-Anonymous
I was hired about the same time as the housing crash and ensuing recession of 2008–2009. I remember a meeting when Jack Gochenauer told us that the endowment had lost about 25% of its value during the crash. Manchester, like most schools, doesn’t have the endowment as a bucket of money in a savings account. It is invested to earn more interest. We spend the interest earned. In a downturn, not only do we earn no interest, we actually lost the value of the endowment.
As a relatively new employee, learning that there were essentially no endowment funds to support tuition to pay the bills was concerning. A lot of people wondered if Manchester would survive.
Here’s where I see the biggest difference between Manchester in 2008 and Manchester in 2019.
Directors and department chairs worked closely with Jack and spent only what was necessary. I do not remember across the board budget cuts, but it is possible I was unaware since I didn’t oversee a budget at that time. Most of the highest paid employees took a voluntary 10% pay cut. It would be years before they got back to the salaries they had in 2007.
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From what I remember, contributions to retirements stayed the same. Insurance premiums either stayed the same or raised a small amount. I think staff and faculty even continued to get modest annual raises. We did not eliminate people. We expanded the number of employees between 2008 and 2012. By the time we rebounded, staff and faculty had done hard work but everyone felt they contributed. It was collaborative and we had trust in our leadership.
In 2008 phrases like “infinite worth of every individual,” “persons of ability and conviction,” and “principled, productive, and compassionate lives” were not just words in the mission statement. They were ideas that were embodied by all employees, especially the administration.
In 2019, when it is unclear if we are in a financial crisis or not, it is hard to find examples of people who truly live the mission statement. Those words no longer seem to have any meaning.
In 2019, we are no longer collaborative. We are authoritarian. While some may claim this most recent process involved input of directors, that input was done through impersonal forms and emails. Face-to-face conversations did not happen until after decisions had already been made. And even now, nobody is taking responsibility for the decisions. Directors were told to give up names for sacrifice and then the administration proclaims they were only following the recommendations, recommendations that came “at gunpoint” or, in more honorable cases, people offering themselves as sacrifices.
Perhaps it is fitting that many of our students are at the age to have read the Hunger Game series. They see their staff and faculty offering themselves as tribute in our own Hunger Games.
