Governors State University is considering cutting programs because of a lack of state funding, officials said.
Provost Deborah Bordelon and a program elimination committee will make recommendations to the Board of Trustees at a March 3 meeting, said Keisha Dyson, the school’s associate vice president of marketing and communications. Dyson was unable to provide details of the recommendations.
Dyson said the school has not received full state funding for the past 19 months. In the years before the ongoing state budget crisis, GSU received $24 million a year from the state. Since 2016, the state has provided only a portion of that.
At a June 2016 Will County committee meeting, GSU President Elaine Maimon said the school was “in trouble” from a lack of state funding. She said that 45 percent of the school’s revenue comes from the state, but that it had so far only received roughly one third of that, or $6.9 million.
This fiscal year, the state appropriated $12.7 million to GSU, according to data provided by the school.
“The university is looking at ways to sustain itself in the long haul to maintain our mission in the Southland — we can’t continue to live stopgap to stopgap,” Dyson said. “We have to do a lot more with less and less could include program elimination.”
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Before state funding slowed to a trickle, the school was expanding. In 2014, GSU increased to a four year university from a two year institution, welcomed its first freshman class, opened a new $20 million dormitory to house them, established additional intercollegiate sports and settled on a mascot — the Jaguars. Last spring, the school was forced to cut 13 programs and 62 positions, even as enrollment has increased, Dyson said.
In September of the same year, it announced the closure of two business and trade centers that boosted they helped create thousands of jobs in the region.
GSU might still face additional tough cuts. As of now, it is unclear which programs the committee could eliminate, or if jobs could be threatened in the process, officials said. No “academic faculty” were laid off when GSU culled programs last spring, officials said..
The March 3 meeting where the Bordelon and the committee will present its recommendations to the board will be held at Hall of Honors on the school’s campus, 1 University Parkway, University Park, IL 60484.