University president presented amended provisional plan with $10 million in cuts to SOU Trustees at special meeting Wednesday; another special meeting set for Tuesday
By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news
The Southern Oregon University Board of Trustees is expected to vote Tuesday, Sept. 2, on an amended provisional plan to cut nearly $10 million from the university’s budget as presented Wednesday by SOU President Rick Bailey during a special virtual session of the board. The plan, which would take effect over the next four years, includes changes to a list of majors and minors the university will continue to offer that was presented at a school town hall on Aug. 1.
“From the time that the original plan was posted to what we are now seeing today, there have been significant changes,” said Sheila Clough, chair of the SOU Board of Trustees.
The amended provisional plan cuts $9,880,335 over the next four years, with more than $5 million cut this year alone from the $66 million budget. The amended provisional plan would cut 67 positions, including 28 faculty, 25 unclassified and 14 classified employees.
In comparison, the SOU Forward plan adopted in 2023 cut more than 80 employees.
The total estimated cuts, subject to change, include $1.3 million from the College of Arts & Humanities, $1.1 million from the College of Natural and Social Sciences and more than $1 million from Athletics. The amended plan shared by Bailey includes tentative plans to keep the following seven majors at SOU that were initially planned to be cut:
- Outdoor Adventure Leadership
- Ecology & Conservation
- Economics
- Human Service
- Emerging Media & Digital Arts (EMDA)
- Creative Writing
- Healthcare Administration
The list of minors in the amended provisional plan includes potentially keeping the following four minors:
- Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies
- Native American Studies
- Chemistry
- Mathematics
The amended provisional plan could potentially cut the following majors:
- Management
- Sustainable Tourism Management
- Financial Mathematics
- Chemistry
- Mathematics – Computer Science
- Mathematics
- Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
- Power and Politics
- International Studies
- Media Innovation
- Spanish
Under the amended plan, the SOU Honors College would become an Honors Program, significantly reducing its staff support.
Bailey emphasized the university aims to minimize the impacts on employees, including eliminating as many positions through retirement as possible. He noted all of the cuts are personal, and represent not just numbers but people.
“There still are a lot of people whose positions are being eliminated and who don’t want to leave our team and that’s terrible,” Bailey said.
“At the end of this, we are a smaller SOU,” he added.
“There’s no part of the institution that hasn’t been touched by this and all of that came at significant cost.”
“We recognize … that a $5 million, one-time current year fix would not come close to solving the structural challenges that we face as an institution.”
Since Aug. 1, SOU has received over 1,000 emails, Bailey said.
“We’ve had dozens of conversations,” he said. “We’ve also had a couple of dozen proposals.
“This isn’t the final plan,” he added. “Nothing is official until the board takes this vote and considers this next Tuesday.”
Bailey shared with at least 200 virtual attendees Wednesday that he can’t promise that the current proposal to cut nearly $10 million from the budget over the next few years, starting with $5 million this year, won’t mean there won’t be more cuts down the road.
“This plan, just like SOU Forward, it’s not a panacea,” Bailey said. “It doesn’t mean that it’s going to fix everything, but I can tell you that adopting this transformation is going to put us in a more focused, more responsive, more resilient place. And the cost of doing nothing is pretty grave.
“With the changes coming from the federal government, we’re not going to be funded to be as comprehensive as we once were,” he added. “We can be more focused and responsive to what our region needs economically, to what our workforce needs economically and the state.”
Since June 20, SOU implemented a modified hiring freeze, only hiring for positions deemed “absolutely necessary” to the university, according to Bailey.
“We’ve done a rigorous check on services and supply budgets,” he said. “I will say that work is continuing.
“We’re really looking at … a review of all of our financial policies.
“We have to be the architects of the future that we want, and that means making impossible and complicated and painful decisions.”
The university declared financial exigency — a financial term allowing modifications to contracts — this summer, calling for $5 million cuts to this year’s budget alone, and a total $9.8 million in cuts over the course of the next few years.
He emphasized that exigency is not a sign of bankruptcy or closure of the university.
“It is a mechanism within the contract with the faculty union that allows us the ability to transform and that’s the environment that we are in right now,” Bailey said.
He emphasized that however the final plan looks, nobody will be happy with it due to the significant nature of the cuts.
“This whole process has been so soul-crushing for so many of us,” he said.
“All of us have been in the trenches trying to figure this out. But I do need to caution us … the environment we’re operating in is unprecedented. And so, it will be institutions that look at that head-on with an open mind and an open heart and a sobering look at what reality dictates that are going to be in the best position to thrive long term and we have to be one of those institutions that does that.”
Bailey emphasized that throughout his time at SOU — he started in January 2022 — there has been continual financial turmoil.
“I look back on three and a half years here … it’s almost been a state of constant crisis the entire time,” Bailey said candidly. “We keep having these conversations, how do we weather the crisis and then how do we heal after it and it’s cyclical.
