The University of Idaho has achieved several internal milestones — in areas like fundraising and research — but faces a host of external pressures.
One is a national political environment that is making it more difficult for international students to enroll at American colleges and universities.
“(It) is not anything that I’m proud of,” U of I President C. Scott Green said during a State of the University address Tuesday morning.
That climate of uncertainty will affect the U of I’s fall enrollment numbers, which will be released in October. Enrollment looks fairly solid for the fall semester, which began Aug. 25, but the number of incoming international students will drop by more than 50%, Green said.
Federal officials revoked four international student visas this spring, but Green said those issues were eventually resolved. When asked how the U of I might handle an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on campus, Green had a simple response.
“Well, we would like to know about it,” he said.
During his 40-minute speech — and an open question-and-answer session with staff and students — Green touched on a wide range of issues.
Federal funding. The feds have zeroed out several key funding components — from a $59 million research grant focused on climate-friendly farming to the College Assistance for Migrants Program, a longstanding support program for children of farm workers. The U of I cannot simply make up for the loss the federal funding, so it had no choice but to wind down programs such as CAMP, Green said.
“We’d bankrupt our institution if we tried to cover everything that was cut,” he said. “It’s not a great environment out there. We have to keep our head down for a couple of years.”
State “holdbacks.” Green said a midyear state spending cut — a “holdback,” in budgeting shorthand — could cut the U of I’s bottom line by $5 million.
Gov. Brad Little in August ordered a 3% cut across most state agencies, including higher education. A 3% general fund budget cut equates to about $5 million for the U of I and its variety of special programs, such as agricultural research and medical education.
Green praised university staff for cutting costs. “This is a state funding issue. It is no way a reflection on the great work being done at the University of Idaho.”
Pay gaps. The U of I has freed up $15 million of internal funding over three years, and has plowed that into staff salaries, Green said. But he acknowledged the U of I has a long way to go to match salaries at Washington State University, just eight miles west of Moscow, and lags far behind private institutions.
“We’ll do everything we can to take care of you,” he said.
DEI. In the face of a national pushback over diversity, equity and inclusion — and a state law designed to crack down on DEI on campus — Green defended university staff, and pushed back against the suggestion that the U of I is indoctrinating students.
“We’ve looked pretty damned hard,” he said. “We had AI look hard.”
However, he said the controversy over DEI serves as a reminder that all staff, not just top administrators, need to continue to live by the U of I’s academic values.
Medical education. While legislators continue to scrutinize a 50-year affiliation with the University of Washington’s medical school, Green touted all of the U of I’s medical education partnerships.
WWAMI — the University of Washington-led program, serving students from Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho — has produced 600 doctors now practicing in Idaho, Green said. A growing partnership with the University of Utah medical school and a graduate nursing partnership with North Idaho College will bring health care professionals into underserved rural Idaho, he said.
But Green spent much of Tuesday celebrating the U of I’s achievements. This year, the U of I’s research portfolio grew to $140 million, while the university received prestigious R1 research status from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. A record-setting fundraising campaign hit its $500 million target eight months ahead of schedule. And the U of I is using $40 million or its own money, plus state funding, to modernize buildings and preserve a historic campus.
“The things that we can control, we do exceptionally well at,” he said.
