on the cover / By Ryan Burns

Campus In Crisis

Dysfunction and budget cuts bring HSU to the brink of disaster

(Nov. 20, 2008)  Humboldt State University is in trouble — serious trouble, though you wouldn’t know it to walk around the campus. Students still happily yak on cell phones in the quad, hike up and down the Founders Hall stairs and file into the environmentally cutting-edge new Behavioral and Social Sciences building.

No, the trouble lies deeper than that. It’s intangible yet systemic, and according to outside experts who have investigated HSU at length, this trouble should not — must not — be ignored. As the pool of higher education funding drains away, fundamental problems submerged in the culture and operations of HSU have come to the surface.

GALLERY >

There’s an atmosphere of distrust and animosity on campus, administrative systems fraught with inefficiencies, and finances that have been eroded to the bedrock. HSU is now on the verge of losing its status as a sanctioned institute for higher learning. After closely examining the school, a series of inspectors and consultants have delivered a unanimous message: Change now or you won’t survive.

The first serious alarm was sounded in February with a report from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), HSU’s regional accrediting organization. Citing ineffective curricular oversight and labyrinthine processes for budgeting and decision-making, the agency elected to delay its Educational Effectiveness Review — essentially a pass/fail inspection to determine whether the school is up to California State University standards — by a year, from Spring 2009 to Spring 2010.

Following WASC recommendations, HSU President Rollin Richmond called for help. The university employed the services of Keeling & Associates, a respected higher-ed consulting firm based in New York City. Over several weeks, the Keeling consultants reviewed data on the university’s history and operations, conducted phone interviews with staff, faculty and administrators, and finally, in mid-September, a team of consultants visited the campus for a closer look.

On Oct. 7, Keeling & Associates issued its 31-page report — a scathing appraisal of a college in almost complete disarray. President Richmond’s leadership was described as “ineffective,” as were the university’s decision-making processes. The “dysfunctional” campus culture has created “a fatigued if not demoralized administration, faculty, staff, and student body.” The school lacks a shared vision, the report stated, a common purpose among university leaders.

That wasn’t the worst of it. In their interviews, the consultants encountered deep-seated suspicion of leadership, a near-total lack of confidence in administrative intentions, and, perhaps worst of all, they said solutions are unlikely to emerge from the university as it is currently organized. “[T]he loss of trust at Humboldt is so profound,” the report stated, “that it cannot be overcome without significant institutional change.”

WASC’s decision to postpone the accreditation review was not merely an institutional favor but “a clear signal of problems of crisis-level proportions.” Should the school lose accreditation, its federal financial aid would be cut and the subsequent damage to its admissions and reputation would be immense. In short, Keeling & Associates concluded that HSU is in the midst of “a legitimate institutional emergency.”

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