IU Kokomo Town Hall Meeting

I attended a special meeting at 2 PM today that was called so that Chancellor Ruth Person could address the growing concern among staff over the school’s recent moves to outsource the campus bookstore. Naturally, employees in other areas, such as maintenance and custodial work, would also wonder if their jobs were in danger as well. We met in Kresge Auditorium where Vice Chancellor Bill Yost forced everyone to sit in the front section of the auditorium.

Chancellor Person began her manuscript delivery by explaining the trends that were affecting the IU system. There is a system-wide move toward reassessing organizational structures. IU Northwest, for example, had recently reorganized a significant part of its academics. There is also a move to outsource in-house operations to compensate for budget shortfalls. The IU East campus in Richmond has a budget shortfall of around a million dollars while IU Kokomo is running with a shortfall of about 1/3 million. In particular, the transportation at IU Kokomo has already been outsourced. On the potential chopping block are the campus bookstore and the current food service provider, AVI.

What to do? Person suggested the following three solution steps: Creativity in finding new solutions, working on recruiting new students, and understanding the potential need for RIF—reduction in force. In short, every IU Kokomo employee must be actively involved in recruiting new students.

Interestingly, I saw only one other IU Kokomo faculty member there.