CHEYNEY—To balance a budget, spend less than you bring in.
That’s what Cheyney University President Aaron A. Walton and his team did for the first time since the 2010-2011 Academic Year.
Cheyney has been fighting to preserve its accreditation. A balanced budget is one of the requirements for renewed accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. According to an unaudited financial report submitted to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education , Cheyney recorded a $2.1 million surplus on approximately $26 million in revenue, far outperforming the planned surplus of $261,000.
Since 2017, we’ve been looking at what we could do to reduce expense levels to the point where revenue exceeds our expenses,” Walton said about the 275-acre campus straddling Delaware and Chester counties. The nation’s first historically black college cut about $9 million in expenses. Enrollment has significantly grown since less than 700 students were enrolled for the 2017-18 school year.
Fundraising played a big part in the recovery.
Balancing the budget is critically important for another reason, reads a Cheney release. For each year Cheyney balances its budget, one-third of the school’s debt owed to PASSHE will be forgiven, according to a loan-forgiveness plan approved by PASSHE’s Board of Governors in August 2017. This was the first of the required three years.
“Beginning two years ago under the leadership of Walton—a retired and highly experienced corporate executive—Cheyney University undertook a broad range of efforts to ensure the long-term financial stability of the university and to ensure the university’s resources were prioritized and sufficient to provide robust academic programs and student support,” said Cheyney University Council of Trustees Chairman, Robert Bogle. “We are well on our way to restoring Cheyney to its rightful position among elite Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).”
A significant contributor to the success of the administration’s balancing of the university’s budget was the development and implementation of an expenditure reduction plan. The administration curtailed expenses, reorganized the university structure, eliminated various positions and discontinued low-performing programs.
“We believe the changes implemented have enhanced the integrity of the academic program, in that the university’s resources are now concentrated in fewer, higher-performing and higher-demand programs,” Walton said. “This will allow us to build a solid foundation that can be further expanded upon in future years.
“Cheyney is moving toward financial stability. We’re on our way…to long term finaicial stability.”
The school’s financial recovery includes a fundraising campaign appropriately titled the “Resurgence.” The Cheyney Alumni-led campaign has resonated with prospective donors as it reflects the university’s successful turnaround efforts under the leadership of President Walton and the executive team he has assembled, reads the release.
When the campaign was launched, the university planned two phases of the fundraising effort. The goal of the first phase of the campaign was to raise $4 million by June 30, 2019. Through the Resurgence Campaign and other fundraising activities, Cheyney University and The Cheyney Foundation raised over $4.4 million as of June 30, 2019, exceeding its original phase-one objective. The goal of the second phase of the campaign is to raise another $5.6 million for a cumulative total of $10 million by June 30, 2020.
The last element to Cheyney’s financial recovery is a plan to monetize campus assets and generating non-traditional sources of income by renting facilities such as the football stadium, gymnasium and auditorium for events, as well as entering long-term lease agreements with private companies that will be located on Cheyney’s campus. In addition to contributing to the university’s bottom line, these strategic partners will also provide paid internships for Cheyney’s students.
Cheyney’s turnaround has been more than financial; it also includes academic achievement and student retention.
The university anticipates retaining 72 percent of its Fall 2018 freshman class in the upcoming school year—Cheyney’s highest rate of retention for a freshman class in over 25 years and almost double the retention rate of 37 percent for the previous year’s freshman class. This speaks to Cheyney’s new recruiting strategy and its success in attracting high-performing students.
In addition to improved student recruitment, many of the advances in student outcomes such as retention and persistence rates have been the result of the significant contributions of Kizzy Morris, who was appointed this week to serve as Provost. Morris joined Cheyney in 2018 as Director of Enrollment Services and University Registrar. Prior to joining the university, Morris worked with East Stroudsburg University in a similar capacity. Prior to that she worked with Kutztown University, where she served as Acting Assistant Provost, among other roles. At Cheyney, Morris worked closely with members of the university’s faculty to design Cheyney’s revamped Summer Bridge Program. The program showed the greatest level of academic achievement in its history with an average student GPA of 3.33. All 29 students in the residential summer program performed at a level sufficient enough to gain full admission to Cheyney for the fall semester.
Walton: “Kizzy has done a remarkable job since joining Cheyney. Her broad and deep knowledge, standard of excellence, and unyielding commitment to the success of our students make her perfectly suited for her new role as Provost. Along with the university’s talented faculty, she is responsible for the positive academic results we are seeing. She enjoys wide respect among our faculty as well as her peers and will be a great campus leader as we continue to transform the university and increase our course offerings.”
Bolstering Cheyney’s academic efforts will be Presidential Partners, LLC. The higher education consulting firm will work with Morris as well as the dean of faculty and department chairs to optimize academic planning and curriculum development. As the firm’s name implies, its principals are former university presidents with many years of higher education experience. The firm will also formalize the process for developing career-informed curriculum as the university further establishes strategic partnerships as it already has with Jefferson Health, Starbucks and Epcot Crenshaw.
“The overarching approach to all of the actions we have taken is to transform Cheyney into an interdependent, more sustainable small college of the 21st century and to institute programs and strategies that propel the university into the future,” President Walton said. “Our vision is to establish and promote Cheyney as a top post-secondary destination for learning, living, working, and creating.”
Bill Rettew, The Daily News
