Bluffton University steers through changes

BLUFFTON — In the space of a few days last week, Bluffton University hired a new acting interim president after its former president resigned and saw its planned merger with University of Findlay fall through, by a UF Board of Trustees vote. Changes have been swift and more may be in store, but in spite of that, the university is optimistic about the future, said Claire Kleman, interim vice president for advancement and enrollment management at Bluffton. "Change has feelings around it, but it also provides opportunities that you wouldn't get if you didn't have to experience the change that's happening to you," Kleman said. "Bluffton is stable and has a good history and heritage, but we're going to have to change, all institutions are going to have to change in the landscape of higher education right now. "What those changes are we don't know yet, but I think with the support of our faculty, staff, our students, our alumni, our donors, parents and the Bluffton village, we can make positive change. We can continue to do the work of Bluffton's mission to educate students of all backgrounds for the purposes of God's universal kingdom. That is what's at the center and core of all the work that we do every day and merger or not, that remains true." President switch Bluffton announced Jane Wood's resignation last Wednesday in tandem with its announcement of J. Alexander Sider as new acting interim president. "I wish Dr. Sider and Bluffton University all the best," Wood said when asked about her resignation this week. Kleman and Sider said they did not have any more information about Wood's reason for resignation or any future plans. Sider said though the university was not expecting Wood's resignation, it is ensuring stability and remaining dedicated to its mission. "Open and transparent communication, so far as it's in our ability to give it — we have a lot of unanswered questions just like everybody else does," Sider said. "Number one is being honest about the questions that remain to be answered; of course it is also what we're trying to do here. We need to help our community recognize that the transition in leadership and the decision not to go forward with the merger does create a lot of possibility for change. We need to be thoughtful, we need to be deliberate, we need to engage as wide a constituency, both internally and externally as we can on all our critical decisions. We need to work hard as an executive leadership team and provide stability, trust, hope and compassion for all our people on campus and our community of alumni and constituents worldwide." Sider has held multiple roles at Bluffton U., as professor of religion, director of peace and conflict studies, vice president of academic affairs and as academic dean. Sider's dedication to the university made him a good candidate for the interim role, Kleman said. "Dr. Sider has been at Bluffton for nearly 20 years," said Kleman. "Chairperson Cheryl Hacker of the board of trustees wanted to ensure that after President Wood resigned, we needed someone who knew Bluffton, knew its history, knew its heritage, and was able to lead us through this kind of wind of turbulent change. He has now been named interim president. While the board works through what our executive leadership looks like at Bluffton, and our more long-term future, we do have President Sider here as interim president working to help us go through our strategic planning and looking at what Bluffton's strategic future looks like going forward." The university will soon be in the process of searching for a new permanent president. "We are only beginning that discussion," said Sider. "Often those kinds of searches are searches that are conducted over the course of the year, sometimes even slightly longer than that. That's a conversation that our university board will be beginning to have here, I assume relatively soon." Merger stopped Though Wood's resignation was announced almost in step with the announcement of the merger's failure, Kleman and Sider said they have no reason to believe there is a direct correlation between the two events. "We are not sure, we are unaware of any connection between the merger ending and President Wood's decision to resign," said Sider. Last Thursday, the University of Findlay Board of Trustees voted to not proceed with the joint application to the Higher Learning Commission for merger approval and to terminate a memorandum of understanding signed on March 19, 2024, after about a year of collaborative work and planning between the universities. However, Kleman said, Bluffton University has always been prepared for the possibility. "The reality is that Bluffton's pretty stable as it is," said Kleman. "We went into the merger process knowing that it might not cross the finish line. We were already in a stable position. Now we need to look at where we can reallocate resources that we were giving to the merger in other ways. We're starting that conversation now, but focusing right now on our students, our faculty and staff, and our campus community. " Sider added that Bluffton remained financially stable knowing that there is always a chance of mergers failing in higher education. "We knew going into the merger that both parties had to be prepared for it to fail. As Bluffton, we went into the merger knowing that if this fails, we're sufficiently stable to continue independently. We think that the future of higher education in Northwest Ohio, particularly involves close, deep, meaningful collaboration amongst many institutions of higher education. We are ready to pursue that," said Sider. "We went into the merger with our eyes wide open and we know, for all kinds of very good reasons, mergers all over the Country fail." With the merger not proceeding and leadership changes, the university is changing gears and focusing on the future. Sider and Kleman said the nearly yearlong work during merger discussions has still benefited the institution. "When we started this collaboration and merger work with Findlay, as a faculty member I discovered a whole other community of scholars and educators 18 miles up the road," said Sider. "We learned things about our common faith, heritage and traditions that we wouldn't have explored if it hadn't been for working on the specifics of a merger together. We learned things about the way that we deliver academic programs that speak to both the unique cultures of each institution, but also to the fact that higher education institutions are devoted to delivering quality education to their students," Sider said. Kleman and Sider each said the merger stoppage has not impacted the university's finances. "In our merger agreement what we knew nearly this time last year was that we were going to have another two year process here of getting to the final stage of the merger with the Department of Education. That meant that Bluffton was going to be operating with its own need to manage itself fiscally through that period of time as well as manage itself academically and in our athletic and other co-curricular programming. The changes that we're making, knowing that we are not merging, are pieces that we already know that we need to manage," said Sider. As students and staff return from spring break, the university plans to hold meetings and address questions relating to the changes at the institution. "There are lots of scary emotions," Kleman said. "You don't know what's happening, the timing is odd, but there's also hope in all of the possibilities that we can do. Our students are on spring break right now and so are our faculty and staff. We ask them to take a mental reset during this break while our cabinet works to kind of figure out some of the answers to their questions. We're going to meet with both of those groups next week when they return."