This is the definitive place to discuss everything that makes life on & off campus so unique in Central Virginia.

Moderators: jcmanson, Sly Fox, BuryYourDuke

#548608
I have an M.B.A. and would be more than happy to teach at Liberty University! The pay, benifits package, and atmosphere is well worth it to move my family back to Lynchburg! Some people complain because it's all about money and prestige.
#548617
I'll let public school teachers, police officers, E.M.T's, and firefighters know how you feel. I'm sure they would appreciate being rewarded for their hard work as well. Professor's at LU may not be making "bank" but they are not being under paid or under appreciated for the work they are doing. Like I said I would give anything to be teaching at Liberty.
Matthew 20: 1-16
#548621
All of those people should get paid way more than they do, you're completely right, but that isn't what is being discussed right now so isn't at all relevant.

I'm curious, have you tried to apply to teach at Liberty? This isn't a shot at you at all but I'm just curious.
#548627
Unfortunately I have not. The last ten years I have been taking care of my very ill parents. My dad died of cancer six years ago and I lost my mom about a month ago. I'm still young and I will pray to see where God may lead me. I've been blessed by making a living playing soccer, coaching the great game, being a financial/insurance advisor, and a teacher/administrator at a Titel I school. I'm not arguing they shouldn't get paid more. I'm just saying that they should feel blessed to make what they are making doing what they do. You can have incentives in their contracts for publication and research and I think that would solve your being paid for their efforts argument.
#548629
I think all of Jerry’s points are factual and solid business practice. Like Posty, I’d never question his business acumen because he’s way smarter than I’ll ever be in that realm.

That said, I’d love if we could follow the “if it’s Christian it ought to be better” mindset with our compensation for faculty and staff. We do that with our benefits package already. I’d love to see us lead the way — responsibly — in salary as well. I don’t think we should be reckless by any means, but I’d rather see us as the top end of market value than in the middle.

Here’s another way I look at it. Our endowment is reportedly $1.29 billion. If we grew by 19% this year, that’s $24.5 million growth. If we took half that growth ($12.2 million) we’d still grow our endowment by 9.5% while being able to add an average of nearly $4-5k/year to our faculty's salary.

Is that an over simplification in my part? I’m honestly asking (with no sarcasm or condescension or anything negative).
#548630
Jonathan Carone wrote:I think all of Jerry’s points are factual and solid business practice. Like Posty, I’d never question his business acumen because he’s way smarter than I’ll ever be in that realm.

That said, I’d love if we could follow the “if it’s Christian it ought to be better” mindset with our compensation for faculty and staff. We do that with our benefits package already. I’d love to see us lead the way — responsibly — in salary as well. I don’t think we should be reckless by any means, but I’d rather see us as the top end of market value than in the middle.

Here’s another way I look at it. Our endowment is reportedly $1.29 billion. If we grew by 19% this year, that’s $24.5 million growth. If we took half that growth ($12.2 million) we’d still grow our endowment by 9.5% while being able to add an average of nearly $4-5k/year to our faculty's salary.

Is that an over simplification in my part? I’m honestly asking (with no sarcasm or condescension or anything negative).
Check your math...
#548631
Oh dang. Yeah. Forgot a zero. iPhone will only go to 129,000,000 in the calculator unless you turn it. Didn’t realize that.

So that makes it even more reasonable to increase salaries with that line of thinking. Adding $5k to salaries is approximately taking away 1% of our growth.

Again, I’m good being told why I’m wrong in this.
#548632
The issue with using the education benefit as a major component of your total compensation is that first, eventually they'll earn a terminal degree. What then? Are they reaping the benefits of having that degree in their current position from a financial standpoint? (I honestly don't know what the policy on that is at Liberty)

What about the folks that are comfortable with their current level of education and simply want to be a professional in their field? Shouldn't that be rewarded financially through a competitive salary?

