Erik Christiansen didn’t know much about Rhode Island College when he agreed to take a job teaching history there in 2010.
The Maryland native quickly fell in love with the bustling suburban campus, filled with eager students and enthusiastic faculty members, many of whom, like him, turned down offers from elite, private colleges because they wanted to help RIC’s large group of hardworking, first-generation college students who didn’t come from well-heeled families.
“I really felt like I found my home,” Christiansen said.
But things have changed.
Over the last 10 years, enrollment has dwindled from 8,700 to 5,787 – a precipitous drop of about 33% that has sapped some of the energy from the campus. And with fewer students paying tuition, the school’s financial problems have been growing, with the annual operating loss projected to reach $10.6 million by fiscal 2025.
Then there’s the lack of stable leadership. RIC is on its fourth president since 2008, a temporary appointee who has upset some faculty members by seeking changes at the school without getting their input. And the search for a permanent leader is only just starting now, a full year after the previous president announced that he’d be stepping down.
As a result, Christiansen and others at RIC are struggling to maintain their school spirit these days.
“There’s a lot of insecurity there,” said Christiansen, who is also RIC’s faculty union president. “I get the feeling I am not as welcome there now.”
What’s the problem? Some blame Rhode Island Promise, a free tuition program started in 2017 that seems to have lured more students in search of an affordable education – RIC’s target market – to the Community College of Rhode Island. Others say the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which decimated college enrollment nationwide, are lingering longer at RIC.
Still, state education officials see great value in RIC, with its acclaimed teaching and nursing program and its place somewhere between CCRI and the University of Rhode Island – offering more than two-year associate degrees but at a more affordable cost than the state’s research university.
That’s left officials devising ways to rescue RIC from its downward spiral.
“From a business perspective, the market is there,” said R.I. Postsecondary Commissioner Shannon Gilkey. “We have to reimagine RIC underneath its strengths.”
BEST VALUE?
Reinvention is the undercurrent that has kept Rhode Island’s first state-funded higher education institution alive.
Opening in 1854 as a teacher preparation program called the Rhode Island Normal School, it became a general higher education institution in 1959 when it moved to the suburban, 180-acre campus tucked along the Providence-North Providence border.
Now the college boasts approximately 120 liberal arts and sciences degree programs, drawing nearly 6,000 students, mostly from inside Rhode Island. With its annual in-state tuition at $11,000, national rankings routinely recognize RIC as a “best value” college in the region.
But how to convince prospective students that a bargain price does not mean an inferior education, and sell employers on RIC as an academic and workforce powerhouse? That’s what Jack Warner, RIC’s interim president, is trying to figure out.
Warner, whose contract was recently extended to June 2024, has decades of experience in higher education, including serving as the state commissioner of higher education from 2002 to 2009.
He says demographic changes and the pandemic are partly to blame for RIC’s struggles. Falling birth rates depleted the pool of potential college students, and higher education doesn’t hold the same weight it used to, especially during the pandemic, he says.
But those factors can’t be responsible for all the enrollment woes. Other colleges in Rhode Island began seeing admissions surge again in the fall of 2022. Not RIC.
Undergraduate enrollment fell 10.2% compared with a year ago – down to 4,719 students at the start of the 2022-23 school year. Over the last decade, RIC has lost 37.1% of its undergraduates, from a 7,505 peak in the 2013-14 school year. Graduate enrollment has been flat, at about 1,100 students.
The $61.4 million collected in tuition and fees in fiscal 2022 marks a $9 million decline from fiscal 2019. Meanwhile, state aid to the college has increased nearly $11 million in that time to $60 million annually as of fiscal 2022, according to the college. But that’s not enough to cover other rising costs, including salaries, student support and capital projects.
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CHIEF CHEERLEADER: Rhode Island College interim President Jack Warner is looking to turn around the school’s falling enrollment numbers, but not everybody is happy with what he has in mind.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
TRANSFER TROUBLES
A steady decline in enrollment accelerated to a freefall in 2017, when Rhode Island Promise began. An initiative of former Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, the free state college tuition program was originally pitched for all three state colleges. After lawmakers raised cost concerns, a scaled-back version included only CCRI.
Full-time freshmen enrollment at RIC fell 19% between the fall of 2017 and 2018. Meanwhile, applications from students transferring to RIC fell by 17.3%.
“The promise inside of the Promise [program] was that four-year institutions would begin to experience a bump in transfer students from CCRI,” Warner said. “We never did.”
Now Warner and Gilkey are lobbying for lawmakers to support coming legislation to create a scholarship that would cover tuition for two of the four years for full-time RIC students who enroll directly out of high school. A similar bill died in committee last year.
Warner is also working to ease RIC’s transfer policies, which are so rigid that students often can’t get their credits from other schools, including CCRI, to count toward RIC’s general education or degree program.
