Elon University President Connie Book and members of the team involved with the potential merger with Queens University of Charlotte hosted a town hall for faculty and staff in Alumni Gym on Sept. 19.
Book shared that the decision to pursue a merger came from ensuring Elon remains successful through enrollment decreases, mainly caused by the impending demographic cliff, and national discussions around return on investment for college. Elon is also looking to expand its graduate programs while allowing the main campus to focus on undergraduate education.
Queens and Elon will also merge their endowments, which are $170 million and $420 respectively, according to Book.
According to Book, the boards of trustees at both Elon and Queens are leading merger discussions due to their financial responsibilities, but have been discussing the potential merger since the summer.
“The trustees began conversations earlier this year and over the summer, and they started the conversations around partnerships, but then it began to grow more into a conversation around merger,” Book said. “By signing this letter of intent to merge, it allows now a transparent and inclusive process where we can talk about what that might look like, where we can get community input. This period is of conversation, of designing and thinking about, if you do merge, what would it look like?”
The planning team — also referred to as the sprint team — is working in partnership with the Boston Consulting Group and includes six Elon faculty members, each of whom have a counterpart at Queens.
The Elon sprint team consists of: Senior Vice President for University Advancement in External Affairs Jim Piatt, Associate Vice President for Facilities and Chief Facilities Officer Brad Moore, Associate Vice President for Finance and Administration Susan Kirkland, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Jennifer Platania, and Faculty Administrative Fellow to the President’s Office CJ Fleming.
Elon representatives on the merger sprint team respond to questions submitted by staff and faculty before the town hall on Sept. 19 in Alumni Gym.
Patrick Noltemeyer, Chief of Staff and Secretary to the Board of Trustees, moderated the town hall. He began by presenting the sprint team with the most common questions collected from a form sent to Elon staff and faculty on Sept. 16.
Book clarified that if the merger is confirmed, Queens and Elon would each retain their faculty, staff and programs, but the legal presiding body for Queens would be Elon.
“Queens has a full faculty, staff, and they have their own campus. They have undergraduate and graduate programs — they'll continue to have that,” Book said. “The legal entity will be Elon University. It becomes the umbrella organization over the two campuses, if the proposed merger is actualized next August, and that was predecided by the two boards of trustees.”
The sprint team also expressed that Elon staff and faculty roles will not change if the merger is approved.
“We need to figure out how to merge student information systems, we have to merge our IT systems, there's our LMS systems, all of these things,” Platania said. “None of this is going to happen overnight. We are going to need our faculty and staff here at Elon to be committed to the work here at Elon, just like we're going to need the folks at Queens to remain committed to their work at Queens as we figure out what the transition looks like.”
Questions from the staff and faculty form also addressed how the merger would affect the two universities’ financial stability.
“Combining the institutions and a combined balance sheet really brings more financial stability for both institutions in terms of resource allocation,” Kirkland said. “Elon has always been very planful in allocating resources and thinking through priorities. I think that will continue, and I think there'll be a focus on continuing the academic excellence that we have on the campus at Elon, while expanding opportunities in Charlotte.”
In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, Queens had a revenue of $88.4 million, but expenses totaled $109 million. Since the pandemic, the university has been drawing from its endowment to make up for losses. Noltemeyer shared that many staff and faculty at Elon were concerned about what that means for the institution’s financial health.
“Like a lot of institutions post-pandemic, Queens has had some enrollment challenges and some budget challenges along the way,” Piatt said. “They are on a path toward stronger operations. They made some important strategic operational decisions of late that put them on a stronger path toward that.”
Book added that Elon’s board of trustees requires the university’s budget to balance spending and revenue and the new entity created from the merger would require both institutions to operate balanced budgets.
After the moderated panel discussion, staff and faculty at the town hall were encouraged to stand up and ask questions.
Director of New Student Programs Emily Krechel voiced concerns about whether the Department of Education will approve the merger agreement due to recent attacks on campus diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Book assured Krechel that the Department of Education’s review is purely financial and focused on ensuring students at Queens and Elon receive their federal student loans.
“That's hopefully the only thing they'll be looking at, but I think that is an optimistic view of what the federal government would look at,” Krechel told Elon News Network. “I hope, given the layoffs that they've had there and the lack of staff, that they won't have the time to dig deeper.”
She expressed full trust in the sprint team and excitement about the potential merger.
“I do trust that our senior leaders in that group up there are very planful people,” Krechel said. “They are at least considering the possibilities of what could happen, and when and if those things happen, what will we do, and what are the hills that we will die on.”
Todd Lee, an Elon mathematics professor, asked the sprint team about potential cuts in departments such as Information Technology and Teaching and Learning Technologies once Queens and Elon merge their online systems. Book responded that the board and sprint team are still working on how to combine the schools’ staff and faculty, but cuts are more likely to be at the administrative level.
“I do think that we all just need to give the sprint team some grace, because it sounds like an opportunity,” Lee told Elon News Network. “It makes sense for us to get together, and I think we're really good at being progressive and aggressive, but giving each other a little grace.”
Stacie Dooley, Assistant Dean of Career and Student Development at Elon’s law school in Greensboro, told Elon News Network that she wants to ensure that students in the Law Flex program in Charlotte continue to receive education comparable to the law program in Greensboro.
“We are one law school — we have a Greensboro campus and we have a Charlotte campus,” Dooley said. “We want to just make sure that whatever our students are experiencing down in Charlotte is going to be on par with the quality of the education that our graduate students are getting.”
Several staff and faculty members expressed their appreciation of the transparency and openness for feedback from the sprint team.
“I've been really pleased with the amount of communication thus far,” Krechel said. “What I would hope is that there continues to be this level of communication and opportunity for input, opportunity to get information and understanding of what is happening.”
Lee shared that during his time at Elon, the school has continued to grow and push for more student opportunities.
“This is my 31st year, and when I got to Elon, this school was in the middle of this revolution,” Lee said. “It was a regional, small college, and I have been on that ride, and to me, this just seems part of it.”
The merger team has planned open discussion sessions during Family Weekend at 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 27 in Global Commons 103 and during Homecoming Weekend on Oct. 11.