Dear alumnae and alumni of Wells,
As the WCAA president and a member of the Board, I want to help answer some questions that have arisen around the financial wellbeing of the College, and the efforts of Wells’ trustees, administration, faculty and staff to meet our current challenges. Wells is facing financial challenges, but I do feel there is a coherent plan to get to financial stability and position Wells to continue to provide a high quality education to even more students. Still, it is a very trying time, and Wells’ success depends on how well the current plan is executed. A variety of events have occurred to bring us to this place, many of them positive. Here’s the story as I know it:
Wells has faced operational deficits for years. Our financial model was endowment driven—that is, we used the endowment to make up our budget deficits each year. Few schools rely as heavily on endowment as Wells used to do.
In order for Wells to be viable, the Board directed Wells to change from an endowment-driven model to a tuition-driven one—in other words, to meet our operating costs through tuition and fees. Since the market meltdown of 2008, there is even more urgency to becoming a tuition-driven school. Like many colleges, we no longer have the option of covering our budget shortfalls with endowment revenue.
The College is taking a two-fold approach to fixing its financial woes:
First, we’re facing the hard fact that Wells is carrying a structural deficit of $3 million and must right-size, even though the process is painful. As part of the three year sources and uses plan that outlines a sustainable financial business model, the board has directed President Ryerson to cut $1.5 million in deficit spending this year. Because personnel costs are the largest area of the budget, administrators, staff and faculty are all facing cuts. This is really hard to do, since Wells is so small. The restructuring is painful and affects people and their families, and no one wants to do it. Still, we have to get costs under control, to not only survive, but to position Wells for success now and in the future.
Second, we’ve determined that we need 150+ more students in order to be tuition-driven and healthy. We aren’t the only ones who’ve come to this conclusion. Our Middle States reaccreditation review occurred last year, and while Wells earned a laudatory report and was re-accredited, one of the main comments the reviewers made—and that we already knew—was that Wells had too few students to support the range of programs and overhead we had.
To get to financial viability, then, we realized we had to make Wells’ program attractive enough to appeal to 150+ additional students. The Board asked President Ryerson to figure out how to attract those students. She, in turn, engaged the campus community in an academic strategic planning process to determine how to enhance our program. Several key recommendations have come out of the planning process, all of which the board recently approved. First among these initiatives is a business program based on entrepreneurship (a large percentage of college bound high school students have an interest in studying business), also a foundation year for foreign students, a degree completion program, and a culinary arts immersion program through the Aurora Inn. The strategic plan also addresses new strategies in recruitment, retention, and financial aid packaging necessary to attract and keep students. We believe these programs and strategies will position better Wells in the market.
There are still plenty of challenges. We have to build successful programs to attract 150+ more students. It’s not a sure thing—it all depends on good execution. There are other challenges as well, including significant investments required to update technology at Wells and attend to deferred maintenance in the aging steam plant. Still, I feel that we have a solid strategic and financial plan, and that taken together, the College can regain its footing for a brighter future. I hope you’ll support Wells in this hard work – read the strategic plan, and stay in touch with what’s happening on campus and in higher education. I welcome your feedback as we move ahead.
Sincerely,
Carrie Bolton ’92
Wells College Alumnae Association President
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