute best academic leaders and the best provost I've worked for came out of Econ. You know, we draw on the disciplines for their strengths and I can name them, but not only

Gary D Stocker (13:59.839)
Ha

Chuck Ambrose (14:10.114)
Did they understand the economics of higher ed? But they could help translate that to a broader understanding by faculty.

Gary, this is an extreme bias, right? But I think one of the most powerful tools that we have, just to be data informed, is utilizing something like an academic portfolio to help chairs, deans, programs. And then we've got to incentivize, right? Those things that actually matter. And if we flip some of those switches to where, you know, if a department's paying their overhead and they're able to grow net revenue and

then you can allocate more resources and grow. Well, you have to teach people how to do that, right? As Mike said, you come through a different path. So I'm optimistic that as the model becomes more refined and the margins become more thin, that there's greater utility in these competencies. And again, I think one of the values of our book, right, is to say, it's like colleges on the brink. You want to stay as far away from a no confidence vote as you can.

Mike Nietzel (14:50.413)
you

Gary D Stocker (15:11.232)
Yeah.

Gary D Stocker (15:16.544)
So, go ahead, Mike.

Mike Nietzel (15:18.746)
I would, Gary, thing I'd add is when we look at individual campuses that have had no confidence votes, we discovered that at most of those, and I think this is probably true at most institutions, there's a handful of faculty who know a lot about the budget. They're budget hawks, they're watchdogs.

and the faculty have relied on those individuals kind of as their early radar, their alert system. You may see that group growing a little bit as college finances become more complicated and more difficult.

Gary D Stocker (15:54.912)
Interesting.

Gary D Stocker (15:59.592)
And Mike, let me stay with you. Let's talk budgets, which really seems to be the source of most no confidence votes in my observation. And budgets are different, of course, from audited financial statements. Budgets can be generally described as hoped for documents. And really what I focus on in my work is the financial statements and the iPads data that colleges submit. Is there a miss when faculty look at budgets and say, well, hey, you're cutting our budget?

Mike Nietzel (16:23.962)
There is a tendency, Gary, I agree, for a lot of people like faculty, staff, even frankly some administrators to confuse a budget with revenue. That if it's in the budget, it means we must have the cash to pay for it.

Gary D Stocker (16:28.456)
and not looking at the same audited financial statements that show tuition and free revenue is down for last eight years.

Gary D Stocker (16:51.744)
Don't tell me that.

Mike Nietzel (16:53.463)
Well, that's, I think, an unfortunate discovery that we made in writing this book and in doing the book on financial exigency is that a kind of skin deep understanding of what a budget means and what it doesn't mean has been a problem at institutions. And again, I don't say that to cast blame.

because in some cases administrators have preferred to keep those things too close to the vest. And the campus finds out about it too late and then understandably they're angry and afraid as result.

Gary D Stocker (17:37.01)
And Chuck, I'm gonna read a quote to you. I'm not gonna tell you, it's from the book. I'm not gonna tell you who it is until afterwards. You're gonna know as I read it. And I have a follow-up question after that. So here's from the book. You know, anytime in higher education that a president advocates for major changes at an institution, it's going to lead to a faculty outcry. Brian Rosenberg's book was all about that. Whatever it is, I don't like it. It's why no confidence votes, this quota says.

It's why no confidence votes are becoming more common. The need for change is running head in to an entitlement mentality that change is unnecessary. And this of course is from West Virginia University President Gordon G. Is Dr. G. Chuck right or wrong?

Mike Nietzel (18:07.972)
.

