Courtesy of our reporting partners at the Palmetto Report. To read the full story, click here.
Since the 2017-2018 year, student enrollment at Winthrop University is down by almost 500 students. Throughout the university, the effects of lower student enrollment, such as budget cuts, layoffs and smaller course sizes, have been felt by faculty, staff and students.
Winthrop’s operating revenue, once $122.5M in fiscal year 2018, dropped by 7.8% to an estimated operating revenue of $113M in fiscal year 2022. Tuition makes up the majority of Winthrop’s revenue, making up 70% of the overall budget in fiscal year 2018 and estimated to be 67.5% of fiscal year 2022’s overall budget, according to Associate Vice President for Finance and Business Jeremy Whitaker.
To offset the difference in revenue, the university has asked asked faculty and staff to leave, allowed contracts to expire and permanently retired positions after those holding the positions leave or retire. Staff members have been let go at a higher rate than faculty, but faculty at the lower end of the hierarchy, like adjunct professors, also have to worry about their positions, according to Brandon Ranallo-Benavidez, assistant professor of political science,
“The goal of the university is to match revenue and expenses every year. In fiscal year 2020, compensation was 78.5% of the divisional allocations, therefore, as revenues have gone down, the university has had to reduce expenses by making tough decisions,” Whitaker said.
According to Ranallo-Benavidez, the large number of staff members let go will have effects throughout the university.
“We need to have instructors, of course. But also, we’re a liberal arts college, and so we need to have the whole scope of wraparound services. So whenever we’re seeing people, like the staff members, be . . . let go or having their positions unfilled once they leave voluntarily, it causes problems that then reverberate throughout the whole system,” Ranallo-Benavidez said.
Infrastructure has been identified by students and staff as a campus problem that needs to be addressed immediately. James Grigg, associate vice president of facilities management, held a talk on Oct. 20 about ongoing projects and the issues facilities management knows about. WU Students for Change, a campus advocacy group, held a protest on Dec. 3 demanding, among other things, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance and the removal of mold from residence halls.
On Tik Tok, the account “WU Anarchist Student Society” posted a video showing what appears to be mold in a shower, mushrooms growing out of a carpet and rotten wood on the outside of buildings, among other things. Text on the video reads “Winthrop University is the most expensive public college in S.C. This is what we are paying for…” The post has over 292,000 views and 39,000 likes.
According to Whitaker, “Finance and facilities have been working diligently to address the deferred maintenance needs of the University. The University currently has roughly 17 projects with costs over $35 million that will be executed over the next two to three years. In addition, we received another $9 million of renewal replacement funds from the state in fiscal year 2022 that we are using to update cameras, to improve our network, on other technology projects and on classroom upgrades.”
Counseling Services is another point of concern according to WU Students for Change, stating in their list of demands, “We demand that Winthrop University expand its mental health resources, including the onboarding of better, more inclusive, and more sensitive therapists and counselors in the Health and Counseling department, to ensure that students have access to the care they need. Students shouldn’t be waiting months for counseling appointments.”
According to Gretchen Baldwin, the clinical coordinator for Counseling Services, her and her staff are at capacity, despite appointments being down by almost 50% since fall 2019.
“Everybody is absolutely at capacity. Like we’re plugging people into our case management time. And, you know, we just can’t really add more in a day,” Baldwin said. “In an ethical and responsible way, you know, there’s only so many people that you can treat in a day and still have the resources internally to continue to provide good treatment.”
Counseling Services uses a same day model to appointments, meaning a student can get an appointment on the same day they contact Counseling Services for help.
“We have that model because in the past prior to that, somebody would have to wait two to three weeks before an intake session,” Baldwin said. “We transitioned to a same day model of intake because it’s really more of like a get your foot in the door kind of an assessment type appointment. And then we can – based on what the person is needing and their level of clinical urgency – we can either schedule them for another same day that week or help get them connected to the community or schedule them for the next available appointment.”
Baldwin said she is looking to hire a new counselor with a multicultural specialty to replace a staff member who left at the end of October.
“The goal of that position is to provide focused outreach to the community especially targeted at BIPOC students and be able to reduce stigma and encourage, you know, representation among our staff members in order to kind of allow people to feel safe and comfortable coming into counseling services and to feel heard and seen in a comfortable way,” Baldwin said.
She believes this vacancy, as well as a lack of Office of Victim Assistance (OVA) counselors, has contributed to the high work load for her and her staff.
“I think some of this may be reflected by OVA counseling, in that we had three individuals practicing in OVA counseling in 2019 who looked like two full time staff members as far as hours went,” Baldwin said. “OVA experienced 100% turnover because staff members were overworked. And so we’ve really tried to be very, very cautious with staff self care in OVA to protect their well being. And now we only have the one and the part time person, but we will soon have two full time people there”
To be able to grow, Baldwin said her department would need a mix of resources.
“The university would need to be able to identify a full time staff members salaries, salary and benefits. And we would need space. We don’t have space to grow here in this building,” Baldwin said.
Budget concerns are not the only negative impact of lowering enrollment. Faculty have to worry about meeting enrollment quotas in the courses they teach. If a course has less…
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