UW President Nichols visits with county residents

Tuesday morning at the Hot Springs County Museum, University of Wyoming President Laurie Nichols visited with residents of Thermopolis and Hot Springs County.

Nichols, who began her duties as the UW president on May 16, 2016, noted starting that month would allow her the opportunity to travel to all of the communities within her first year.

Nichols noted she is still fairly new to the state, having only been here not quite a year, and the visits are, in part, to better understand the makeup of the state and relate to the communities when people speak about them.

"I'd say, beyond that," Nichols said, "as a land-grant university our mission is outreach. It's a major part of what we do, and we really take seriously that we are the university for the state. This really should be part of what we do on an ongoing basis and I very much plan to do that."

While the University of Wyoming is here via Extension, Nichols said they would love to be in the community in even a broader way. A message she heard loud and clear from the people is how important Extension is to the town and county and how well a job they do.

"We're delighted to hear it, and the support will continue there," Nichols said, adding how important Extension is in terms of personal development and as a recruitment tool for the university. Extension, Nichols said, can be prospective students' local contact for more information on the university.

During her discussions with people Tuesday morning, Nichols found the biggest concern seems to be the university's Outreach School being eliminated.

"They're worried about it because they think that means Outreach is gone. I want to assure everyone that Outreach is not gone, but we are doing some restructuring and reorganization on campus, so that college we called Outreach is really being distributed across the whole university."

Part of the reason for that restructuring, she explained is budget-related, as they have looked at how to become a leaner, more efficient university and take out some of the bureaucracy on campus, as well as layers of administration, to get some functions right into academics and departments.

Overall regarding the budget, Nichols explained the university will eliminate its block grant by $42 million in the biennium. "We are just about done with the first year of the biennium, which is fiscal year 2017, and in this biennium we eliminated $19 million. Now we're gearing up to be prepared to start fiscal year 2018 - which will start July 1 - and in that biennium we'll be reducing another $10 million."

Because a university's budget is so heavy on personnel - UW's budget is about 80-85 percent people - Nichols said the only real way to reduce the budget to the extreme amount needed is to decrease the number of employees on payroll.

"I've had a lot of people say 'Can you cut your budget without cutting people?' and the answer really is, quite honestly, no. We would never be able to get there by not cutting positions." She further noted the budget has been reduced primarily using attrition, or not filling positions after they are vacated.

In fiscal year 2018, Nichols said, there would be some restructuring, including the Outreach School, and some positions could be eliminated. "We're not talking massive numbers of people here," she said, and the cuts could only be a few dozen.

Nichols further explained in fiscal year 2017 there was only a few weeks to complete the budget cut "so we just had to grab anything we could find in terms of vacancies and, quite honestly, if there was available funding that wasn't being deployed we had to grab it and try to use is as part of our budget cut." For fiscal year 2018, she said, they've had an entire year to work on it and plan it, and it's a much more structured approach.

As work has been done on budget reductions, Nichols said they've tried to stay true to the school's mission of providing an outstanding undergraduate and graduate education to students. "In almost everything we have cut or looked at doing, our first question is 'How will this impact students?' If it's going to have a large impact, we have tended to not do it. We have really backed away because it would impede our ability to fulfill our mission."

As for morale on campus due to budget cuts, Nichols said last summer, when word of the actual cut and the magnitude was getting out, there was a lot of shock and anger, as well as misinformation. Now, 10-11 months later people are getting to know her and there's been time to roll out a plan, which has helped calm things down a bit.

A message Nichols heard loud and clear Tuesday is that Thermopolis wants to be engaged with, and have a close connection with, the university. She emphasized it is important to keep that "pipeline" wide open with the people and programs available to come out here. Among the programs the university has brought are the vertical dancers and the ballet performance of "Dracula: the Legend in Motion." University faculty members have also come out to work alongside teachers here.

Nichols was also asked about the university's tourism and natural resources degree. She said there has not been final approval of the degree, but they are working on it and hope to have the program active by fall of 2018.

The university is also working on a five-year plan, Nichols said, with a draft out currently and a final planned for July 1. She noted it's pretty high-level as a plan for the whole university, and colleges will develop their own, specific plans to help meet the university goals. She hopes the staff will feel encouraged and excited to have it in place.

University of Wyoming is also working hard on enrollment. Nichols said the past two years have seen a decline and she hopes to turn that around. She further explained they will address enrollment in three ways - increased retention of current students, making sure transfer students have a good experience and working with high school freshmen to get them interested in and going to college.

Nichols was born and raised in South Dakota, and likened the state to Wyoming with both being very agriculturally based. She received her bachelor's degree in education from South Dakota State University in 1978, and went on to earn a master's in vocational and adult education from Colorado State University in 1984 and a Ph.D. in family and consumer sciences education from Ohio State University in 1988.

As for her career in education, Nichols began as a member of the University of Idaho faculty from 1988 to 1994. She then became the Dean of the SDSU College of Education and Human Sciences from 1994 to 2008. From August 2008 through June 2009, she served as interim president of Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and then returned to SDSU to become Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs from 2009 to 2016.