I don't work in the field of higher education, so I don't know how they compare, other that what I hear from friends in the community (that pay is low compared to other similar institutions, public and private). I can tell you that the jobs at Liberty that are similar to what I do, pay quite a bit less than my employer pays and I live in the Lynchburg market.
By rogers3
Registration Days Posts
#548635
JLFJR wrote:rogers3 and others need to take BUSI 101 again. Just because subsidized state schools and soon to be extinct small private schools pay more than market salaries doesn’t mean LU should. LU pays market rate salaries. If we didn’t, our faculty and staff would leave (ministry or not) but we don’t have a turnover problem. LU offers one of the best benefit packages around and the opportunity for faculty to benefit from overload teaching online. You would be surprised what the faculty earn at LU. It is true that some could make more money elsewhere but would have to endure an atmosphere that is intolerant and hostile toward their worldview. There are intangible benefits at LU in that regard. Liberty’s financial success is tied to its commitment to operate according to sound business principles based on the free market. Many of our competitors are free spenders who expect the taxpayers, their donors and students to cover their losses through more and more subsidies, gifts and excessive tuition. After all that, many also spend down their endowments every year by far more than they earn. Their practices are not sustainable. By contrast, LU’s endowment increased by 19% last year, more than all but two universities in the US (and the two that were ahead of us were due to special one-time gifts). LU’s endowment has grown by double digit % rates for years. LU’s goal is to operate under a sustainable business model that will allow it to carry out its Christian mission permanently and not irresponsibly over-spend hoping that others will bail us out. Been there, done that. So don’t compare LU to schools that operate that way. Our mission is not to make the local economy flourish, even though they are benefiting greatly from our success.
I'll ignore the BUSI 101 comment...after all, I did take that at Liberty! I appreciate the response, and as a graduate who loves the school, I feel strongly about its mission as well as the impact Liberty has on our local community. Now, having spent some time working in higher ed, I do question the rationale of your argument. Are you suggesting that building school facilities and our endowment on student debt is really a sustainable action?
I'd argue that a school that has a growing endowment that is drawn on at a maneagable level to partially fund the institution is no less sustainable. At most schools, donors are happy to contribute and give back to the institution, building both the endowment and facilities. Why does this not happen here?
There are plenty of other things I'd love to discuss (the "free spenders" charge for example), but they'll have to wait.
By JLFJR
Registration Days Posts
#548637
Giving to Liberty has remained strong every year, rogers3, usually between $10 and $20 million, sometimes much more.

Jon, you’re getting warmer but check your math one more time. I’m 55 and have worked at LU for 30 years, been president for almost 11 years. My goal is to leave Liberty with enough endowment to permanently sustain the resident program assuming annual earnings of only 3-4% on the endowment and an enrollment of about 16000. We should very soon hit that mark but, until we do, it is good practice to assume the worst case scenario while praying for the best. Worst case is the online world becomes very competitive and LU only breaks even there. Best case is the current prosperity continues for a long time. With an enrollment of 16000, we will reach our financial goals for the university in the next few years. Once that happens, any surplus can go toward rewarding the best and brightest faculty and staff even more than we are now, among other things. Public universities pay their administration far less than private universities as a rule because taxpayers are funding most capital projects and subsidizing those schools far more per student than private university students receive in tuition assistance grants. In other words, private college leadership have a much greater responsibility to pay their own bills.
By JLFJR
Registration Days Posts
#548638
My good friend, Nido Quebin, at High Point U has done an incredible job of building a campus without public funds that matches or exceeds the best of the publics. The public university, Christopher Newport, on the other hand, has a president who brags about how much money he gets from “Richmond” to build his state of the art campus while criticizing Liberty. One of our board members had their son visit CNU recently and the president actually made fun of LU to that board member. This is the message I received from our board member: “We just toured Christopher Newport and I met [their president]. Pardon my language but what an arrogant *****. He insulted Liberty and I wanted to deck him.
By JLFJR
Registration Days Posts
#548639
AFTER I told him I'm on your board he said that CNU "is the real world" and that Liberty is a fake "cloistered" pseudo world that doesn't prepare kids for the real world. That's not a direct quote but close enough. I said the average college campus with all its partying and craziness is not the real world either. Professionals don't get blind drunk at parties.
By JLFJR
Registration Days Posts
#548640
even my spouse who likes everyone thought he went out of his way to be insulting. I said to my son, he's jealous. He was bragging about going to Richmond for money to build the new library and I said to my son "he's doing it on Gov money and LU is doing it alone".”

Needless to say, CNU lost a prospective student. Our students do use federal student loans to pay their tuition but their default rate after graduation is below the national and Virginia averages and students who are below a certain income level receive PELL but that is true at all colleges in the US. Public schools like CNU receive far more from the state of Virginia per student in subsidies and, on top of that, the state pays for their new buildings.

