For months, administrators at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) have signaled that the public university will need to cut some academic programs to address financial difficulties.

In an October "State of the Campus" address, Chancellor Franklin Gilliam said the university faces intense competition from other, often more prominent, campuses in the UNC system. Gilliam said the competitive market and declining enrollment in recent years mean the university must reassess its academic offerings.

However, some faculty members do not agree that program cuts are necessary. They have publicly opposed the way administrators are evaluating which programs to keep.

The campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), highly skeptical of the administration's evaluation methods, commissioned an independent program audit by an accounting professor from Eastern Michigan University — who concluded in October that the university is in good financial health.

In fact, Howard Bunsis said the problems he found mainly relate to administrative costs, noting that administrative spending has grown much faster than instructional spending over the past six years.

Gilliam subsequently issued a public statement disputing Bunsis's work, calling his report "riddled with inaccuracies and misinformation, both large and small."

Nevertheless, the university still plans to announce program cuts in January — such austerity measures are increasingly common at colleges nationwide as the industry faces multiple headwinds.

But the situation at UNCG is unusual: before specific cuts have been announced, faculty and the chancellor have already publicly clashed over the university's financial condition. Campus AAUP representatives told Higher Ed Dive that this uncertainty has heightened faculty anxiety.

In an interview, Gilliam said the administration's efforts have been oversimplified and mischaracterized. In his view, the university is not conducting a "budget-cutting exercise" but rather proactively preparing for a tough market environment.

"We are preventing all programs from slowly weakening," said Gilliam, who became chancellor in 2015. "This will avoid programs suffering continuous, gradual cuts."

A challenging market

UNCG data shows enrollment has steadily declined over the past few years, falling from 20,106 students in fall 2018 to 17,743 this fall, a drop of nearly 12%.

Gilliam said the enrollment decline has hurt the university's finances. He noted that combined revenue from tuition and state appropriations was $115 million in fiscal 2020, but has fallen to just $92.3 million this fiscal year. Gilliam attributes most of the loss to reduced tuition revenue.

However, unlike other universities that have recently implemented cuts, UNCG has not publicly stated it has a deficit or disclosed the size of the budget gap it is trying to close. For example, West Virginia University cited a $45 million budget deficit in cutting 28 degree programs and laying off 140 faculty members.

Gilliam said the university does have a deficit but declined to disclose the amount. He said UNCG has been managing the situation by using reserve funds and federal COVID-19 relief money.

"These are not long-term strategies, by the way," Gilliam said.

He attributes the enrollment decline to the same factors often cited by other college leaders — the pandemic and its aftermath, as well as declining public confidence in the value of higher education.

The chancellor also said UNCG competes for students with other institutions in the UNC system.

In his speech last month, Gilliam said UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University both have greater name recognition and larger endowments. This is a national phenomenon, where flagship universities like UNC-Chapel Hill and similar public universities tend to attract the attention of students and families, leaving regional universities overlooked.

However, Gilliam also said UNCG competes with other smaller universities within the system.

Four institutions in the system — Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, UNC Pembroke, and Western Carolina University — have joined the "NC Promise" affordability program, which reduces tuition for in-state students to $500 per semester.

But Gilliam said in the interview that while the program has been good for enrollment at those institutions, "it hurts us, and we have data to prove it."

'Academic portfolio review'

Against this backdrop, UNCG launched an "academic portfolio review" late last year, which the university says is necessary to "meet student needs, remain competitive, and adequately support programs."

As part of the review, the university formed an internal working group, including faculty, to help develop metrics for evaluating academic operations.

Throughout the year, faculty have been regularly briefed on the review's progress. But in October, after the university released scoring criteria detailing whether academic programs were "not meeting expectations," there was significant backlash, said Mark Elliott, a UNCG history professor and president of the campus AAUP chapter. AAUP is an authoritative faculty organization with chapters nationwide.

Elliott said the scoring criteria evaluate programs on multiple dimensions, such as the grants and number of students a program brings in, as well as operating costs compared to revenue generated.

However, Elliott said faculty have found flaws in these analyses.

"The criteria changed six times on the first day they were released. We kept seeing it change, which is embarrassing."

— Mark Elliott, UNCG history professor and AAUP chapter president

Elliott noted that faculty oppose comparing different departments against each other, arguing they should be compared with similar programs at peer institutions. They believe physics departments should be compared with other physics departments, and English departments with other English departments.

Elliott also said faculty in Greensboro have identified clear errors. For example, one analysis incorrectly attributed a $400,000 expense to a completely unrelated department. Faculty say they repeatedly pointed out errors to administrators, who then adjusted the criteria.

"The criteria changed six times on the first day they were released," Elliott said. "We kept seeing it change, which is embarrassing."

Gilliam described the revisions to the scoring criteria as a normal part of the process. He said the university is working with faculty and relying on their expertise to make improvements.

