More on Off-Campus Living: "As the pool shrinks up top, it shrinks for us, too!"

There is an emotional way to look at the situation with the Off-Campus Living Office at Ohio University, and then there’s a more practical and logical way to examine things. As a PACE employee for Off-Campus Living, I've been so distraught about the current state and future well-being of our office that I’ve been unable to see the reasoning behind the budget cuts and reorganization scheduled to occur next school year. That is, until I spoke with a knowledgeable and objective source in Student Affairs (whose name and position will remain confidential). This person was gracious enough to provide me with some insight on Ohio University’s fiscal situation and the direct effects the budget has on university departments.

As I mentioned before, most of OU's fiscal problems relate to a reduction in student retention rates as well as to a reduction in state funding by 18 percent. My source explained that when administrators needed to start planning for cuts earlier this year, they looked at three separate budgets – capital, auxiliary and operational. The capital budget relates to buildings and was used to fund the construction of the new Baker Center. Auxiliary budgets are revenue-generating and are the least likely to be cut when financial problems arise. Operational budgets, which involve program resources and salaries, are often cut first and assessed by their potential to sustain with limited resources and generate revenue. So, the question that administrators pose to a number of university departments is, “Can we generate money from investing in their services?” When is comes to Off-Campus Living, probably not. Therefore, the idea of saving approximately $50,000 by not rehiring for Jim Hintz’ former position and putting the Off-Campus department under a revenue-generating department such as Residence Life (as mentioned in my previous post), seems pretty appealing to President McDavis and his crew.

Yet, I still questioned whether all of my department’s services would remain intact.

“Programmatically, it'll be fine,” I was assured by my source. You see, the main goal that was established by the office when it was created in 2004 was to make every off-campus student as knowledgeable as possible and empower them with enough information to handle roommate and landlord issues appropriately. So as long as there is dedication to this mission and a willingness to learn on the part of the Department of Residence Life, those employees should be able to make progress by following the methods and resources we’ve already put in place. We can only hope that Resident Directors with give the same attention to the Community Assistant program as they do to the Resident Assistant program.

Then I asked, “Was there anything we could have done to prevent the proposed reorganization of our office and other departments under Student Affairs?”

From the response I received, it sounds like the best thing that Off-Campus Living could have done would have been to establish a better reporting line, as we were a bit buried in the hierarchy that is typical in higher education. We seemed to have done a good job in “creating demand” and “building a need” for off-campus services among students, but fell behind in creating that need for members of the administration. Overall, I see this situation as an instance that commonly occurs in the changing arena of higher education, where students have turned into consumers and universities have turned into businesses. We are quickly moving beyond the traditional, non-profit purpose of providing a liberal arts education and creating well-rounded citizens; instead, universities remain competitive by producing highly skilled young adults to feed employers in our business-oriented world.

Disappointing? Yes. But there's really nothing that can be done at this point. Once I was able to set aside my emotions and hear the facts, I gained a better understanding of the reasoning behind departmental cut-backs. It doesn’t mean I agree with it, but at least I understand what's going on in terms of a business model rather than administration’s lack of respect for quality departments and faculty.