Online resources for faculty and staff

Colleagues:

In the last two months, we have heard from many of you by email and phone calls, in meetings and Community Gatherings, and through other conversations on campus about our financial challenges. We are thankful for how engaged you are with Bethel’s future and with identifying strategic ways to address these issues.

We have received a number of requests for more financial and headcount information on the university. Some of your questions have involved gathering more information. In response, we would like to introduce a number of online resources we have posted for you that we hope will address some of the more frequent questions we have received. We have consolidated these resources in a new channel on MyBethel. Click on the “Human Resources” tab on MyBethel and you will see “Cabinet Information” in the middle column. There you will find:

• President’s Announcements: this is a direct link to a compilation of community-wide emails and other announcements from the president and other Cabinet members.
• Financial and Enrollment Reporting: this page includes financial reports and updates on enrollment.
• Working Groups: this page includes summaries of the working groups and links to each group’s charter as they are drafted.
• Ideas for Innovation: this is a form for you to submit your ideas for innovation.
• Additional Resources: as its name suggests, this web page will include additional resources to help answer your questions as we plan and prepare better for budget challenges ahead.

One piece of specific information that has been requested and is now posted on the Financial and Enrollment Reporting page is an Operating Budget Historical Summary (FY12-FY18). We took the 6,000 lines of data in the university’s operating budget and re-formatted it into revenue and expenses broken out by schools and institutional categories, year over year, to show spending and revenue patterns. We pulled the numbers from audited financial statements. You will see that the blue lines provide totals for the main areas of the university. You should also note when reading this spreadsheet that revenue appears in parentheses—for example, (300,000)—and expenses are without brackets.

We also look forward to reading your ideas for innovation at the university. All submissions will be sent to the two working groups examining innovations in academics and innovations across the university. Please provide as much detail as possible and—if you’re comfortable—your name and email address so the group members can contact you with any follow-up questions.

It is our goal to tackle these challenges together. We will provide data and details whenever possible to help throughout this process. Thank you for remaining engaged and collaborating with us to help move Bethel forward.

Serving together,

Jay, John, Pat, Deb, Joe, Mark, Ruben, and Cara