Some of you should visit Lynchburg if you can. I am not only thrilled with Liberty’s growth but am really shocked with how downtown Lynchburg is thriving. Loft apartments and new restaurants are everywhere and LU students get a big part of the credit for that success. That thriving historic district is so popular with students, it actually helps us recruit. I told City Council members and the Mayor recently at a Town and Gown Meeting that we fought each other for years because the City didn’t want LU to expand and LU didn’t want the City to waste taxpayer money on what seemed to be a hopeless downtown - and we both turned out to be wrong!

God has truly blessed this university and this little city!
By JLFJR
Registration Days Posts
#548641
And rogers3, there’s nothing unsustainable about a university spending their endowment as long as they’re earning more than they’re spending. Too many universities are spending more than they’re earning
By JLFJR
Registration Days Posts
#548642
One final point: Obama nationalized student loans in this country in 2010 because that loan program generates a huge profit to the government. His plan was to use that profit to pay for Obamacare. Bottom line: student loans are not a government subsidy. They are a profit center for the Feds!
#548644
I lived on campus as a student and then as an employee for 10 years from the mid eighties to the mid nineties during some of the school’s most difficult financial times. For a period of time I serve as the HR benefits coordinator. I would routinely survey like size/minded universities to insure our staff were paid on par. I was really impressed the admin at that time was committed to this knowing how precarious the university’s financial situation was at the time. That being said, I fully appreciate JLFJR’s direction to keep us out of that predicament again.
#548645
Baldspot1 wrote:I lived on campus as a student and then as an employee for 10 years from the mid eighties to the mid nineties during some of the school’s most difficult financial times. For a period of time I serve as the HR benefits coordinator. I would routinely survey like size/minded universities to insure our staff were paid on par. I was really impressed the admin at that time was committed to this knowing how precarious the university’s financial situation was at the time. That being said, I fully appreciate JLFJR’s direction to keep us out of that predicament again.
I’d be interested to see who LU compared themselves to back then. I’d be interested to see who they compare themselves too now. Very few, if any, ‘like minded’ Institutions. Not trying to start a fuss, just genuinely curious
#548649
JLFJR wrote:My goal is to leave Liberty with enough endowment to permanently sustain the resident program assuming annual earnings of only 3-4% on the endowment and an enrollment of about 16000. We should very soon hit that mark but, until we do, it is good practice to assume the worst case scenario while praying for the best. ... With an enrollment of 16000, we will reach our financial goals for the university in the next few years. Once that happens, any surplus can go toward rewarding the best and brightest faculty and staff even more than we are now, among other things.
If this is the reason we are paying what we do, I can buy it an even support it as long as we do actually begin investing in our faculty and staff once we hit that 16,000 student mark. It’s one of those things where I have to trust we are going to do what we say we are going to do — which is hard at times — but I’ll give the school the benefit of the doubt for now.
#548655
It was probably a lot easier for us back then because LU was much smaller - along the lines of other private religiously based schools like Taylor, Messiah College, Wheaton etc. I left in ‘93 and have no idea who they would use today.

The point being I’m sure rogers3 sees one way to handle the subject over at Sweet Briar and I’m sure we all appreciate his concern for employees at another institution. I’m sure LU has areas to improve but I was glad to see LU’s concern for employee salaries at the same time we were having problems paying creditors. LU’s current plan to be financially secure over the long haul without relying on individual donors seems to be prudent.
#548660
I echo the prudent business approach. I don't see that it has kept us from attacting enough staff.
Here at UA even with top football, 60% out of state student population and $1B campus facility improvements attandance will be down next year. Right now we are down 12% for incoming freshman class. Demographics are changing and a lot of smaller schools are going to be in financial trouble going forward because they are using an unsustainable model. LU ahould be the model going forward, not the exception.
#548661
tyndal23 wrote:Tower cams show dirt being pushed around where next dorm / dining hall slated to go just South of the lake - but haven't seen any announcements?
They are building a parking lot there for now around what appears would be the site for the dining hall later.
#548666
Based on the comment of renovating the dorms on the Hill, will that also include renovation of the dorms located in south campus? That would be nice and the location should get a new or improved name to remind people of the past. I'm not sure what it would be called but I'm sure something will come up.
By JLFJR
Registration Days Posts
#548686
South dorm renovations will come later. The Senior dorms/quads have already been or are in the process of undergoing interior renovations. We are obtaining approvals for a parking lot on the future site for the dining hall and Commons dorm 4 but will probably only create green space for students there for now.
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