Steering Committee Members and Focus Areas

As discussed at Spring Convocation and in other recent communications among the Webster University community, U.S. higher education faces significant challenges on several fronts, which pose budget strains on Webster.

These require bold actions and innovations to enable us to meet the challenges of market forces, changing demographics, and a dynamic policy context. 

The university community will need to strategize what’s next in meeting unmet needs at high levels of quality and at the same time generating revenue in line with costs.

Readings on U.S. Higher Education Landscape

With that in mind, to better understand the current landscape of U.S. higher education, community members were invited earlier this month to review a collection of articles and reports on the state of higher education. Community members can find links to these posted on the Faculty Development Center site. The articles have been shared with members of Webster’s Board of Trustees and they are useful to members of the steering committee and the broader community.

Steering Committee

To oversee the necessary reframing of our operations while maintaining the integrity of our educational mission, President Beth Stroble and Provost, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Julian Z. Schuster announced in December that a special steering committee would be formed of administrators, faculty, and staff to review all of the University’s functions.

As a reminder, the committee, the members of which were shared at Spring Convocation, have a three-fold charge:

1. recommend immediate and necessary budget adjustments for this fiscal year to address short-term constraints;
2. identify inefficiencies in our systems as ways to build a strong academic and administrative base for our future; and
3. review innovative ideas to construct a new academic business model which will continue to strengthen and diversify revenue streams for the University.

The members of the steering committee and the three focus areas appear below:

Steering Committee
Beth Stroble
Julian Schuster

Co-Chairs
Nancy Hellerud, Ana Karaman, Betsy Schmutz*
*until April 8, at which time Steven Winter will replace Betsy Schmutz

Committee Members
Maggie Laur
Rita Smith
Gary Renz
Maggie Dankert
Michael Cottam
Dani MacCartney
Eric Rothenbuhler
Remy Cross
Justin Bitner
Simone Cummings
Tony Wallner
Bill Lynch
Aaron AuBuchon
Merry Graf
Trezette Dixon
Tom Cornell
Johannes Pollak

Groups: (*Convener of each group)

Group 1 - Cost Management: Administrative and Operational Costs

• Hellerud, Karaman, Schmutz, Dankert, Smith, Renz, Cottam*, Wallner, Lynch, Graf, Dixon, Pollak

Group 2 - Operational and Academic Efficiencies: Instructional Costs and Resource Allocations

• Hellerud, Karaman, Schmutz, Rothenbuhler*, Smith, Laur, Cross, Bitner, MacCartney, Pollak

Group 3 - New Revenue Sources: Academic Programs, Grant Activity, Fundraising

• Hellerud, Karaman, Schmutz, Cummings, Rothenbuhler, Wallner*, Cottam, Renz, Cross, Laur, AuBuchon, Cornell