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User:Novellasyes/sandbox/Information about faculty layoffs and enrollment declines

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This is a sandbox page to work out how best, and if, to incorporate information about enrollment declines, budget cuts, revenue declines and faculty and staff layoffs into articles about colleges and universities.

Here are issues to think through (if we hypothetically assume for the purposes of this exercise that the information generally speaking ought to go in the articles and that the information is reliably sourced):

  • Where in the article should it go? (Section/subsection)
  • If in a section of a type that does not currently exist, what should the section/subsection be called?
  • What are some examples of how to write out a relatively standard few sentences or a paragraph that lists the relevant information? And what is the relevant information that ought to be captured?

Where in the article should it go?

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Articles about academic institutions either already have sections that discuss enrollment, the budget, and the numerical size of the faculty, or they don't. If the article already has a section that goes into those pieces of information about the school, that seems like clearly the right place to situate this type of information.

The information to provide

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Arguably, these bits of information would ideally be captured in the WP article but this depends to some extent on what the local/state newspapers covering the situation did or did not inquire into in their reporting.

  • Has enrollment declined and if so, by how much and when did this happen ("starting with the fall semester of ___"). Ideally, we would also have the context of what the average enrollment was prior to the cuts for a period of at least several years.
  • Have revenues fallen and if so by how much, and when
  • Since revenues can fall, but the annual operating budget can stay the same (if there's an endowment), if anticipated expenses in a coming semester or year are being cut, what is the size of the cut, when does it take effect and what exactly is the academic institution saying is the reason for the cut
  • Will faculty be laid off? How many? How does that compare to what the size of the faculty was before the layoff? Is the academic institution providing any kind of a statement about how long they think this will go on for? (For example, they might say they expect a recovery in three years.)
  • Will other staff -- any other kind of worker at the academic institution -- be laid off? How many and what % is that?
  • Will any departments be eliminated in toto?
  • Who announced it (name and job title) [but over time, this recedes in importance]
  • When they announced it [ditto]
  • Audience to whom they announced it [ditto]

Examples of how to state the relevant information

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