“A big part of the recent period is take a breath, count to 10 because what’s said today may be different tomorrow,” he said. “We need to be thoughtful about what we’re doing but not overreact to the flavor of the day.”
Wittenberg’s 15th president, Frandsen was the university’s oldest-ever leader on his first day in office. That was one of his favorite Wittenberg trivia questions because, the 62-year-old said, alumni never believe it.
Frandsen has been with the university for eight years, “which is a long time in college president-land these days,” considering the average is about five years.
“It’s the right time for me. It’s the right time for the institution for a transition and it’s the end of my contract,” he said. “It’s been a great time, not without challenges, but being at Wittenberg and being in Springfield have been a really good time for me and my wife ... Certainly our lives have centered around Wittenberg and we’ve enjoyed our time here.”
Accomplishments
Frandsen spoke about the university’s comprehensive campaign, navigating COVID, and the completion of the Health, Wellness and Athletics (HWA) Complex as great accomplishments.
At his inaugural ceremony in early 2018, Frandsen said the university was there to help students learn, grow and change, and that they’ve continued to do that through caring for people and investing in helping them move on.
“The most important thing we do here is impact the people who are our students,” he said.
The comprehensive campaign, which was the first in two decades and a “huge success,” ended June 30, 2023 and raised $113 million, with 34% of alumni giving during the campaign. From 2010-14, Wittenberg had fewer than 2,400 donors; from 2015-19, there were about 2,700 donors; and from 2020-24, there were 7,500.
“The dollars are very important. More important to me is the engagement we generated,” he said. “The dollars are great and important, but the engagement is really what builds for the future. That to me is a really great accomplishment.”
When COVID hit, everyone was “working at things we never expected, never imagined,” with support from the Clark County Combined Health District, medical doctors, Gov. Mike DeWine, and then higher education chancellor Randy Gardner, who would bring all the school presidents together to get their input.
The HWA was finished in 2019 as “the biggest construction project this school’s ever undertaken.” It cost about $50 million and is 250,000 square feet. It hosts student-athletes, high school competitions, practices and other events.
The best part of the job, Frandsen said, is when he gets to go see students do what they love to do, at a play, concert, game, research presentation or sorority function.
“I feel like one of my goals always in my work, in my life, particularly in a leadership role is I want to be liked and respected, and I think I’ve been successful in that,” he said.
Challenges
Frandsen said it’s been a challenging time for many reasons — some specific to Wittenberg and others affecting higher education in general — but “they keep coming for higher education in general every day.”
The really big challenges included educating through COVID, managing the university’s financial situation and making “really difficult decisions” about programs and people when enrollment is down. The last couple years have been “really hard,” Frandsen said.
“I think in some ways it’s been harder than COVID was, because COVID was so novel. It was hard, but everybody was kind of figuring it out in whatever part of the world they were in,” he said. “We’ve had to make really, really difficult decisions; sometimes really, really unpopular decisions.”
University cuts
The university was recently given a “financial distress” designation by the Higher Learning Commission at the end of February after the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid office “raised substantial doubt about the institution’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
Last August, Wittenberg’s board of directors had approved a plan that would eliminate the jobs of 30 faculty and 45 staff. In September, university leaders announced that the reductions would actually impact about 40 people — the jobs of 24 full-time equivalent faculty and 45 full-time equivalent staff members were being eliminated, but some employees were being assigned to open positions.
Frandsen said they sought input from people when they made changes or decisions when appropriate, but it didn’t always align with everyone’s preferences.
“I am not happy that we’ve had to make the difficult decisions we’ve had to make. I’m not happy that people’s lives have been affected,” he said. “My job is to make the recommendations that I feel are best for Wittenberg as a whole. I make those recommendations to the board and the board accepts or rejects or modifies those recommendations and then my job is to implement the direction they’ve given.”
The university recorded a $17 million deficit in the 2022-23 school year, according to its tax records. They spent about $96 million that year, and about $26 million was spent on salaries and benefits for staff. The Board of Directors has said it plans to fully eliminate its forecasted financial operating losses by fiscal year 2027.
Enrollment down
With university enrollment being down nationwide, Frandsen said it’s only “going to get worse” for places like Wittenberg that are built to educate traditional-age college students (18 to 22-year-olds) in a residential setting.
He said he was recently at a meeting where they shared that pre-COVID, 62% of Ohio high school graduates went on to continue their education, but post-COVID it’s down to 52% — and that’s under population trends where there are fewer high school graduates to begin with.
