University of Detroit - Tower Yearbook (Detroit, MI)

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For U of D to have taken the step of cutting back its own staff, including the elimination of four Vice-Presidents, took courage and its success in these efforts is reassuring. But as the originators of the Financial Improvement Program will readily admit, it was only a stopgap measure. U of D’s real crisis wasn’t fiscal, it was educational, and it remains so. The financial pinch was only a symptom of a disease caused by an academic product which isn’t as attractive or valuable to the customers as it should be. Now that the University’s budget has been trimmed, an aca- demic re-evaluation has become doubly important if U of D con- tinues without upgrading its product and another fiscal crisis develops, there won't be anything left to cut next time. If the recent experience of other U. S. colleges and universities are any measure, next time will be coming soon. Should another crisis come, it will probably be because U of D never really capitalized on its as- sets — the very real advantages inherent in a moderate-size urban private college. It has the opportunity to develop an inno- vative, unique approach to edu- cation that a state-supported school, carrying the burden of a cumbersome, politically-moti- vated bureaucracy, could never implement. U of D is still small enough to be efficiently con- trolled. Yet, it is large enough to make its ideas matter, and to muster the resources to make them successful. Its urban setting © guarantees it a constant reminder of the situation it is ultimately trying to deal with, as well as the