Faculty will vote Feb. 27 on future of UWW

A joint recommendation from the Committee on Educational Policies and Planning (CEPP) and the Institutional Policy and Planning Committee (IPPC) to close the University without Walls program will be voted on by the faculty at their Feb. 27 meeting.

The recommendation includes a stipulation that the process of termination ?extend for a reasonable period of transition to allow currently enrolled students to complete their degree requirements.? Of the approximately 100 students who are currently involved with the program, 10 are full-time, 30 are part-time, 15 are enrolled in the UWW Antigua Program, and the remainder are working on final projects, catching up on unfinished work, or on leave.

About 50 faculty, staff, and UWW alumni attended an open meeting on Tuesday that was called by the two committees to discuss the recommendation. If approved by the faculty, the recommendation will be forwarded initially to the administration, which will then make its recommendation to the Board of Trustees at the Board?s May meeting.

The faculty vote will come almost exactly a year after Vice President for Academic Affairs Susan Kress sent to the Skidmore community a recommendation that the College begin taking steps toward closing the University Without Walls, the bachelor's-level distance-learning program launched in 1971.

Kress?s recommendation was a response to a 13-month process that included an external review of the UWW program, a report from the Special Programs Study Group, and subsequent community discussions of that report.

Kress recommended closing the program for three reasons:

-Increasing demands on Skidmore faculty to support the residential program through teaching, advising, and scholarship

-The dramatically changed market for distance-learning programs

-A sharp decline in enrollment and a deficit running well into six figures annually

In response to Kress?s recommendation and on the advice of the Faculty Executive Committee, CEPP took up the issue and introduced a motion last April to close UWW. In a close vote, the Skidmore faculty voted down the recommendation and signaled its support for exploring the possibility of a new model for UWW.

Following that vote, Kress appointed a 13-member University Without Walls Working Group and charged it with developing a plan for a restructured UWW program that addressed a variety of issues, including academic oversight, administrative efficiency, and financial accountability. The Working Group, which started its work in June, also was charged to provide a business plan that would put the UWW program on a sound financial basis within five years and ultimately to determine whether such a plan was feasible within the context of Skidmore?s strategic goals.

In response to the charge, the Working Group developed a new academic plan, a new administrative structure, and several financial models. The academic plan was predicated on

-localizing the student body

-establishing a greater on-campus presence

-ensuring more consistency with the residential program

-integrating the program into the residential college

-ensuring greater institutional oversight

The Working Group developed five financial models. The academic model proposed by the Working Group assumed an enrollment of 100 full-pay students; a tuition increase of 19 percent for half-time students and a tuition increase of 40 percent for full-time students; steady-state projections for tuition, compensation, services and supplies, and indirect costs; billing on a credit-hour basis; and an annual allowance for uncollectible accounts.

The Working Group recognized that implementing the new model would require the allocation of significant institutional resources over the next few years. Its report, completed last November, concluded that the fundamental question for the community is whether the allocation of significant institutional resources to reinvigorate UWW is the best strategic choice for the College.

In their rationale accompanying their recommendation to close UWW, CEPP and IPPC acknowledged the strength of the academic program proposed by the Working Group. However, they said, ?The proposed model is also more costly in terms of faculty time and commitment and makes significant continuing demands on the College?s financial resources.?

Noting that the faculty, administration, and Board of Trustees explicitly stated at the time UWW was created in the early 1970s that the program should be self-supporting, CEPP and IPPC further concluded that implementing the model would represent ?an inappropriate allocation of institutional resources particularly in this time of economic uncertainty and volatility.?

Their rationale further reads:

?CEPP and IPPC unanimously conclude that, as a matter of educational and institutional policy, the continuation of the UWW program is not in the College?s best long-term interests. Closing UWW, while painful and difficult, is appropriate and responsible.

?CEPP and IPPC offer this joint recommendation with the understanding that, if the decision is made to close the UWW program, the College will be committed to celebrating the accomplishments of UWW and its graduates and to honoring the work of the many longtime and dedicated faculty and staff members who have devoted themselves to the program.?

Skidmore was one of 16 colleges that received funding from the Ford Foundation and U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the late 1960s and early 1970s to create ?university without walls? programs aimed at reaching out to non-traditional learners with non-traditional curricula, including the recognition and crediting of lessons learned through life experience. More than 1,400 alumni have used UWW?s flexible framework to develop individually tailored undergraduate degree programs.