NMU Faculty and Staff,

Before we break for the holidays, I want to give you an update on the budget revision process and progress. Over the past month and a half, the vice presidents and I have been meeting with various groups to discuss the budget challenges, including deans, department heads, the union labor council, Academic Senate, AAUP, NMUFA, students and community leaders. You should be aware that a lot of work has been taking place regarding budget restructuring.

Earlier this semester, all divisions were given a target monetary figure for budget reductions and each department was asked for recommendations regarding possible budget cuts. That was our starting point for a structural realignment to better match our current student enrollment to campus resources. With those recommendations in hand, the divisional leaders and I then started meeting with department heads to ask the hard questions about not just budget reductions but about potential changes that could bring about transformational change within individual units. As you can imagine, these are discussions that need time; however, I feel we are making slow and steady progress.

My belief is that we need to engage in a process to find ways in which we are able to make investments in programs that not only realign instructional capacity with student demand, but also elevate programs and services to a new level. The best people to decide what's needed to accomplish this are a department's faculty, staff and students. Each department needs to determine what's needed to meet three requirements: elevate current programs and services to the next level (through creativity and innovative investment), realign resources to current student demand, and support the graduation needs of students. This applies to every department – academic and non-academic.

I know it is frustrating not knowing the details and current state of specific budget reduction recommendations, but at this point, final decisions have not been made on many of the proposals, other than those with time-sensitive elements that had to be addressed. My main purpose for October's town hall meeting was to explain that we'd use one-time reserve funding to cover much of the current year's deficit in order to give us time to work on innovative ways to achieve restructuring and transformational change. We're in that process right now.

The goal is to come out by the start of the next semester with more details of a budget restructuring plan. On the academic side, the Provost will meet with the deans and academic department heads at least one more time prior to the university's holiday closure. That meeting will enable Academic Affairs to finalize decisions that are most time sensitive, especially those that will impact the summer/fall course scheduling work that begins in the academic departments right at the start of the winter semester. On the non-instructional side, many decisions regarding departmental cost savings, position changes and structural reorganizations recommendations have been made or are in the process of being finalized. We'll use these few weeks before the break to complete decision-making details as needed to be able to bring a comprehensive set of ideas to the NMU community when we return to campus in January.

In my mind, this process we've been involved in is about empowering departments. Some departments are ready to make significant changes to elevate their programs and services while others need time, and possibly assistance, to develop their plans. This is what will drive our prioritization project regarding investing in innovation. If we're going to be forced by demographic and economic factors to make changes, let's make strategic changes that boldly propel us toward the future we want. The need to restructure the budget only adds to the importance of the strategic plan and its next steps: the initiatives stage and the launching of the Strategic Planning and Budgeting Committee, which will have broad campus representation to help us make well-considered investment decisions.

The strategic plan is being presented to the NMU Board of Trustees for approval this week. Thank you to everyone who participated in one or more of the many strategic plan discussion sessions. Your input was invaluable and really helped revise the plan from its original version into something distinctly Northern.

Despite our challenges, we have many, many things to celebrate. I celebrate that Northern has some of the most amazing students, faculty, staff and alumni of any institution I've ever been associated with, and that NMU's support from the community is fantastic.

Happy Holidays,
Fritz Erickson, President