By Frank Stirk

TRINITY WESTERN University president Jonathan Raymond believes there "really is a very bright tomorrow for the university" -- despite the very serious challenges it faces today.

In his annual state of the university address in April, Raymond noted that in survey after survey, TWU in Langley is consistently seen as one of the best postsecondary liberal arts institutions in Canada. (In a Maclean's survey earlier this year, it was ranked first in one category and among the top five in eight of 11 other categories.) And yet he starkly described its health as "not well," "in crisis" and "chronic and potentially fatal."

"I am not exaggerating nor speaking in hyperbole tonight," Raymond told the university's major donors. "Gradually escalated debt, significant year-to-year losses of enrolment, and a very small endowment together increase our vulnerability and threaten our future."

Even so, Raymond now admits that "fatal" was perhaps the wrong word to use. "In hindsight, I might've toned that down a little bit," he says. "Yes, we're very challenged. If we did nothing, the crisis could end up being fatal for the university. But we are on top of a plan that we are confident [will move] us to a preferred and sustainable future."

Raymond, who began his presidency three years ago next month, credits an administrative restructuring with reversing declines in both the student population and the university's donor base.

"Frankly, if the decline had continued, we would be really in deep trouble," he says, noting that 85 per cent of the university's revenues is derived from tuition fees and the rest from private donations. "But for the last two years, we've turned our first-year enrolment up. We . . . have gotten our key donors to start opening up their networks to other donors and we've more than tripled our fundraising in the last three years."

Yet serious threats to TWU's wellbeing remain -- problems that the global financial crisis has only made worse. Due to a strengthening Canadian dollar and a struggling U.S. economy, there are now 600 fewer full-time American students on campus than was the case four years ago, and its small endowment fund is now about 30 per cent smaller. That means less money available for student scholarships.

The result has been a new strategic plan, or what Raymond calls a "redesign," aimed at saving $3.65 million over the next two years. That includes cutting 54 full-time positions, a reduction in compensation to senior administrators, a hiring freeze, debt restructuring and the elimination or merger of certain academic programs.

Raymond wants the savings used to help offset the cost of a Trinity Western education. "We have tripled financial aid since I got here," he says. "Our sticker price has us pitched really as the most expensive university in Canada, because we are independent of public funds and we are very clear about our identity as a Christian university."

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At the same time, TWU is pursuing new revenue streams. These include new initiatives involving marketing and alumni relations, a new school of nursing to help meet the chronic shortage of nurses in B.C., an urban campus in Richmond set to open in 2012, and a two-year program for adults over 25 wishing to finally complete their university degrees on a part-time basis.

"We're trying to be very transparent with our donors," says Raymond. "And I can't tell you how much they are appreciating the transparency. . . . I'm getting messages that there's a growing confidence out in our donor community that we are on top of the tough problems."

Other Christian campuses, by comparison, appear to be doing better at weathering the economic storm. One reason for that, says Justin Cooper, president of Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, and chair of the board of Christian Higher Education Canada, is that "most of the rest of us don't depend on U.S. students that much. I think Trinity Western's situation is fairly unique. . . We're all praying for them."

"We're not experiencing that sense of crisis here," says Harry Fernhout, president of the The King's University College in Edmonton. "I would describe it as an atmosphere of financial caution and concern, but not crisis."

Yet Fernhout is all too familiar with what Trinity Western is going through. "We had that situation three years ago," he says. "We saw an enrolment drop of about 50 students. And then we had to do some backtracking on salary commitments and that sort of thing. It was a very uncomfortable experience. But we don't have that on the agenda at the moment."

Like TWU, Vancouver's Regent College also has a large contingent of American students. But unlike TWU, "Regent has no debt and always balances the budget," says president Rod Wilson.

"We're not panicking," he says. "We're trying to do our due diligence on a regular basis and sort of watch the trends and realize we really don't know what tomorrow's going to bring forth."

Wilson believes the real test will come this fall, as universities -- Christian or not -- learn what their enrolments will be for the new academic year.

"We're trying to do what everybody else does and say to the U.S. students that it is more reasonable to come to Canada because of the nature of the dollar," he says. "But the economic crisis in the U.S. is making loans and credit and a lot of other things suspect, so we don't know how that's going to translate in September as yet."

Compounding this uncertainty, Wilson adds, is the fact that many students who have been accepted decide at the last minute not to show up on the day of admissions.

"Here's how the indecision is showing up," says Cooper. "We are actually a little behind in our deposits at this point. Students . . . are just holding on to their money a little longer -- and that's what everyone's doing right now."

May 21/2009