For small private colleges, Frandsen said it’s been really difficult to be successful right now, especially with the declining number of high school graduates, the dismantling of the Department of Education, and changes to family incomes and education affordability.
Just in Ohio in recent years, Urbana University and Notre Dame College closed, while Ursuline College is becoming branch campus of Gannon University rather than close. Wittenberg, Central State, Antioch and Wilberforce have all had recent warnings or notices from the Higher Learning Commission.
“Those things are coming at us and making it tough,” he said. “At the end of the day it’s about people and having the best people and making sure that they’re supported and compensated well and given development opportunities. And all those things are increasingly difficult.”
The worst part of the job, Frandsen said, is that there are more good ideas than he has resources to implement, which means he has to say no to good ideas.
“I think I tried to handle the tough things with integrity always, with grace always. I guess people have commented that I have a pretty even demeanor. I think that’s very useful in these situations,” he said.
Leadership
Frandsen said his leadership has contributed both to the university’s successes and challenges because he’s not perfect and every decision he made wasn’t perfect.
“I don’t think there are decisions I’d change based on the information I had at the time. There are bad decisions and then there are decisions that turn out badly,” he said. “I’m sure I’ve made decisions that, with the benefit of hindsight, I would have made differently.”
He said one regret he may have is that instead of doing “Miles with Mike” he would’ve done “Feet with Mike.” His first year, because the school’s donor base had shrunk, he did Miles with Mike ― 24,347 outbound miles in 31 different locations to connect with the alumni base. But he wishes he would’ve spent time getting to know campus a little better.
“I would encourage the next person to spend more time early on campus than I did and less time on the road than I did. You have to do both. If I had it to do over again, I would have delayed Miles with Mike and spent some more time on campus,” he said.
University growth and improvement
One thing Frandsen thinks the university’s next leaders should think about is who they can serve differently or how they can serve students differently. For example, he said the school is not set up for adult education, and those 25 years and older probably don’t want to live in the dorms.
“Do we want to create new capabilities to serve different populations of students? To serve students who are interested in different programs than we currently offer? To serve students who are interested in different delivery modalities than we currently offer?” he said.
Serving non-traditional-age students is also where Frandsen sees the greatest opportunity since that college-going rate has declined.
“I really think (the most important steps) is that strategic thinking about serving new populations, new programmatic things, new modalities. I think Wittenberg is going to need to make a strategic decision of what new capabilities it wants to develop. That’s going to be critical,” he said.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
The next president
Wittenberg’s search committee is in the process of finding the next university president. An update offered Thursday said the candidates recently made visits to campus that were not made fully public “to maintain confidentiality.” But students, faculty and other university groups had representatives involved in the process.
“The committee has reviewed the feedback from the visits and is now finalizing its recommendation to the University’s Board of Directors for our 16th president,” school officials said, adding that more information would be coming soon.
Frandsen is not involved in the search but said he will help the new president when they’re chosen. He said, “our motto is, ‘having light, we pass it on to others.’ I will try to pass light to whoever that next person is.”
“I feel confident that I and the people here have done everything we can to be in the best position we can be to hand off things for success,” Frandsen said. “I know whoever walks in here next has got a good foundation to build on.”
However, the university does have “some holes” that a new president and their team will need to fill, and has some “unique challenges” based on its own history and capabilities.
Frandsen would tell the next president to empower people to do their work. “Walk into this knowing that, despite the challenges, there are really good people here” and that “remember that you have two ears and one mouth and listen and talk in appropriate proportions.”
The future
After he officially retires, Frandsen said he and his wife plan to move home in West Michigan.
“My mindset right now is I need to rest a little bit, then I need to discern what that redeployment should look like and then redeploy,” he said. “I’d say there’s greater than 90% chance it will somehow be in small private higher education.”
Two things from a recent President’s Institute that Frandsen attended stuck with him — you’re going to go from being a VIP (very important person) to FIP (formerly important person), and college presidents never retire, they only redeploy.
As he wraps up his tenure, Frandsen thanked the community for giving him a “fantastic experience” in his professional and personal life. He said to “always tiger up” to show grit and determination when you get in a tough spot.
“I will always be connected to this place, and you will always be connected to this place. You don’t even begin to know and I don’t even begin to know the ways this place is going to impact your lives, my life. But I guarantee it will,” he said.
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