Unification negatively impacted Purdue satellite campuses, study says

Kayla Vasilko, a graduate student at Purdue University Northwest, fell in love with the Westville, Ind., campus practically from her first visit as a high school senior.

What she has seen in the years since, she said, breaks her heart. By the time Vasilko reached her sophomore year in 2018, fewer students stroll the wooded, rural campus even in what should be a busy semester. The number of classes offered at registration seemed to decrease dramatically, she said.

That year followed a transition for the Westville campus, as well as PNW in Hammond, Ind. In 2016, Purdue University Northwest emerged from the unification of the former Purdue University Calumet of Hammond and Purdue University North Central of Westville.

With the guidance of faculty mentor Dr. Kim Scipes, Vasilko set out to show, in a graduate study, how unification in 2016 affected the campus she loved. Her findings included interviews and surveys of faculty, staff, students and community members and examination of related state, media, and university archive data.

"As I really got into it," Vasilko told the Journal & Courier, "and did a lot more research into what it means to be a satellite campus, the university is more of a public good than it is a business. I found by looking at our history, I was able to put together what the Westville campus looked like before, the classes offered, how we engaged with the community."

The 84-page report included 45 interviews and 342 responses.

Purdue University, according to the history of PNW, announced Feb. 26, 2014, that Purdue University Calumet and Purdue University North Central would unify their respective administrations.

In general terms, Purdue University sees the transition in a more positive light.

"PNW has moved well past unification in operations and in messaging and is now starting its seventh academic year," said Tim Doty, Purdue's director of media and public relations, who added it would be unfair to comment on a study he had not seen.

"The Board of Trustees and administration in West Lafayette work closely with Chancellor Keon to ensure good outcomes for all PNW students, faculty and staff."

Prior to receiving the above response, the J&C asked for the university to relay the benefits Purdue has seen since unification and sent Doty the abstract statement from Vasilko's report:

Mergers in higher education exist to facilitate growth through the amalgamation of resources. Most are forced and don’t deliver what they promised at the start of the process because many complex components, such as organizational culture, sociocultural relationships, and signs, both intentionally conveyed and perceived, are not considered. This study examines how the Purdue University system has unified two of its regional campuses, and focuses both on sociological and semiotic perspectives, identifying if promises made to stakeholders were carried out through the merger and evaluating the process overall. Identified variances are analyzed through the lens of prominent semioticians, along with extensive interview and survey responses of impacted stakeholders and substantial literature to highlight the impact of perception on the university system and the population it serves.

There is a substantial and growing gap between what was promised about unification by the Purdue system and what has truly been done, and this discrepancy between what was advertised or promised and what was factually provided has caused students, employees, and the community to form a negative perception of PNW as a whole, leading to a severe decline in enrollment.

The J&C also sought comment from PNW Chancellor Thomas Keon, and will update the story if one is received.

The report stated several conclusions:

• Consideration was not given to the complexity of unification prior to or during the merger

• A new organizational structure that nurtures the unique sociological and cultural attributes of both campuses must be instated immediately

• The future of PNW − both Hammond and Westville campuses − as a whole is at risk. If lost, the result would be execrable for Northwest Indiana.

Vasilko created The Westville Warriors to emphasize "the equal value of the Westville campus, the Hammond campus and Gabis Arboretum," according to the website.

"We advocate for equal classes, events, and programming on the Westville campus to meet the needs of students who are primarily on that campus as well as the surrounding community."

The Westville Warriors, Vasilko said, work to restore programming and community engagement to the Westville campus.

The decrease in enrollment at Hammond and Westville was significant. Scipes, who has taught at PNW since 2004, provided the Journal & Courier with a decade of enrollment numbers, noting the decreases since unification.

During the 2011-2012 academic year, according to Scipes, the campuses enjoyed an enrollment of 12,486 — 8,865 in Hammond; 3,621 in Westville. Fast-forward to the 2021-2022 academic year, PNW had lost 6,244 in enrollment across the two campuses in that decade.

"Unification, in my mind — and I believe most Westville faculty and staff would agree — has been a disaster," said Scipes, who retired as a professor of sociology in May 2022. "Our university was thriving when unification was initiated; you had to walk all the way across campus if you wanted parking but arrived late for classes. Our classes were full; there was vibrancy walking through the hallways, etc."

Before unification, Scipes said, Westville had 24 programs compared Hammond’s 20.

"Today, Westville claims to offer six or seven, and with the scheduling problems at Westville — Kayla can detail — even those are questionable," Scipes said. "Westville, during the academic year, looks like a ghost town."

Scipes has been mostly at Westville but had been teaching at Hammond before retirement, explaining he taught usually through hybrid courses — one day at Westville and Zoom to Hammond; one day at Hammond, Zoom to Westville — since Spring 2020, just before the pandemic hit.

The retired professor, self-described as a "late-starter" after getting his PhD at age 51, said the impact of unification is felt more at Westville, losing several faculty members who transitioned to the Hammond campus.

"I just jotted down the names of four full-time faculty members who have totally moved from Westville to Hammond; plus another seven who are no longer there, three due to retirement," Scipes said.

"So, what you’ve had continuously happened since unification is that faculty has been moving out of Westville, to Hammond, to another employment situation (usually another university) or retirement, and they haven’t been replaced at Westville."

The impact appears greater in Westville, Scipes said, but Hammond would not be spared.

"Unification was a top-down, 'father-knows-best' type of project that was improperly understood, unplanned until after the decision to unify was made, poorly conceived, and in my opinion, implemented incompetently," he said. "It threatens the continued existence of the Westville campus and in my opinion, if Westville goes down, poses a serious threat to Hammond’s existence."

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Study: Unification negatively impacted Purdue satellite campuses