Bean-counting in a power vacuum

Efficiency has arrived.

In a power vacuum created by WSU System President Elizabeth Cantwell’s decision not to appoint a new chancellor for WSU Vancouver, the interim has called in external consultants to ask questions.

Called in by Chancellor of WSU Tri-Cities and Interim Chancellor of WSU Vancouver Sandra Haynes, rpk GROUP is a consulting company that specializes in higher education. They previously worked with WSU Tri-Cities two years ago, and are simultaneously conducting a review at WSU Everett.

The rpk GROUP is currently working on two projects for Vancouver. First, an academic portfolio and resources review, and second, an administrative services review for the campus. Currently, they are working on the academic portfolio and resources review.

The projects are being led by Interim Chancellor Haynes, as well as Interim Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Damien Sinnott and Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Research, Graduate Education and Enrollment Christine Portfors.

The academic portfolio and resources review aims to analyze course data, academic program data, faculty data, and financial data to create an analysis and framework that can be used by the staff, as well as make recommendations for reallocations and new investments.

The administrative services review is a series of qualitative interviews with WSU Vancouver unit leaders, an anonymous survey for faculty and staff, and a landscape review and data analysis.

According to Haynes, the point of the academic portfolio review is to eliminate guesswork when making budget cuts.

“The data is a tool to help alert us to trends, possible painpoints, to again intentionally look at what we are doing and do more of what we are doing really well, and how we can correct what we are not doing so well,” she said.

Mike Daly, a senior associate at rpk, serves as the research lead for the project at WSUV, alongside Samantha Bradley, another associate. According to the rpk GROUP website, “Mike’s recent efforts have supported restructuring of academic portfolios to reflect demand, enhancements to faculty workload policies and efficiencies, and ‘rightsizing’ of campuses.”

In Bradley’s bio, rpk states that she “specializes in leveraging student, personnel, and financial data to holistically evaluate the operational efficiencies of institutions.”

A second campus town hall event for the academic portfolio and resources review will be held on Nov. 17, and the final report and recommendations to the staff will be released on Dec. 15.