"We responded to your professional input and made changes, as we should," Gilliam said. "If we didn't, people would say this is a top-down process."

But the calculation errors have undermined trust in the entire review, said Jeremy Rinker, vice president of the campus AAUP chapter and a professor in UNCG's Peace and Conflict Studies department. He said inaccurate scoring criteria have heightened faculty anxiety because leaders have not disclosed the severity of the university's financial troubles.

The consulting firm UNCG is working with on the review, rpk Group, is already controversial in higher education for its role in the massive program cuts at West Virginia University.

WVU hired rpk Group when deciding which degrees to cut. But critics accuse rpk Group of profiting from helping WVU cut programs. WVU said it is not yet clear how much it will pay the firm, but the contract between the two shows WVU pays Rick Staisloff, rpk Group's founder and senior partner, $500 per hour.

Elliott said rpk Group's involvement with UNCG deepens faculty concerns that the university will simply cut key programs.

However, Gilliam said rpk Group's role is solely to clean up institutional data — not to recommend which degrees to cut. The consulting firm performed a similar function at WVU.

Staisloff declined to comment for this article on Tuesday.

Public clash

After UNCG released the scoring criteria in October, relations between faculty and the administration publicly broke down.

That month, the campus AAUP chapter posted on its website and social media a list of programs its members believed could be cut. Elliott said the chapter used the scoring criteria data to make these predictions.

AAUP has removed the list from its website, but it is still visible on the chapter's Instagram account. Elliott acknowledged that given the constantly changing criteria, the list is not reliable.

Gilliam issued a public statement that month condemning "misinformation" about program cuts, specifically addressing students. He said he regretted that students had to be exposed to misleading information while "busy with their studies, campus activities, and jobs."

"You shouldn't have to worry about whether you can complete your chosen major because you have so many other things to deal with," Gilliam said.

In response, Elliott accused the administration of demonizing AAUP.

In another letter to colleagues on October 24, Gilliam took aim at the report commissioned by AAUP and written by Bunsis, the accounting professor.

Gilliam noted that Bunsis conducted a similar study of the University at Buffalo in 2020, which administrators there dismissed as inaccurate and contradictory. The New York public university called Bunsis a "paid consultant with a predetermined agenda."

At the time, University at Buffalo officials also said they reviewed 13 other analyses Bunsis had done for other institutions and found that each time he concluded administrative spending was bloated.

"The similarity of these financial analyses raises questions about their objectivity," the University at Buffalo said.

In his letter, Gilliam said Bunsis ignored the extent to which UNCG's operating model depends on enrollment.

"No responsible financial analysis would conclude that we can lose 2,500 students over four years — the equivalent of an entire freshman class — without considering significant adjustments," Gilliam said.

Nevertheless, Gilliam's statement did not address some of the specific findings in Bunsis's audit.

Bunsis found that last year UNCG spent $8.6 million on salaries and benefits for "instructional support," a major category of administrative spending. That is an increase of nearly 52% since 2017. Meanwhile, the university spent about $7.8 million on faculty salaries and benefits, up only about 6% since 2017.

According to his report, UNCG's athletics department has run a deficit of at least $10 million every year since 2012, with a budget shortfall of more than $13.7 million last year, even though UNCG is not a major player in college athletics.

Gilliam declined to discuss Bunsis's report in an interview.

"It's just not going to happen," he said.

Bunsis responded to the university's criticism in an email Tuesday, reiterating his findings.

"UNCG has too many administrators being paid too much," he added.

What happens next?

Faculty are now waiting for the grim news of which programs will be eliminated, expected to be announced in January. Some programs may be scaled back, while others will disappear entirely.

Gilliam plans to make final decisions on which programs to cut in February. UNCG's plan will also need system approval.

The university will begin phasing out affected programs early next year, including developing "teach-out" plans for students. Gilliam said students already enrolled in these programs will be able to complete their degrees.

Lisa Levenstein, a UNCG history professor, said the mood on campus is low. Faculty are fearful and believe administrators are trying to "divide and conquer" by comparing departments against each other.

Levenstein said faculty in the arts and humanities may be the most worried. She believes the university's analysis seems to disadvantage these types of programs.

Faculty worry that the UNC system is placing less value on the liberal arts. For example, state lawmakers this year blocked funding for distinguished professorships at public universities unless the appointee teaches in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) program.

Gilliam has expressed clear support for humanities programs. He said the university may choose to retain some programs that do not perform well financially but still have value.

"There may be some surprises," he said.

UNCG students have also noticed the turmoil on campus. Some students have protested the program cuts in person. Online, a petition initiated by AAUP opposing the consolidation had gathered nearly 4,000 signatures from students, faculty, staff, alumni, and others as of Friday afternoon.

"People are scared and confused," Levenstein said. "Not knowing how decisions that affect people's livelihoods will be made is very unsettling."