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Beloit College adjusts to tough times

BELOIT -- The college president is an economist. He knows numbers and history, theories and reality. As he prepares for his Sept. 25 inauguration as Beloit College’s 11th president, Scott Bierman surveys the landscape of higher education with cold-eyed realism.

Hard times have hit America’s college campuses, endowments taking a hit during the stock market collapse, budgets tightening even as financially strapped parents seek increased financial aid for their children.

And yet, what Bierman calls “the arms race” among colleges continues. The arms race is what happens when schools compete for many of the same students, who may base their enrollment decisions on such things as rankings in magazines, swanky activity centers and state-of-the-art fitness facilities that can even include a rock climbing wall.

“I’m proud to say that Beloit College does not have a climbing wall,” Bierman says, a smile breaking across his face.

Bierman will need to maintain his sense of humor as he helps Beloit College maintain its course. The school has survived the economic storm, with students returning to campus for fall classes.

It was here where higher education met the great recession.

In the fall of 2008, enrollment was unexpectedly down by 36 students at the small liberal arts school.

The school faced a $1 million operating deficit. Quick action was needed.

It was left to the interim president, a businessman and alumnus named Dick Niemiec, to forge a recovery plan with other key administrators. Niemiec held a town hall meeting on campus and delivered the bad news: There would be job cuts.

“My jaw just dropped when he said they would have to make cuts,” says Alex Catalan, a senior and president of the Beloit Student Congress.

A lot of jaws dropped nationwide, too, as Beloit College cut 40 jobs, around 10% of the workforce.

Two adjunct professors lost their jobs, as well as clerical staff, food service and maintenance workers.

The story made national headlines.

“We were so transparent,” says Nancy Benedict, Beloit’s vice president for enrollment. “We were presenting a case study to higher education.”

Beloit may have been ahead of the curve in facing up to the recession. Numerous schools across the country eventually capitulated to the inevitability of job and budget cuts, as endowments plunged and the recession retained its grip on the country.

The next chapter in the school’s history will be shaped by Bierman, 53, an able and animated administrator.

A former dean at Carleton College, Bierman says his challenge is to make sure the school focuses on its essence: providing students a second-to-none liberal arts education.

“In tough times it’s really important that you remind the key constituencies of the glory of what happens at a school like Beloit,” he says.

The recession will end, of course. But its impact on higher education will be felt for years, he says, as families cope with declines in their financial assets, including their homes.