This Week In Library School

I promised that I will post the details of the conversation with Dean Cloonan regarding the current economic environment and how GSLIS and its students are affected in the short term.

Regarding GSLIS

GSLIS is in a good condition to weather the storm; it seems that interest in Library School is still going strong. This past semester has seen the highest number of students at GSLIS (although this hasn’t translated into the highest number of credit hours), it is still a significant milestone. There are no plans to increase enrollment – as the acceptance rate is already high (check here for some interesting numbers and comparisons with other LIS schools). The recent cuts announced by the College will not affect the students directly – outside of the occasional request from your professor to print your own materials for class.

Dean Cloonan believes that the accreditation process will not bring any surprises. GSLIS still has some areas of improvement (most notably, in her opinion, is improving the advising process for the incoming students), but there are plans in place to address these shortcomings (implementing new formats for the Advising Day, the opening of the Student Services office, etc.).

Regarding the students

Without trying to sound too gloomy-and-doomy, you may have noticed that the economy is not doing too spectacularly (an euphemism, if I ever used one). It seems like the things will get worse before they will get better; most of the universities around Boston have announced hiring freezes or budget cuts and it seems like some of these are preemptive measures, in anticipation of even harder times.
The key word for the students seems to be “flexibility” – which means choosing a second area of concentration (in order to expand the types the jobs that one could apply for), willingness to invest in finding an internship/ volunteering/ part-time library job way before graduating from the program, willingness to relocate, networking- networking- networking, etc.

As you may have seen from the emails from the College President, Helen Drinan, Simmons is have some financial troubles. At the last faculty meeting, President Drinan answered the faculty members’ questions about the financial situation of Simmons and some of measures taken to cut the costs and increase revenues. Among the cost-cutting measures: implementing a hiring freeze, reorganizing some departments, and asking the Schools to cut their expenditures.

What about GSLIS?

The advantage that GSLIS has is that it has to go through an accreditation process before 2010, so the cuts will be minimal. As the budget of the school is spent to the tune of 93% on salaries (and there are no plans to lay off anybody), the most of the cuts will be made in the remaining 7% (apparently the biggest expenditure on the Boston campus is the photocopying budget), to he tune of approximately 50,000.
The main point of concern for GSLIS – as far as the accreditation process is concerned – is the percentage of classes being taught by adjunct faculty. GSLIS had a plan of hiring 4 new faculty members, but the budget for these positions has also been cut – although not completely.

The following are the notes from the faculty meeting on November 4:

Address to GSLIS Faculty & Staff by President Helen Drinan

* The President went over the primary area of the Board’s current focus, she then answered questions from the faculty and staff. Highlights were:

* The Board is working to address the financial challenges Simmons College is facing given the state of the macro-economy. There is a credit crunch and short-term cash shortages all across higher education in the country.

* The President is waiting to make her recommendation about raises for faculty until the February Board meeting.

* There is currently a hiring freeze at the College (i.e. the standard is to not hire, the exception is to fill positions.)

* The College has already made reductions (in things, not people) and will continue to reductions wherever possible and evaluate effectiveness.

* GSLIS has an accreditation visit coming up (Fall 2010) and the question was raised that more full-time faculty may be needed before that time.

* Simmons will continue to invest in GSLIS due in part to the school’s national ranking and captive market, and will try to continue to grow programs like CE, non-residency on-line programs, and blended learning.

Budget

* There are College-wide budged cuts being asked of all the schools, including GSLIS. Some line-items have already been trimmed, at this point photocopying is the largest line item of the non-salary budget (at over $20,000 a year) and that is the current item GSLIS is going to cut down on in order to meet the demands of the College-wide cuts.

New Business

* Adrian on behalf of LISSA asked professors to distribute evaluations the second to last class of the semester, just in case the final class of the semester is canceled due to weather. Dean Cloonan is going to check if that is already in the implementation guidelines and email a reminder to faculty.

* The title of LIS 492 is now Management Theory for Leading and Working Effectively in Organizations.

* The proposed and revised mission statement was passed.