University of Akron president Scott Scarborough said one of the things that has surprised him the most about the University of Akron is its community ties.
“The other universities I’ve worked for were small fish in a big pond, but the University of Akron has a much bigger presence, so many people went here and are tied to it,” he said.
During a recent interview in his office on the UA campus, Scarborough acknowledged some of his decisions might have been better received if they were better communicated to the public.
Scarborough, who has a business background, said he was hired to attack two problem areas: finances and declining enrollment.
“The two are usually tied together because at a university like Akron, so much of the revenue comes from enrollment,” he said. “The enrollment reached 30,000 in 2010 and it’s down to 25,000 today and that has created a real financial challenge. Part of the challenge is that the numbers are not going to turn around unless the university does something different. That’s why we thought we had to be aggressive in moving forward with new plans to stabilize finances and simultaneously initiate new initiatives … new initiatives require money.”
Since Scarborough took office in July 2014, he’s tried to tackle those problems with several controversial actions, including $40 million in budget cuts that eliminated more than 200 positions, changes at the UA Press and E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall, the elimination of the baseball program and the rebranding of the school as “Ohio’s Polytechnic University.”
The decisions stirred a backlash from inside and outside the university, prompting protests, no-confidence votes from faculty members and students and the formation of the group Advocates for the University of Akron, which includes students, faculty, alumni and community members. The group purchased full-page ads in local newspapers questioning Scarborough’s cutbacks and policies and declining enrollment.
“Usually controversy is the result of communication challenges,” Scarborough said. “I think much of the conflict is just miscommunication and we’ll take full responsibility for that.”
He said that if what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, he has put on a lot of muscle.
He continues to defend the decisions he’s made in the past two years.
“The problem in answering the question, ‘Would I have done anything differently,’ is that there wasn’t a lot of time to wait, because [while waiting], enrollment would predictably decline. … We had to do something different in the hope that enrollment would turn around as soon as possible. I still believe what we did was the right thing for the university and for the students past, present and the future.” Scarborough said he looks at the backlash as constructive criticism.
“I keep reminding myself that behind all of the criticism are people who care about the university … so what I’ve got to do is tap into that caring into the university and try to turn it into a situation that we’re working together to achieve the same end,” he said. “For every critic there is a supporter … but for those who are critical it’s a reminder that there is a need to communicate in a way that brings us together rather than apart.”
He said turning enrollment numbers around should be everyone’s focus.
The most recent reports show freshman commitments for fall 2016 are down about 24 percent from the previous year.
Scarborough hopes to boost enrollment numbers with his initiatives. Among his top five are a new center for all information technology degree programs; the Experiential (EXL) Center, created to boost the number of internships and cooperative work experiences for students; the center for choreography with Dance Cleveland to show that UA is fully committed to the arts; the low-cost general education programs offered to start college as an alternative to community college; and the Williams Honors College to attract well-prepared students for a “high-end educational experience.”
He said a shrinking number of high school graduates in Northeast Ohio means the university has to offer compelling reasons for students to travel from outside the region to attend UA.
“You can’t just be the convenient quality provider,” he said. “There must be areas of distinction to convince more students to come … the University of Akron has to be more than ‘It’s my home university and it’s convenient.’ ’’
Scarborough said this spring’s commencement features the largest graduating class in five years: 3,031.
“The good news is, the students are graduating and the bad news is we have to replace those at the front end of the pipeline,” he said.
Scarborough said because of his business background and his desire to work in higher education, he has created a career path of fixing problems at universities. He was chief financial officer at the University of Texas at Tyler, and executive vice president for finance and administration at DePaul University in Chicago. At the University of Toledo, he ran the university-affiliated hospital and clinics for two years and was provost of university.
Although it was never planned, he said he has stayed at each institution for five years — the same length as his contract with UA.
“I guess that’s about the time frame where you understand the problem, fix the problem and then wear out your welcome,” he said.
When asked his plans for remaining at the University of Akron, he responded: “I’m here to stay. I have a five-year contract and I will honor that commitment.”
Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com.