A Sea Of Red

I have noticed a few people 'jumping ship' recently, and saw that LUO had a new (albeit former) VP. Then I saw this today....

http://wsls.com/2017/03/29/liberty-univ ... f-layoffs/

East Carolina U has been blitzing the local TV networks down here, with their online opportunities.

97,000 online is "down a few thousand". How many did we have last year? Doesn't sound like a huge drop off. This sounds like a prudent tightening of the belt after a few years of rapid growth. Getting more efficient is not a negative and 97,000 students is not a reason to panic is it?

ALAFlamesFan wrote:97,000 online is "down a few thousand". How many did we have last year? Doesn't sound like a huge drop off. This sounds like a prudent tightening of the belt after a few years of rapid growth. Getting more efficient is not a negative and 97,000 students is not a reason to panic is it?

Most moves that are made at LU these days can be interpreted as strategic moves, but it is easy to not be to confident in leadership when they also make quite a few odd changes. Think Emily Heady, Charles Spence ( whose replacement has already quit); there is a problem when good people leave and folks like Randy Smith .

rogers3 wrote:

ALAFlamesFan wrote:97,000 online is "down a few thousand". How many did we have last year? Doesn't sound like a huge drop off. This sounds like a prudent tightening of the belt after a few years of rapid growth. Getting more efficient is not a negative and 97,000 students is not a reason to panic is it?

Most moves that are made at LU these days can be interpreted as strategic moves, but it is easy to not be to confident in leadership when they also make quite a few odd changes. Think Emily Heady, Charles Spence ( whose replacement has already quit); there is a problem when good people leave and folks like Randy Smith .

The numbers in the article aren't quite accurate. If anything, those numbers reflect both online and residential enrollment.

For what it's worth, though, these layoffs are more tame than what would've happened months down the road without necessary changes. I don't often support some (a lot) of the leadership changes, but these were more justified than what's being portrayed.

When this article was first published, it was followed by a comment that was removed quickly- probably because the writer acknowledged use of an alias. The commentor wrote as if they knew many people within the organization, including names that weren't referenced in the article. The gist of their post was that the program had lost money and people had to be canned to make budget- a reactive move rather than proactive strategy. They also talked about declines in numbers since the development of our new position as a political lightning rod (actually, somewhat nostalgic), as well as major failures in regards to things like textbooks and customer service turnaround times. Anyone know what the rest of the story is?

rogers3 wrote:When this article was first published, it was followed by a comment that was removed quickly- probably because the writer acknowledged use of an alias. The commentor wrote as if they knew many people within the organization, including names that weren't referenced in the article. The gist of their post was that the program had lost money and people had to be canned to make budget- a reactive move rather than proactive strategy. They also talked about declines in numbers since the development of our new position as a political lightning rod (actually, somewhat nostalgic), as well as major failures in regards to things like textbooks and customer service turnaround times. Anyone know what the rest of the story is?

Well, online education has already increased drastically even since LUO hit the 100,000 mark. LUO admin kept a status quo mentality before and after they hit the peak, so the shift seemed inevitable when you consider static payroll coupled with a decline in revenue. The area being hit the hardest with cuts is the area that's seen the declining numbers.

I'm sure a fraction of those students leaving have objections to LU's political game, but that should be of no surprise to anyone who's ever been affiliated with LU, am I right?

Long story short, there might have been some other minor issues at play, but overall it's hard to argue with simple economics. For what it's worth, I was a skeptic of the layoffs until the other side of the story was explained.