March 11, 2025: Reduction of Sections of RWPD-170 (Hamrick)
Requesting journalist: Chloe Williams
Respondent name and position: Jeff Hamrick, Vice President for Finance & Administration
1) In the context of almost a hundred million dollars, what is the significance of saving $182,000 on the writing proficiency program, which will affect long-time faculty at Whitman? Why was this one of the budget cuts that the college moved forward with?
Members of our community are currently working to identify and to finalize more than $1.8 million in budget reductions which, when incorporated into a draft operating budget for fiscal year 2026, will allow it to have planned operating revenues equal to planned operating expenses. Each budget reduction that has been proposed is small relative to the $1.8 million goal and small relative to the college’s roughly $100 million operating budget. An individual cut that is small in magnitude can still be part of a larger portfolio of cuts that leads to a balanced operating budget. Both the First and Second Working Groups have identified cuts that are small — sometimes as small as $2000 — and some that are larger, i.e., five figures or more.
The President’s Cabinet acknowledges that while the budget-balancing process was designed to not disproportionately impact any single vice presidential division, reducing budgets is a difficult process that is experienced in different ways across the campus community. This work does affect employees in very real ways, but it is also central to our shared duties of stewardship and fiduciary responsibility.
2) Is this college still hiring tenure track positions?
Yes, absolutely. There are twelve new tenure-track faculty members on campus this year; they started in August 2024. While I am not privy to the details, my understanding is that the college will move forward on several searches for tenure-track faculty members during academic year 2025-2026, with these new faculty members joining us in academic year 2026-2027.
3) Are there any plans to make more cuts that will financially impact non-tenure track faculty, whether directly or indirectly, as budget balancing continues?
Most resources at the college are used by the academic program, as well as the offices managed by the Provost and the Dean of the Faculty that support that academic program. The First Working Group is expected to be tasked with identifying another round of budget reductions — focused on the instructional compensation budget, academic department budgets, and staff positions embedded in the three academic divisions — during fiscal year 2026 and in support of a balanced fiscal year 2027 operating budget.
4) President Bolton mentioned in an email a few weeks ago: “we expect our resources will decrease (from $97.3 million this year to 96.3 million next year).” Why is this? Is it because of the generational cliff?
Budgeted net tuition and budgeted endowment payout will decline year over year. As a result, the college’s budgeted net operating revenues will decline as mentioned by President Bolton in her recent email. The decline in budgeted net tuition can be explained by the anticipated graduation of a very large group of seniors in May 2025, and its expected replacement by a relatively “normal-sized” cohort of new first-year first-time students in fall 2025. The decline in budgeted endowment payout can be explained by a year of superlative endowment returns rolling off of the three-year calculation window used to determine the endowment’s contribution to the operating fund for fiscal year 2026.
Overshadowing all these remarks is, however, the demographic cliff to which you make reference. As there are fewer students graduating from high-school, many colleges are not recruiting as many students as their campuses are built for. This situation makes the environment for enrolling new students hypercompetitive, which means that colleges like ours are putting more and more of their budget dollars into financial aid to present a more compelling value proposition to prospective students — including students with financial resources as well as students with significant financial need. This trend does mean that fewer budget dollars are available for programs, staffing, etc.