“If they are seeing an unfavorable picture here, where it’s going to take them too long to graduate, then they are going to go elsewhere, and they are even willing to pay a higher price,” Warner said.
It’s a problem faced by Mel “Rising Dawn” Cordeiro, who is pursuing a nursing degree while working full time as a certified nursing assistant.
Cordeiro, 31, a Native American, studied for three semesters at CCRI and found transferring to Rhode Island College a “slight nightmare” because of paperwork errors. But the issues didn’t end when she arrived at RIC.
The nursing program advisers pick classes for her, which means she has no say in what fits with her work schedule. She hasn’t been able to develop relationships with most of her advisers or professors, constantly shuffling between class and work on the dementia unit at Wingate Residences on the East Side of Providence.
“There are days where I am like, ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ ” Cordeiro said.
Though RIC’s price tag was a draw, she’s racking up debt – over $40,000 and growing – that includes her first bachelor’s degree at Bridgewater State University and the CCRI courses.
“At this point, it’s like a mortgage and I am just working my [butt] off to pay it off,” she said.
While most of RIC’s degree programs have seen enrollment decline, the nursing school has been a bright spot, with student numbers growing slightly in the last few years, according to Carolynn Masters, the dean of RIC’s Zvart Onanian School of Nursing. The number could be even higher; RIC has to turn away about 20 of the 100 students who apply every semester because there aren’t enough teachers or clinical placements.
Masters is thinking about how to add seats to RIC’s nursing program, but such a process could take years and would require approvals from state and accreditation groups.
Meanwhile, Warner is focused on one of RIC’s other signature programs: education. The Feinstein School of Education and Human Development has seen the steepest enrollment losses, down more than 37% over the last decade.
Fewer people want to be teachers, especially since the pandemic, Warner says.
But there are other factors, too, including state requirements for standardized test scores that force RIC to turn away applicants – especially students of color – for the teacher preparation program. R.I. Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green approved a pilot program in December that waives the requirements for prospective RIC education students.
Warner now expects to double the number of students RIC can accept into its teaching program to 300.
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DOWNWARD SLOPE
Rhode Island College’s undergraduate enrollment has sunk over the last 10 years from 7,505 to 4,046, which has also pulled down the college’s total enrollment – both part-time and full-time students – from 8,700 to 5,787. School officials say COVID-19 and the state’s tuition-free program at the Community College of Rhode Island have played a role in the decline.
SOURCE: RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE[/caption]
CHANGE OF STRATEGY
Degree programs that fill workforce needs – such as teaching, nursing and cybersecurity – have gotten most of the attention since Warner took over, something that has distressed faculty members in other programs.
In the fall, Warner suggested he had already cut or was going to terminate two dozen of the college’s 120 majors based on low enrollment. Most were in arts and social sciences.
Faculty members revolted, partly because Warner had not followed the process for eliminating majors, including a review and approval by department heads and a panel of faculty members. Warner later agreed to follow procedures, but his actions left lingering tensions.
“Jack was brought in to make cuts, but I don’t think that’s the way to turn this place around,” said Maureen Reddy, an English professor and coordinator of RIC’s First Year Seminar program. “You don’t build a business by shutting down parts of the operations. You figure out [how] you can grow what you do well.”
In 35 years at RIC, Reddy has seen ups and downs. Lately, it seems like all downs, especially in leadership, she says.
It started in 2008, when former President John Nazarian, a RIC alumnus and longtime professor, retired after 18 years. His successor, Nancy Carriuolo, resigned eight years later amid disagreements with the Council on Postsecondary Education and a petition by faculty calling for her ouster. Then there was Frank D. Sánchez, who stepped down after six years, saying he had “other opportunities.” Carriuolo and Sánchez could not be reached for comment.
It’s been more than six months since Sánchez departed. Gilkey blamed turnover in the postsecondary council for the delay in getting a search committee for a new president up and running.
Meanwhile, the changes at the top have stoked resentment among faculty members, who feel they’re being ignored. “Faculty are constantly being faced with a new initiative, but no one ever asked us if this was actually the problem,” Reddy said.
She has decided to retire this spring, earlier than she expected, because she’s so disheartened with what has happened at the college. “I don’t want to end my career bitter or angry,” she said, choking back tears. “I still feel good about what I do, but I see that waning.”
BUILDING BACK
Tough choices are unpopular but necessary in Gilkey’s view.
“RIC can’t be everything to everyone,” he said. “We have to make some financial pivots to make sure we have a Rhode Island College in the next 10 years, and it is thriving.”
In fiscal 2021, RIC reported a $10 million budget deficit, forcing layoffs and pay cuts. The college ran a $13.7 million deficit over the previous three fiscal years, as well.