Chuck Ambrose (18:22.902)
Well, let's just say that Gordon provided us incredible insight coming from deep experience and

Mike Nietzel (18:33.368)
You

Chuck Ambrose (18:36.588)
You know, I think, Mike, some of the most valuable insight we probably gathered from, again, a campus that was focused on, but at the same time, you know, some of the $45 million in reductions that West Virginia went through, Gary, were in scale, a little tempest in a teapot, right?

when you think about really the reach of resources that a state university land grant has in the reach that West Virginia does. I thought, and again, I may share this comment with Mike's reflection as well, I thought some of the most telling insights beyond Gordon who said he chose to lead with his chin. So there's a certain degree of curve.

right, and willingness that you have to have. You have to have the will to be transparent. You have to have the will to make the hard choices. But we're from some of the faculty leaders we talked to that really do want to shoulder and try to affect change, but some of the no confidence and cultural challenges actually come from some of the most uninformed and detached faculty members on a campus. Those that are in the know,

those that work actively to understand and help lead, whether it be shared governance or committee structures or departments or programs, they're really usually favorable to some reallocation.

along the lines of these decisions. But when it affects you or affects people that you care about, right, then the swell of concern comes up. I, Mike, again, I was probably more taken by the comment of the uninformed and unengaged may lead some of these votes than not.

Mike Nietzel (20:32.671)
Yeah, we heard that from faculty sources who prefer to remain anonymous as far as

Gary D Stocker (20:39.136)
You

Mike Nietzel (20:41.908)
being cited in the book, think Gordon was describing his feelings about a particular situation there at West Virginia University, which involved a tough recommendation, which was to close dozens of programs and lay off more than 100, I think more than 140 faculty. that was a, those are significant numbers, even though as Chuck said, percentage wise, it's small in West

Gary D Stocker (21:10.709)
Yeah.

Mike Nietzel (21:11.527)
budget. But I think he put his finger on something that is true of some no confidence votes. It's not characteristic of other ones that arise for other reasons.

Gary D Stocker (21:25.44)
So again from the book, Mike, here's a quote. Governing boards are far too willing to defer to presidential assurances that the financial house is in good order or that if it's not, enrollment will pick up and upcoming fundraising campaign will bring financial security or the state for publics. The state will answer the call for increased appropriations. The alternative scenarios where enrollments are dropping, revenue continues to plunge, expenses are mounting,

Mike Nietzel (21:49.099)
you

Gary D Stocker (21:53.534)
and the state is still cutting appropriations and where once loyal donors are finding other good causes to support with their gifts are not taking too seriously until it's too late. Mike, how can governing boards, using what you said in the book, how can governing boards be more proactive in assessing the true financial health of their institutions rather than relying on the college leadership?

Mike Nietzel (22:16.963)
Yeah, I think this is a really important question, Gary, and has a couple of components to it. One is, unfortunately, a lot of boards don't have a of financial expertise on them. And so they're being asked to do something that they're not particularly well equipped to do.

Individuals are appointed to governing boards for a lot of reasons and financial acumen is probably not at the top of. Second, some boards may not be structured in a way that would allow them to have this kind of closer scrutiny. Do they have a finance committee, for example, that meets more often than the full board with the vice president for finance or whoever the chief business officer is for the university?

Third, think it's difficult, particularly for public universities, all of whom must have these board meetings in public, to have the frank kinds of discussions they need about the funds. Presidents by nature, college presidents, they need to be. So they're not going to be particularly enthusiastic about being, looking overly worried about an institution's finances in a public board meeting. The board doesn't want controversy to come out.

Gary D Stocker (23:19.732)
Yeah. Good point.

Mike Nietzel (23:39.856)
in those meetings. And so some of it, I think, is a result of a process where it's difficult to discuss tough matters in public sometimes without those having further negative repercussions for the institution. But I do think that it is important for governors and for self-perpetuating boards in the case of independent institutions to make sure there's some genuine financial expertise

Gary D Stocker (23:48.787)
Interesting.

Mike Nietzel (24:08.752)
represented on the board to challenge presidents when they present too rosy a scenario about an institution's finances.

Gary D Stocker (24:17.866)
So Chuck, change the tone of the conversation a little bit, shared governance, based on your experience, based on your research, is there an industry move away from that traditional shared governance form?

Chuck Ambrose (24:35.138)
You know, Mike and I get asked that question a lot. You know, where...

somebody likes, Stephen Bales wrote the book about shared responsibility as kind of the counter to shared governance. you're gonna share governance, share the accountability, share the responsibility. Again, some of the more systemic issues of not understanding how schools work, the transparency of how we teach and learn about budgets and finance and those kinds of things.

Gary D Stocker (24:56.181)
Interesting.

