Some Temple faculty are questioning the university’s leaders as they prepare to hire a new president. Here’s what they’re saying.

Mohammad F. Kiani, a Temple University mechanical engineering professor, was adamant: Something needs to happen before the school hires its next president.

Kiani is one of three tenured professors who recently gave a presentation to Temple’s faculty senate, citing concerns about a 24% enrollment decline since 2017; a 30-percentage-point increase in the student acceptance rate since 2016, making the university far less selective than some peers; cuts and potential cuts to faculty; and the university’s overall leadership and direction as it prepares to hire the next president.

“This is an existential crisis,” said Kiani, who has been at Temple for about 20 years. “Temple is becoming a zombie. It is becoming a shell of itself.”

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The concerns come as Temple emerges from one of its greatest leadership crises, which culminated in the resignation of president Jason Wingard in March 2023 after less than two years on the job, and the sudden death of his acting replacement, JoAnne A. Epps.

Kiani, along with his colleagues, Steve Newman, associate professor of English, and Eric Borguet, professor of chemistry, said as Temple winnows its presidential candidates, administrators should make public the names of the finalists. That would give university constituents a chance to vet the person who could become Temple’s most pivotal leader in decades.

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“None of us wants bad press,” said Newman, former president of the faculty union, who added that more than 60 tenured professors have indicated their support of the concerns outlined by Newman and his colleagues. “What we all want most is to be able to be cheerleaders for Temple. But we can’t do that when we feel like the folks who are steering the ship don’t have a sense of the weather and don’t have a sense of what the crew is telling them.”

Top Temple University officials rejected the faculty members’ characterization, pointing to the university’s U.S. News ranking this year among the top 100 national universities, its highest ever. And while enrollment has been challenging, they said they have a robust plan for improvement. In fact, they said Temple received 39,680 applications this year, a record.

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“We think that’s really reflective of the tremendous number of efforts we’ve been making over the past year,” said Gregory N. Mandel, provost.

Temple officials said most of the decline in faculty has come through voluntary retirements or resignations necessary to adapt to the enrollment loss.

“The narrative that the university is doing significant layoffs of faculty is simply not true,” said Ken Kaiser, senior vice president and chief operating officer.

Mitchell Morgan, chairman of the trustees board, said the search committee, which he is on, decided against public interviews for presidential finalists.

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“We believe, based on advice from our professional search firm and input from candidates, it tends to dissuade the best prospects, who frequently hold current senior positions at other institutions and rely on confidentiality,” he said.

Here’s a look at some key issues raised by the professors.

In fall 2017, Temple hit a peak enrollment of 40,240. Since then, enrollment has fallen to 30,530. While other universities have experienced declines, Temple’s, faculty note, has been particularly sharp.

Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh, two of the state’s other four “state-related” universities, have fared much better. Pitt, with an enrollment of 33,771, is down 2.3% from 2017. Penn State fell 11% to 87,903, with the decline at the Commonwealth campuses; University Park — the main campus — grew.

“There’s no plan to really address the situation in terms of bringing enrollment back or deciding we are a 30,000-student university and this is how we are going to accommodate that,” Borguet said.

He acknowledged the university’s new Temple Promise program, which makes tuition and fees free for first-time, full-time college students from low-income families.

“But that’s not going to bring back 10,000 students,” he said.

Mandel said Temple is doing more than its Promise program. Its recruiters made 80% more visits to schools in the last year and prospective visits by admitted students to campus are up 70%. Temple also is introducing programming to lure more students in the future, including Saturday College for Philadelphia middle school students, he said.

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The university, he noted, had been in major growth mode before the decline, so much so that some wondered whether it was getting too big. That has made the decline more precipitous, he said.

Both Mandel and Kaiser believe Temple has been hit harder by enrollment declines than Pitt and Penn State because of safety concerns in its North Philadelphia neighborhood. (The university has pointed to a number of safety improvements and noted a decline in crime in its police patrol zone in 2023.)

