Western Illinois University Quad Cities Riverfront Campus in Moline is home to a new and evolving WIU-QC Innovation Center. CREDIT TODD WELVAERT
Just months after Kristi Mindrup took over as interim president of Western Illinois University in April 2024 leaders learned of a yawning budget hole due in part to the ongoing decline in enrollment at its Quad Cities and Macomb campuses. Ten months later and after deep cuts that included laying off 89 faculty and staff […]
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Just months after Kristi Mindrup took over as interim president of Western Illinois University in April 2024 leaders learned of a yawning budget hole due in part to the ongoing decline in enrollment at its Quad Cities and Macomb campuses.Ten months later and after deep cuts that included laying off 89 faculty and staff members, the university is in the black and its now President Mindrup and the WIU Board of Trustees are working to reimagine the institution. A pivotal part of that will come through the ongoing development of the new Western Illinois University Quad Cities Center for Innovation, Ms. Mindrup told the QCBJ editorial board late last month. Ms. Mindrup is well positioned to spearhead that evolution as the 13th president and the first woman and WIU graduate to lead the 125-year-old university. A Moline native, she began her career answering phones as a student at WIU’s Quad Cities satellite location then located in the former IBM Building in Moline. She has filled graduating roles, including as vice president of operations for the WIU Quad Cities Riverfront Campus in Moline she helped create. In April 2024, she was elevated to interim president of WIU following the departure of then President Guiyou Huang. She was made permanent president by the WIU board on Dec. 6, 2024.When Ms. Mindrup took on the top job she discovered “a mix of both great opportunities for our institution but also serious concerns affected by the national landscape for higher education,” she told the QCBJ.“All across the United States there are so many colleges and universities that are undergoing this shift because there are fewer students to recruit,” she added. That has been exacerbated for WIU and other underfunded institutions that now are competing for the same students against wealthier counterparts also seeking to deal with an enrollment cliff caused by declining U.S. birth rates.That’s not WIU’s only challenge. “Our biggest competitor at this point is the narrative that there is no value in a college degree,” Ms. Mindrup said. “So students who choose not to pursue a four-year degree that would have previously, that’s a loss-area for higher education, too, that we need to work on.”
Enrollment by numbers
Because of that and other challenges, enrollment on both WIU campuses combined fell from 6,994 five years ago to 5,760 this year. The latter figure is a little more than half the 11,094 combined enrollment reported by WIU in Fall 2015.The impact on the public university’s bottom line is significant.“Last summer we discovered there was a $22 million deficit; and so we also recognized that there were some ebbs and flows with cash flow that would prove challenging,” Ms. Mindrup told the QCBJ. “Our first challenge was that we were projected to run out of cash on Aug. 28 of last fall. We did not do that. We made it through.”Today, she added “I’m optimistic that we’re going to make it but that doesn’t come without continuing to look at opportunities, both to address our own issues, but also to look outside of the institution for the support we need to not just address our cash flow but to reinvest in different areas of growth for the institution.”Among proponents of WIU’s efforts is the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce. “I’ve had the pleasure of serving on the Western Illinois University — Quad Cities Planning Committee,” Brian Irby, the chamber’s chief operating officer, told the QCBJ. “We’ve helped guide the direction of this important public university in our region. The Quad Cities Chamber has long advocated for a thriving WIU-QC campus and we will continue to collaborate with the university.” WIU’s goal in such collaborative efforts, Ms. Mindrup said, is “to right-shape and right-size” the institution to meet the “needs of the student population that we have now versus the student population that we had 10 years ago.”It starts with a plan. “You can’t wish for higher enrollment when there is a population decline happening at the same time,” she said. “If you continue just as an institution to wish that your enrollment was higher as a budget strategy, you’re not going to be in a very good position should the trend continue.”
