Purdue College of Engineering hosted a Staff Town Hall in the ARMS basement 10/13/26.
Dean Mark Lundstrom is an eloquent speaker, commands a crowd well, pivots gracefully, and I trust the guy to do his best within his ability.
Synopsis:
Dean Mark Lundstrom started off the event with a well-delivered speech about the state of higher education, Purdue Engineering's current status, and the uncertainty of higher education as a whole.
Nationally, as higher education faces an optics problem (no doubt because of this current administration), Purdue in general stands out from its peers. While other Big Ten universities are facing the population cliff (Millennials during the Great Recession didn't have many kids), Purdue is having more students apply to its College of Engineering. Purdue faced a 12% decrease in applications college-wide but had a 6% increase in students applying to the College of Engineering. The Dean mentioned how other Big Ten universities are facing financial struggles with the changes in research money allocation and declining student populations. He mentioned that the College of Engineering may be asked to accept more students to offload some of the financial pressure that the university is facing from dwindling applications in other colleges.
There was also a brief mention that Purdue has to figure out how to keep its standout faculty from being poached by other institutions.
At this point, there was a pivot to AI. The Dean discussed how AI can be a productivity tool. He gave a few examples, including the notorious professor who published roughly 200 papers last year. The Dean suggested that AI can make our lives more productive and discussed how we can use it to make our workflows more efficient.
This transitioned into a discussion about bureaucracy and what we (staff) can get rid of in our current jobs to make our lives easier. A significant portion of people mentioned "taking out the trash." This is in reference to the new change that was rolled out in early September, where staff and faculty are now responsible for taking out our own trash and placing it in a common receptacle to remove work from the custodial teams. Other subjects that staff members suggested getting rid of included performance reviews/goal setting/reviewing ourselves, excessive meetings, among other topics.
These suggestions were projected behind the Dean as the suggestions were being read. The Dean again suggested using AI as a tool to make our lives easier before the audience was asked to make suggestions. The audience took the comment about AI and ran with it. Ethics of AI were brought up, as well as FERPA (student data privacy) concerns. The comment section projected behind the Dean was flooded with anti-AI comments. Concerns were brought up about AI ethics, the environment, and increased workload when AI is forced to be integrated before it's useful.
The next question was brought up. The Dean asked for 1 or 2 words that describe what is making our lives harder as staff. These submissions were put into a live updated word cloud still projected behind the Dean. The most popular words were: pay, low salary, workload, understaffed, burnout, frozen tuition, professional development (which monetary funding is now no longer available to staff), undervalued, and underappreciated. These were the standout answers. My personal favorite suggestion was "menopause."
The facilitator then asked for audience questions. Over 5 comments in the chat and one comment asked live were about academic advisor salaries. It was mentioned that the advisors are paid $46K, are required to have a master's degree, have high student caseloads, as well as other administrative tasks. The question was redirected to the Director of Advising in the College of Engineering, where blame was placed on University Undergraduate Academic Advising (UUAA) for mandating the $46K salary. It was mentioned that UUAA reviews salary increases in other schools and makes recommendations based on that information. IU advisors are paid $50K.
Live and chat comments were not read past that. The meeting was ended (as gracefully as they could have).
TLDR: No money in higher education. Do more with less. No raise for you.
General Takeaways:
I don't think that Purdue is different from its Big Ten peers. If we're being asked to take out our own trash, we have money problems. If Custodial isn't able to hire more people (at $15 an hour) I wonder why, and they're removing some of Custodial's responsibilities, then it means that making us take out our trash is a logical consequence. Either Custodial pays its employees more or figures out how to do the most with the few employees it does have.
This town hall is about the same concept. We as staff were asked to think about what we can do to make our lives simpler. It means we're not getting raises, and they're not hiring more people to even out the extra administrative load we've taken on. Admin is trying to figure out how to get the 'chumps' who aren't quitting to be able to do their jobs with less. Everyone else who's jumped ship has made the right choice. They read the tea leaves, know we're not going to be paid a living wage, and have moved on to somewhere else that will pay them enough.
We are being placated. Frogs in a slow to boil pot.
Also: Faculty still get lunches provided despite staff not having any form of professional development. I get it. I'm not important. I know my place, but also, rude.