President Standifird has failed Bradley University

Narratives have power. They shape opinion and establish truth. When Bradley’s President, Stephen Standifird, issued a press release on Aug. 1 announcing Bradley’s financial difficulties, he was under no obligation to go public. He could have dealt with them internally, and worked with faculty quietly to find a solution, as we did in 2019-20. Doing so, however, would not have burnished his reputation, and it is abundantly clear that the president wants to use the “crisis” to craft a narrative that will take him to his next job … beyond Bradley.

Dr. Standifird wants to present himself as a "change-leader" who can make the "tough calls" needed to "reinvent" universities. He is sacrificing Bradley to build his resume. In his own words, the president is “passionate about disrupting higher education” and wants to “redesign our institutions.” Bradley does not need to be redesigned. The narrative that the president wants to avoid is that his leadership has done real harm to the university.

It suits President Standifird’s narrative to portray the causes of Bradley’s problems as external and beyond his control: falling enrollment due to demographics, COVID-19, the high cost of tuition, shifts in the economy, and increased operational costs. These challenges are real but not unique to Bradley and should never have come as a surprise to the president. Boasts from Illinois State University of their largest first-year class in 36 years undermine the assertion that Bradley can’t attract more students.

When President Standifird took office in March of 2020, Bradley was quietly implementing significant structural savings, all of which have been squandered. Our financial state has been made worse by a leadership team that lacked stability and, in some cases, critical experience in the higher-ed sector. Under Standifird’s administration, Bradley is searching for our fifth CFO/VP of Finance, has just hired its fourth VP of Advancement, and had to replace a VP of Enrollment Management whose commitment to Bradley was split between the university and his second career as a realtor. A competent CFO could have foreseen this financial “surprise.” A committed VP of Enrollment Management may have brought in our largest first-year class in 36 years. A capable president would have formed an administration able to meet these challenges. Yes, there are external challenges, but much of this crisis has been caused by circumstances within the president’s control.

In spite of widespread doubts about Standifird’s motives, at his request and as required by Bradley’s governance policies, a faculty committee identified cost-savings that were presented to the president, a plan for millions of dollars of cuts including the strategic elimination of programs and 30 faculty positions. These cuts, while painful, would still allow Bradley to maintain our academic integrity and reputation. Unfortunately, President Standifird ignored these recommendations.

Standifird’s program discontinuations, which have virtually no overlap with the faculty committee’s recommendations, will irreparably harm Bradley University’s current reputation and future viability and undermine the educational integrity, the very idea of Bradley. How can we provide a quality education to Business majors without a strong Economics department, to Engineering majors without a strong Physics department, to Computer Science majors without a strong Math department? How do we offer our students a truly transformative education without access to Philosophy – Lydia Moss-Bradley specified that a Department of Ethics should exist at the university in her will – and Religious Studies? The deep learning and mentorship that result from one-on-one interactions between faculty and students are Bradley’s brand and competitive edge. Even as Bradley has changed with the times, these practices have withstood the test of time over generations, as attested by recent op-eds by proud and successful Bradley alumni that stress the pivotal role quality instruction by highly qualified faculty played in their Bradley education. We need to market ourselves based on our quality: our enduring advantage is that we are a mid-sized, comprehensive university that is large enough to provide a robust array of majors, yet small enough to offer students meaningful engagement with their professors in every class they take, and to provide faculty-mentored research and creative production opportunities that few undergraduate students have access to at large universities. Instead, Standifird’s plan has exposed Bradley to potential lawsuits and, worse yet, negative publicity that will undoubtedly exacerbate our enrollment issues.

More:Academics are the heart of Bradley University. Make cuts elsewhere

The faculty is deeply committed to Bradley through our shared governance of the university. However, far from sharing governance, President Standifird has sidelined faculty, and been disingenuous with faculty and the Peoria community about the causes of the crisis. Furthermore, much of the data and rationale he has provided to justify the cuts and their impacts (for example that the budget deficit came as a surprise; only 3.5% of students will be impacted; 75% of the students at Bradley are enrolled in 25% of the majors; there are majors that have 500 students; or insinuations that bankers are demanding academic cuts) are misleading and not grounded in reality.

The tragedy is that, in his desire to demonstrate his abilities as a disruptive change-maker and transformer of higher education, Dr. Standifird failed to be a wise steward of Bradley University. Moral authority should be the currency of university administrators. The University Senate's Nov. 16 supermajority vote of "no confidence" in Dr. Standifird's actions as Bradley University's President is not an expression of faculty discontent. Rather, it is a university-wide demand for commitment to the foundations that have sustained Bradley in the last 125 years, for truly collaborative leadership, and for a shared strategic vision that will preserve Bradley’s cherished reputation and set it on course for another 125 years of success. President Standifird has amply demonstrated that he lacks the requisite qualities to lead Bradley University and, in order to preserve Bradley's integrity, we ask that he resign his position.

Ahmad Fakheri, President

John Nielsen, Vice President

Bradley University Chapter of AAUP