Career path essential
Going forward that means ensuring “first and foremost we have the right programs that students are looking for, and are reshaping the institution where some of our existing strengths and high demand programs are,” she said. It’s also critical that its programs have “a definitive career path for students.”For example, Ms. Mindrup said, “Western Illinois University was founded to meet the needs of teacher education in the west-central Illinois region so we continue to do that and we will continue to innovate with those programs both to continue their success and also to ensure that they’re shaped in a way that they continue to be competitive with other institutions.”Other major areas of investment include expanding health care opportunities, and supporting WIU’s engineering and manufacturing program at WIU-QC.At the same time, the university will evaluate underperforming programs that “may have hit their peak.” Ms. Mindrup added, “There may be ways to reinvent them or engage in strategic partnerships that better connect them to our region.” For example, some programs may be offered only online or by providing opportunities for students to attend classes they need at Macomb campus. Ultimately, it could also mean “there are going to be some things that we don’t do anymore, and so there are going to be some programs that we’ll see students through to the end but some that don’t make sense across the institution,” she added.Going forward, financial stability will continue to be “a huge piece of our plan,” Ms. Mindrup stressed. One of WIU’s challenges continues to be inadequate state funding. And while the university has “greater support over the past couple of years than we have had over the past 10 years,” she said it’s still well short of meeting the needs of WIU’s student population.Efforts to change that include the work by Illinois higher-ed leaders seeking to create a needs-based funding formula for higher education similar to the one approved in 2017 for Illinois K-12 schools. But the chances for approval in the near term by an Illinois General Assembly that took decades to embrace K-12 changes are uncertain. “I’m hopeful that there will be movement,” said Illinois state Sen. Mike Halpin, D-Rock Island. “Hope isn’t a plan, but I intend to work on the issue as much as I can,” the chairman of the Senate Education Appropriations Committee added.Zach Messersmith, WIU’s director of government relations and communications, previously worked on the K-12 evidence-based formula campaign in Springfield. He told the QCBJ “the success in closing those equity gaps that K-12 has seen is 100% a model for higher ed and the direction they should head.”
Focusing on its strengths
As higher education awaits the outcome of that campaign, Ms. Mindrup said WIU is focused on the strengths on which it can build now. That includes, “so many wonderful partnerships for student interns and experiential learning opportunities. And, of course, also our alumni are scattered all over the map and in particular, specific to the Quad Cities, so many of our alumni are here in this area.”WIU also is working to cast a wider net for students. That includes strengthening and maintaining partnerships with the region’s Black Hawk College and Eastern Iowa Community Colleges and refreshing partnerships with Spoon River College and John Wood College in Macomb, Canton and Springfield, Illinois.“By doing this work now to right-size and right-shape the institution, we are on a better path to be able to reposition ourselves and compete by strengthening what we do already and also through the innovation that we’re looking at expanding across the university,” Ms. Mindrup said.WIU’s president also made it clear to Quad Cities leaders that the Quad Cities campus “is here to stay.” In fact, she said, “I think that we have this opportunity right now to reenvision what the campus is as it relates to innovation in the community and we’re taking advantage of that timing to be able to make those decisions.”Going forward, WIU’s goal will be to “find a need, fill a need,” and she urged the business community to join in exploring “how we can work together in new ways.”That includes, Ms. Mindrup said, “expanding on anything that we’ve done in the past, We want to work together to ensure that our degree programs — Macomb campus, too — are aligned with current trends in business and manufacturing. Let’s continue to innovate, for what we want to create together.”
At a glance
Kristi Mindrup resumeVice president of campus operations at the WIU Quad Cities Riverfront campus that she helped to plan and build; Feb. 1, 2022, to April 2024.Appointed interim president of WIU on April 1, 2024.Named permanent president by the WIU Board of Trustees on Dec. 6, 2024. 28 years of experience in higher education focusing on organizational leadership, strategic planning, academic affairs and student services program and partnership development, inclusive campus environments, and campus operations.Member of the Council for Advancements in Higher Education, serving as functional expert for the transformation of the national assessment standards for Post-traditional and Commuter Student Programs. President of the Illinois Association for Institutional Research.Education, Ph.D. from University of Iowa, master’s degree from Western Illinois University, and two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls.Taught in classrooms in the College Student Personnel program at WIU, and as an adjunct instructor with Eastern Iowa Community Colleges.Source: Western Illinois University