“As challenging as it is, I’m so much looking forward to a transformation that can help us get out of the cycle,” he added. “A cycle that, by the way, I very mistakenly thought that SOU Forward would help us escape, and yet the winds of change around us have kind of put us in this spot and we can’t say for certain that those winds aren’t going to become more severe down the road.
“We have to become more resilient as an institution in order to keep the institution healthy down the road,” he added. “But healing’s got to be a part of that.”
Bailey lamented that Oregon ranks 46th out of the 50 states in support for public universities. He also anticipates uncertainty at the federal level, including the potential dissolution of the U.S. Department of Education.
“That affects student behavior, we have to be wide-eyed about that,” he said.
Bailey noted that SOU anticipates a 7% reduction in its credit hours this fall. A 5% reduction in credit hours is anticipated for fall 2026.
In the last 10 years at SOU, Bailey said the institution has gone from approximately 180,000 annual “revenue-generating” student credit hours to 120,000.
“We have to understand that we are a smaller institution,” Bailey said.
“And then we have rising costs,” he added. “That’s just a reality of the enterprise that we’re in.”
On Wednesday, state economist Carl Riccadonna came out with the state revenue forecast, estimating the state is now $845 million down from where it predicted it would be just a few months ago.
“That’s the environment and it’s changing daily so we need to be very sober about how we approach this work,” Bailey said.
SOU Trustee Barry Thalden asked whether Bailey was cutting too much from the university’s budget.
Thalden shared that it seems “unnecessary” and “counterproductive” to cut the budget by $10 million, when the board initially voted for $5 million in cuts in June.
“I’m concerned that we’re shooting too low and as a result, we’re cutting the budget too short,” Thalden said. “I believe it’s unnecessary to have a plan that proposes $10 million in cuts to solve a $3 million problem.”
Bailey responded that so many factors have changed in higher education around the state since the board’s initial approval of proposed cuts on June 20.
“I’m an optimistic person, I am not trying to give us ‘sky is falling,’ and yet, as the chief executive officer, I also understand the role that we want the institution to be here 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 100 years from now,” Bailey said.
“The end of the Legislative session happened in ways that were far more sobering than we thought,” he added. “We’ve had two revenue forecasts that have been so stark.
“I don’t think we’ve even figured out the effect we’re going to see from the federal government.”
“I fear if that’s all we did was give you a $3 (million) to $5 million plan, I’m pretty convinced that we’ll be back at this declaring exigency again sooner rather than later.”
Bailey emphasized that the cuts proposed at every level have been emotional for all involved.
“There have been tears shed every day since we started this process,” Bailey said.
“It has been so emotionally wrought the entire time,” he added.
“None of this has been taken without a lot of very, very heavy emotional investment.
“We’ve looked at every single version of this with heavy hearts and a love for the institution,” he added.
Clough, the board chair, shared Bailey’s sentiments and added that what keeps her focused is looking long term for the university.
“Nobody wants to make any of these decisions,” Clough said.
“We have to do what we can for the greater good because we need to be here for … our current students and our future students,” Clough added.
Clough also noted that SOU is among many colleges nationwide currently navigating rough financial waters.
“We are not alone,” Clough said. “Colleges our size across the country have been and continue to deal with some of the same challenges fiscally.”
No actions were taken at the Wednesday board session. The next board meeting is scheduled to take place virtually from 5 to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 2. To learn more about the meeting, go online to governance.sou.edu.
This is the first of two stories about the virtual board meeting held Wednesday, Aug. 27. Look for the second story on Ashland.news and in the Saturday, Aug. 30, e-newsletter.
Reach Ashland.news reporter Holly Dillemuth at [email protected].
SOU President: ‘Today we are declaring exigency,’ ‘building’ to a $60 million university, 15% off current budget (Aug. 2, 2025)
SOU trustees praise Bailey’s leadership during turbulent times at SOU, cut his pay $53K at his request (July 30, 2025)
SOU braces for $6 million in cuts: special trustee meeting Wednesday, ‘campus conversation’ Friday (July 28, 2025)
SOU President: ‘We can’t continue to cut our way to some type of success’ (June 24, 2025)
SOU President Bailey says ‘stark’ financial woes facing Oregon universities in 2025-26 constitute a ‘crisis’ (June 8, 2025)
Oregon’s economic outlook clouded by tariffs and federal spending cuts – OPB (May 15, 2025)
Federal issue, local impact: Stalled student loan application decisions ding SOU enrollment (Sept. 8, 2024)
‘This is a bittersweet day’: Trustees approve ‘SOU Forward’ plan for realignment – Ashland News (April 21, 2023)
SOU realignment plan up for adoption by Board of Trustees on Friday afternoon (April 20, 2023)