Chuck Ambrose (25:11.534)
quite honestly, Gary, those are all kind of self-inflicted, right? Because if you, if you don't start with a fundamental premise of trust, in each other, and then sharing of responsibility and decision-making, I don't think I've said this quite as strongly as, as this may sound, but, as I look back, my ability to share

Mike Nietzel (25:21.198)
.

Chuck Ambrose (25:40.65)
and really engage faculty meaningfully was not my strength. I was too future-focused, too aggressive, too urgent and impatient. structures in the way that they've historically existed

Gary D Stocker (25:59.05)
Yeah.

Chuck Ambrose (26:08.63)
weren't really built right for that kind of nimble. But at the same time, and I'm probably more affirming of our last chapter and some of the recommendations embedded that actually more shared governance than less is required to build a viable future. But redefining, it's just like we've tried to redefine exigency, Gary. Let's redefine what really truly shared governance means and then

Gary D Stocker (26:11.168)
Right.

Mike Nietzel (26:25.065)
.

Gary D Stocker (26:32.778)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chuck Ambrose (26:38.33)
And I'm going to give attribution to Mike, but I think he provided one of the most critical elements of that is clear, defined lines of responsibilities, accountabilities and expectations, right? Correct. absolutely. Financial, you know, it's just like we want our students, right? A financial literacy about higher ed.

Gary D Stocker (26:50.144)
And that includes the financial piece.

Chuck Ambrose (27:01.248)
If we don't get that Gary right, no, all of this becomes kind of a cauldron of emotion and culture. With it, I am convinced that the capacity of faculty and leadership can come together and envision outcomes that are fiscally responsible.

Mike Nietzel (27:14.348)
I think your question's a great one, Gary. I do agree that shared governance has become more frail at many colleges and universities. And in fact, when you look at the formal resolutions that

are taken of no confidence. They almost always involve a clause referring to a decrease in shared governance, a breakdown of shared governance. And the solution, I think, is I don't think there's a better model. We just need to strengthen this one as far as shared governance is concerned. But it has eroded, I think, in recent years.

Gary D Stocker (28:07.05)
Yeah.

Chuck Ambrose (28:08.78)
You know, as a follow on to that, Gary, and it's related to your question about board governance. In regards to faculty, we give them very little reward for the time and effort. They don't really get assessed, right, other than service elements and somewhat of a redefining of those traditional faculty roles to include, right? And then I became convinced

If we don't incentivize good behavior, good fiscal management, good understanding, especially with declining resources, narrowing benefits, and in some ways stagnant wage up against inflation, then it becomes not quite the positive environment that people want to engage.

Mike Nietzel (29:00.905)
I think it is. I think that would be desirable, yes.

Chuck Ambrose (29:02.464)
It's going to be required, but it just may be with a reset on how we define and even how many faculty that we actually can engage in that governance model.

Gary D Stocker (29:11.904)
So Mike, does that include deans having a P &L? Does that include department chairs having a P &L? Is that where we're headed with shared governance?

Gary D Stocker (29:26.72)
Good. Well, guys, like I said in our correspondence before we did the podcast today, I think I could do 2,700 podcasts on just the content you had in this book, because of course, as we all know, we're preaching to the choir here, the challenges in higher education are just all over the place, I guess is the best way to be out without overstating it. I appreciate both of you taking the time to do that. But before we go away, Mike, tell us about the book. Tell us when it's coming out. Tell us where it's going to be coming out from.

Tell us how we can buy it. Go ahead.

Mike Nietzel (29:58.211)
So the book is under production now with Johns Hopkins University Press. We expect it will be available for pre-order in the second half of the year. Probably is gonna carry a January copyright date and it'll be available through

Amazon pre-order probably from Johns Hopkins University Press directly as well.

Gary D Stocker (30:20.864)
Well, Chuck, Mike, always a pleasure to chat with you. We'll have to it again sometime for College Viability. This has been a special episode with Mike Nitzel and Chuck Ambrose. Gentlemen, take care. We'll talk again sometime soon. For those listening to podcast, we appreciate your time, and we'll look forward to offering this kind of content again in the coming weeks.