Letter from the President
A Transformational Opportunity
Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,
With every great challenge comes an opportunity and a chance to renew a mission and vision for a new generation. As everyone knows, higher education is under siege and facing many significant challenges, from increasing costs to shrinking enrollments, from declining public support to the rapidly evolving needs and demands of students.
Since I began serving as president in 2023, we have taken important steps in working to transform our institution. Among other measures:
- We completed a comprehensive strategic planning process that resulted in the FDU Will Soar plan, which identified important goals to enhance the student experience and strengthen programs;
- We created a new division called FDU Health that united longstanding and more recently introduced programs in the health sciences; and
- We renewed our efforts to educate across the lifespan with the establishment of Lifelong Learning at FDU. As I have said many times, we need to reimagine FDU to meet learners where they are. And then provide them immersive and distinctive opportunities to advance their skills, gain professional advantages and move upwards in their chosen paths.
We have concentrated especially on cultivating partnerships with institutions and organizations that can help us provide exciting programs and career advancement opportunities for our students. We believe that higher education institutions must align their strengths carefully with new emerging demands in the workforce and work together with other organizations to best prepare students for today’s challenges. This includes partnering with other educational institutions as well as private corporations and public organizations.
Last week, for example, we announced the launch of FDU HealthPath Forward, a new strategic effort that will build a coalition of institutions to help develop healthcare-related programs, enhance workforce training, foster innovation in the sector and position the campuses as hubs for lifelong learning, health and wellbeing. This collaboration promises to build into something truly innovative, substantial and far-reaching in its impact.
A More Focused Approach
These initiatives will offer important benefits for our students and the University; however, another step is crucial if the University is to survive and thrive for generations to come. We must have a focused strategy about the programs we offer, and we must streamline our offerings to ensure we have the resources and bandwidth to make those programs as strong as possible. In short, we must limit the broad scope of our programs currently offered to be more focused on particular areas of strength and invest heavily in those areas to be more distinctive and provide the competitive advantages that our students deserve.
While we will continue to offer a range of academic programs that meet the needs of students, FDU’s path forward will emphasize transformational opportunities for learners that align with and address critical workforce needs in professionally focused areas, with a special emphasis on programs in demand including those in health sciences, health-related fields, and professional programs that are career-focused. We are determined to be in the forefront of innovation and transformation in these areas. With such a focused approach and by reducing the breadth of our academic portfolio, FDU will enroll more students in the programs in which we can best excel while providing greater opportunities for those students.
Although reducing programs is a difficult process, we believe it is essential to meet the long-term needs of our students and the University. My goal throughout these efforts has been to meet three objectives:
- Minimize any adverse impact on students;
- Minimize any adverse impact on faculty and staff; and
- Produce a sustainable business model that will provide resources and benefits for students and community members while enabling the institution to thrive.
I am pleased to say that we believe we have a path forward that will do that, but it will involve a reduction of a number of programs on the New Jersey campuses that are not well enrolled and not well aligned with the long-term educational vision for the University. Our path forward entails a sharpened focus on providing our students with the skills and knowledge they need for employment in critical high-demand professional sectors, such as healthcare.
The discontinuance of select academic programs will help better define the focus of the institution and provide more targeted resources for programs to grow and develop and for FDU to better support our students.
The process for making these decisions followed the protocol outlined in the Faculty Handbook. Faculty were consulted about the affected programs beginning in early December and provided an opportunity to make recommendations through the respective Educational Planning Committees. These recommendations were carefully considered by the administration, and many were incorporated into the final plan that was approved by the Board of Trustees. The next step will be to align our academic structure with the program offerings and to do that we have set up a committee with faculty leaders to make recommendations.
Coping with Difficult Changes
While we are excited about the future direction and possibilities for the University, we also need to acknowledge how difficult change can be, particularly for those who have long cherished certain programs. I cannot say how sorry I am that we will not be able to sustain all the programs we once did. These programs have profoundly inspired and enabled many students to achieve wonderful things. These programs have long had great value, and they remain valuable areas of study. We are not making judgments on the value of particular programs; however, we also must face the reality that we cannot offer so many programs and provide the quality that our students deserve.
Still, we must never lose sight of our history and our impact and the wonderful people who have made these programs possible. Their value has been beyond measure and we do not move forward without a heavy heart. But the case is clear today that institutions cannot be all things to all people. The world has changed and we need to keep pace or our institution itself will become impossible to sustain. We need to dedicate ourselves fully to a more specialized set of offerings and invest heavily in them to set us apart in a very crowded space.
We have taken as many measures as possible to reduce the number of people impacted by these changes. During this period, as we phase out some programs and begin some new ones, we will lean heavily on the values that have built this great institution; foremost among these is caring for each other and compassion toward each other. We will provide as much support as possible for all community members.
First, students will not be left behind. While we will cease enrolling new students in the discontinued programs effective immediately, we will take appropriate measures so that current students who are progressing in their studies receive the support and opportunity to complete their degrees.
We will continue to run our programs during a transition period. Programs selected for discontinuance will continue to run through a long transition period, currently planned as June 30, 2027, so we have ample opportunity to prepare for these changes. We also will establish teach-out programs as needed. Those who wish to transfer will receive our support. If you are an undergraduate student and have questions about what the discontinuance of a program means for you, please contact your academic advisor in the Center for Academic Advising and Student Success. If you are a graduate student, please contact the program advisor in your college or school.
For faculty, we will be offering a voluntary retirement option, and some will be able to take advantage of this, thereby reducing the overall number of faculty impacted. We also will look to redirect people when possible to other responsibilities (we envision that the number of full-time faculty who will be directly impacted through reassignment or retraining will be relatively small and reductions will be primarily among lecturers and adjuncts).
We know you might have important questions, so we have created a website with key points, FAQs and the list of discontinued and impacted programs.
We understand the magnitude of this change and the passion so many have for this institution. As a former FDU student, I share in the passion and the love for this institution and that is why I know we need to act now. And this opportunity is an incredible one to help us achieve a new level of excellence and a leadership role in higher education, a new more defined purpose in addressing societal needs and a new, even more transformative role in the lives of the students we touch.
I thank you for your understanding and your support during this time of change and I am committed to continuing to work with the University community to build a greater future for our institution and help our students transform their lives.
Michael J. Avaltroni, Ph.D.
President