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They also pointed to Temple’s Fly in Four program, which has increased the four-year graduation rate to 57% this year, from 48% in 2016; and the six-year graduation rate to 75%, from 70%, meaning fewer students stay longer, ultimately lowering enrollment.

“If you stripped those away, we’d be there with Penn State,” Kaiser said.

It’s not just the enrollment decline that worries the professors. In fall 2016, Temple admitted 17,295 applicants for its fall freshman class, just 52% of those who applied.

Seven years later, for fall 2023, the university admitted 30,571 — nearly 83% of those who applied.

“It used to be an institution that was competitive, more competitive in many ways than Penn State and Pitt,” Kiani said. “My friends were calling me, ‘Can you do something to get my children in?’”

Pitt’s acceptance rate is 49.7%, while Penn State’s acceptance rate at University Park is 55.2%.

Newman said Temple is enrolling students less prepared to do college work, which would be fine if it were offering the necessary support.

“That requires faculty hiring,” he said. “That requires academic adviser hiring. That requires thinking through the curriculum.”

The average grade-point average of freshmen was 3.56 in 2016, and 90% of freshmen came back for sophomore year. In fall 2023, the mean GPA was 3.38, and sophomore retention at 84%, according to university fact books.

Mandel argued that selectivity is just one factor to consider. He emphasized that providing access to a wider group of students who might not have an opportunity elsewhere and fostering their success are important measures, too, and Temple is succeeding there, based on its increased graduation rate, which contributed to its improved U.S. News ranking.

Jose Aviles, who became vice provost for enrollment management in May, said Temple plans to hire an assistant vice provost to focus on student success, specifically to make sure students are connected with services Temple already has.

“It’s our responsibility to get in front of these students before they realize they even need a resource,” he said.

While Mandel said Temple is not focused on lowering its acceptance rate, it would like to boost the percentage who enroll after acceptance — its so-called yield rate.

Nearly 30% of those admitted enrolled in 2016, compared with 12.4% last fall.

The professors also said Temple should be working harder to increase its share of international students, now at 6.5% of enrollment, lower than Penn State and Pitt. International students pay out-of-state tuition and diversify the campus, professors said.

“It’s a source of revenue,” Borguet said.

Aviles said freshmen international students are up this year and the school received 20% more international student applications this spring, among an overall boost in out-of-state applications.

The university last year cut about 20 non-tenure track professors. The cuts come as Temple adapts to the enrollment decline, which amounts to a $200 million annual revenue loss.

Temple had been facing a $90 million deficit in its $1.2 billion budget, but Kaiser recently said in an email to staff that much of it had been erased through the elimination of vacancies and use of onetime reserves. Central university support units would also be expected to cut 5% from their budgets for next year.

Professors are concerned more faculty will be targeted. Adjunct faculty members recently held demonstrations on campus over concerns about potential cuts for next year.

The university won’t decide until the summer the number of adjuncts for the fall, Mandel said.

Kiani also is worried about the loss of tenured professors to other universities.

“We are losing six or seven faculty in my department,” he said.

Mandel said Temple in 2023 employed 652 tenure and tenure-track faculty within TAUP, the union, down less than 10% from 2017. Non-tenure track faculty, which numbered 629 in 2023 are down about 8% over the same period, and adjuncts, at 906 in 2023, are down 13.3%.

The professors say numbers that the administration previously provided to the union show sharper declines and asserted that the headcount and expenses in central office, meanwhile, have risen.

A university spokesman said its faculty numbers were pulled from human resources and verified. And Kaiser contended that the numbers from Newman and his colleagues are distorted because insurance, benefits, debt services, utilities and other costs that have increased significantly in recent years fall within the central office.

Professors say that while these expenditures may feel insignificant in the scheme of a billion-dollar spending plan, they are indicative of questionable priorities. The items include $156,000 for a luxury box at the Eagles stadium; $31,000 for the Philadelphia 76ers, $8,832 for the Philadelphia Cricket Club, and $26,000 to the Union League.

Kaiser said the Eagles and 76ers venues are used for fundraising and the cultivation of high-level donors. The cricket club and Union League are used similarly, as well as for special university meetings, such as between the president and a city official.