Meanwhile, Back At Dear Old DU...

Although I am currently in Stuart, Florida, I still keep up with what is happening back in Denver, and there was an article in the Denver Post yesterday about the University of Denver's budget problems. I worked almost 30 years at the DU Bookstore before the university outsourced it, and I still care about the place. And evidently the university is in crisis. They have an 11-million-dollar deficit and are currently laying off staff and cutting back expenses trying to deal with it. Plus, they have raised tuition to $61,434, compared with the national average tuition cost of $47,999.  The chancellor blames the crisis on the decline in the number of college age students, as well as recent questions about the value of a college education. When told that the University of Colorado and Colorado State University, unlike DU, are experiencing an increase in enrollment, the chancellor says that isolation during Covid has made students prefer larger rather than smaller schools like DU these days.

As you can imagine, faculty and students are not happy about the situation and have issued a statement of no confidence in the administration. They feel that solving the problem by raising prices and cutting services is not a great idea.  Which is kind of what they did when they outsourced the DU Bookstore to Follett Higher Education Group back in 2012. Faculty, staff, and students were asked whether the bookstore should be outsourced back then, and overwhelmingly said no. But the university did it anyway. As far as I am concerned, there is only one solution. Bring back Dan Ritchie as chancellor. Ritchie served as chancellor of the University of Denver from 1989 to 2005, saved it from a major financial crisis, and started a major building program through donations from himself and many of his wealthy friends. He made DU into a thriving institution once again. Plus, he thought the bookstore should be there to serve the students, faculty, and staff, not just be a profit center, and refused to outsource the store. Although he is now 92 years old, I have complete confidence he can turn things around. Sign him up now!