ASU Honors: Administrative Failure?

The strategic decision making process for eliminating ASU's Honors Program remains unclear.  Vice President and Provost Dr. Blose blamed it on Texas Tech's desire that Angelo State focus on mid-range students.  ASU President Dr. Rallo called it a reallocation of scholarship money as Honors students were over-funded, given too much money.

The time line shows ASU's four Vice Presidents sequestered to hammer out a budget for Texas Tech (deadline April 8).  Dr. Blose broke the news on April 7 to Honors students.  Blose's shifting logic and triangulation incensed those in attendance.

Who changes a 2011 strategic priority overnight?  Administration facing draconian budget cuts might, but they've repeatedly stated it wasn't a financial decision.  What if there was another reason, one related to leadership performance?

Angelo State University's FY 2011 directive included:

Enhance the Honors program (including increasing enrollment to 10% of the student population)

The Ram Page indicated the number of students in the Honors Program by class, including Fall 2011 freshmen.  It's 130 out of 6,100 students or 2.1%.  ASU's goal of 10% is a fourfold increase from current levels.  The breakdown by class is as follow:

. Honors Students . Number of students Percent of honors students . Incoming freshmen 9 6.47% . Freshmen 20 14.39% . Sophomores 37 26.62% . Juniors 32 23.02% . Seniors 41 29.50% . Total 139 .

Pictorially this looks like (focus on the size of the pie slices):

Two classes will lose promised scholarship money, incoming freshmen (black) and freshmen (blue).  These two groups total 20% of Honors students, half the amount in a more even distribution.   The numbers indicated ASU failing on their stated strategic priority, which really began in 2008.

. . Fall '10 Enrollment Honors students Honors % of class . Incoming freshmen 9 . Freshmen 2097 20 0.95% . Sophomores 1374 37 2.69% . Juniors 1148 32 2.79% . Seniors 1358 41 3.02%

ASU did not achieve its 10% Honors admission goal.  It missed the target by 90%.  They neglected to meet past performance, in raw numbers and percentage, falling 40 to 60%.

Management responses to failure include changing the measure, fabricating fictitious achievement or eliminating the goal altogether, especially under pay for performance systems.  Did ASU chose the latter strategy, eliminating the Honors' program, thus the goal?

Angelo State has two Vice Presidents for enrollment management, a full VP and an Associate VP.  Their combined salaries are $280,000.  Dr. Rallo defended recent raises for Vice Presidents, three with less than a year's tenure at ASU. He cited the need to pay administrators competitively, so they won't want to leave their job.  This screeches like nails on chalkboard to educators/staff who may have received only one pittance of a raise in five years.  The message is twofold, ASU administration does not lead by example, nor does it care about the messages its actions send.

Did leaders drop a key performance indicator to hide their failure?  Faculty and student leaders can't seem to get a straight answer, no matter how hard they try.  It looks like a failure fractal, leadership wise.  Honors students look prescient with their February 7 stress relief program.  Breathe.

Update:  ASU student Jeff Harris has a tough job distilling the current situation for Texas Tech's Board of Regents.  Harris goes off the board May 31st.  President Rallo recognized a number of Honors students with awards.