Students, faculty and staff at the University of Michigan-Flint met in a hybrid format Wednesday evening for a town hall meeting to discuss U-M Flint’s Strategic Transformation Plan, which focuses on U-M Flint’s future.
The meeting was opened by Kimberly Saks, assistant professor of Political Science at U-M Flint, who gave a presentation on the current state of the Strategic Transformation Plan and summarized student and faculty reactions to the plan.
In the wake of seven years of declining enrollment at U-M Flint, the University is planning to implement a Transformation Plan that they hope will address the immediate and future needs of students, employees and community members involved with the University and in the Flint area. According to the plan, it will also aim to improve the sustainability of campus finances at U-M Flint.
As part of her presentation, Saks described a set of values and priorities that she has seen repeated in conversations with students and faculty which she would like to see represented in the transformation. Her priorities included increasing retention rates, strengthening connections between the University and community colleges in the Flint-area and increasing institutional support for internships and other off-campus learning opportunities.
“Students deserve better support, more intense connection to their institution and the kinds of experiences that create true lifelong learning,” Saks said.
Saks said focus group discussions, surveys and other engagement practices have not clearly relayed results about the transforming process to the community. These engagement efforts have informed the development of the Transformation Plan in coordination with data analysis from the Huron Consulting Group which takes into account demonstrated student demand, employment opportunities and the competitive landscape pertaining to particular disciplines and programs.
“Both from the perspective of those who have organized these events as well as those who have been at the events, it’s been a pretty consistent theme that the project has not been as transparent as we were led to believe that it would be,” Saks said.
Saks emphasized the importance of listening to voices throughout the community at this moment in time and to amend the Transformation Plan as needed to reflect different concerns of those involved.
“We do suspect, and have now pretty much heard, that (the Chancellor of U-M Flint) will be announcing a bigger update during the February (Board of Regents) meeting about what the plans are,” Saks said. “So time is of the essence to make our voices heard.”
James Schirmer, an associate professor of English at U-M Flint and a member of the Innovation & Transformation Advisory Council, spoke about working with the Huron Consulting Group. ITAC is a group composed of faculty, students and staff from U-M Flint that discusses and communicates community questions and concerns that arise with respect to the Huron Consulting Group with campus administration.
At the meeting, Schirmer said there was a persistent feeling of frustration among ITAC members with the proceedings of the Strategic Transformation Plan and the lack of consideration given to ITAC’s contributions to the discussion, along with the opinions of students, faculty and staff.
“Members of ITAC are disappointed with the lack of clarity and guidance that we’ve received from upper administration and frustrated by what we perceive to be Huron’s consistent ignoring of our concerns and our questions,” Schirmer said. “However, ITAC wants to be constructive, and it’s my understanding that we’re intending to put together (ITAC’s) own deliverable, despite no apparent interest from upper administration.”
In an email to The Michigan Daily, Robb King, director of marketing and communications at U-M Flint, described how campus administration understands ITAC’s role in the planning process as well as how ITAC’s opinions will be made available to the public.
“Both the ITAC and the Steering Committee have an advisory role,” King wrote. “Their input – ranging from ideas to concerns – as they review the information and draft reports is an important part of the process. Information is made public at scheduled town halls and online after reports have been finalized, based in part on the feedback from ITAC and the Steering Committee.”
King also noted that certain ITAC recommendations were more closely related to portions of the planning process that have not yet taken place. King wrote that they would be taken into consideration at a later time.
“Many of the inputs received from ITAC relate to student services and organizational/administrative changes and are the subject of the next phase of this process,” King wrote. “The suggestions have been documented for consideration in that later phase.”
U-M Flint graduate student Alyssia Washington echoed King’s frustration with the lack of transparency from the U-M Flint administration in an interview with The Daily following the town hall meeting. As a member of the campus community, Washington described feeling constantly confused by the ongoing transformation project and the decisions being made about it.
“It’s been difficult for not just the community as a whole in the city of Flint, but also just on the campus, to understand what the administration is doing,” Washington said. “The fact that, collectively, community members, faculty and alumni alike are confused and in the dark is not good.”
Other attendees of the town hall, including Emily Newberry, U-M Flint senior associate librarian and ITAC member, said important voices were excluded in the transformation planning process. Newberry also alleged that the meetings with the Huron Consulting Group did not allocate time for questions from the audience and only gave a presentation. Despite conducting multiple meetings with ITAC, Newberry said Huron Consulting did not make any tangible changes based on information shared by ITAC.
“Another frustrating aspect is that a lot of our questions have to go through email, and then (Huron) is selective about what gets answered,” Newberry said. “There’s some indication that they’ll take our input into consideration, but I think the consensus … after the last presentation, was that we didn’t really see evidence of that.”
In his email to The Daily, King wrote that there have been multiple interactions between ITAC and Huron Consulting over the course of the planning process. King also wrote that Huron Consulting has sought out a variety of external perspectives across campus as a result of interactions with ITAC.
“To date, the Huron team has presented at four ITAC meetings and has responded to dozens of ITAC questions in writing,” King wrote. “Additionally, Huron has sought the opinions of dozens of campus community members and local employer leaders at ITAC’s request. The project team received questions as recently as the past week from ITAC and looks forward to providing another set of responses in the coming week.”
At the meeting, U-M Flint senior Maeko Leigh McGovern raised the issue of what she sees as a lack of representation of minorities within the conversations around the strategic transformation.
“In this strategic transformation, I am really concerned by the lack of engagement with minority communities,” McGovern said. “I really would like to see them take privilege out of the picture and to think of those who are not always represented in these spaces when we make these final decisions.”
Washington also shared her apprehension toward the current direction of the transformation and how it might impact funding for particular disciplines, especially the humanities.
“This is a university, but it’s not being treated like one,” Washington said. “The perspective has been focusing solely on investors and also employers, but not the needs of the students themselves.”
Daily Staff Reporter Bronwyn Johnston can be reached at jbronwyn@umich.edu.