Federal relief aid provided a temporary cushion, but the college budget office projects its deficit will swell beyond $10.6 million by fiscal 2025 if nothing is done.
Warner insists he won’t let that happen. That means cutting costs by eliminating underused majors or classes and not replacing retiring faculty members. It also means boosting revenue by adding more students and keeping them. Student retention has dipped along with enrollment.
Warner thinks it goes back to money; even with federal aid that most RIC students qualify for, extra expenses at home or on campus force them to work more hours and ultimately abandon school before they’re done.
RIC recently increased student wages for nearly 500 on-campus jobs, which Warner hopes will keep students on campus and make it easier for them to balance work and school.
Students don’t care much about budget projections or enrollment figures when deciding where to go to college, says state Rep. Karen Alzate, D-Pawtucket, a 2013 RIC graduate. Alzate thinks students want a low price and a vibrant campus with state-of-the-art facilities.
The transformation of the campus is still underway, but it’s a vast improvement compared with when Alzate studied political science there a decade ago. Though the campus was more active then, she remembers depressing buildings with peeling classroom floors and few community spaces.
Vestiges of RIC’s outdated infrastructure linger, such as a pair of 1960s dormitories, but are overshadowed by eye-catching renovations. A $50 million bond approved in 2012 covered the new School of Nursing wing within the Fogarty Life Science Building, as well as 2018 renovations to two academic buildings, Craig Lee and Gaige halls. A $25 million upgrade to Horace Mann Hall, which houses the education program, is scheduled to be completed soon. Up next: A $38 million renovation of the Clark Science building, approved as part of a 2021 bond, and a new student services center covered with $35 million in federal stimulus funds.
Gov. Daniel J. McKee also plans to include funding in his fiscal 2024 budget for on-campus housing for RIC graduates who work in the state as teachers or nurses. Details haven’t been finalized, such as cost and how many people could live there.
Alzate wishes the attention came sooner.
“We shouldn’t be waiting until things are deplorable,” she said. “RIC is one of those schools that doesn’t ask for money and maybe they should.”
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UNWELCOME FEELING: Erik Christiansen, Rhode Island College history professor and faculty union president, says the college has undergone changes in the last decade, not all for the better.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
SLEEPING GIANT?
Christiansen also says RIC has gotten slighted when it comes to state funding. While the percentage of the college’s revenue coming from state aid has increased in the last decade, it has not kept pace with inflation, he says.
And Warner acknowledges RIC has not done a good job advertising itself – to lawmakers, to students, to anyone.
“We are a sleeping giant who needs to get the word out about what we do,” Warner said.
To that end, he’s increased the college’s marketing budget, starting a $50,000 ad campaign in the summer that helped to double the number of students in the college’s online adult degree program.
“That was our little experiment,” Warner said. “And it worked.”
RIC is also broadening recruitment of adult students and people outside of Rhode Island. “Our traditional demographics are shrinking, but there are other markets out there,” he said.
That includes the state’s growing Hispanic population. RIC is the only school in New England recognized as a federal Hispanic-Serving Institution, which makes the college eligible for more federal funding.
That 25% of the college’s students identify as Hispanic or Latino is a contrast to when Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos attended in the late 1990s. A native of the Dominican Republic who immigrated to the U.S., Matos felt shy and out of place amid the mostly white student body. She found comfort with the students and faculty who ran the Language Lab for nonnative English speakers.
“It wasn’t just academic support, it was also emotional support,” Matos said.
Matos saw the Hispanic-Serving Institution designation – announced in May 2022 – as an accomplishment for RIC, but one that perhaps hasn’t gotten much attention.
Reddy agreed.
“You would think that would be such a selling point,” Reddy said. “It should be a big recruitment for Spanish-speaking students.”
Preliminary application and acceptance numbers for RIC’s fall 2023 freshman class are higher than the prior year, but it’s still too early to tell how that will shape final enrollment. No one has a clear answer for how long it should take to see if the new policies and programs initiated under Warner are working.
And the bigger question: Can RIC be saved at all? Or should it be folded into another state institution?
Warner and Christiansen don’t always see eye to eye, but they both are adamantly against that.
“That would be a huge mistake,” Christiansen said. “What we do at RIC, the population we serve, is fundamentally different from the other two [state schools].”
Rhode Island ranks on per capita spending on higher education at around #46. More damning is the State has ranked at that level for decades. Add to it that capital investment in higher education is subjected to the whims of the general electorate via bond issues, a practice unheard in most states, especially the more progressive ones. I have to assume State officials are proud of this low ranking since it is so long-standing.
The situation at RIC is the outcome of a State lacking in thinking big or comprehensively on public higher education; a state stuck in the weeds and transactional minutae. Sadly this is not likely to change.