Wynes, Inver Hills, Ready to Face State Budget Cuts

The first time Tim Wynes set foot on the Inver Hills Community College campus, he tagged along during a campus-wide tour for prospective students.

It was an unorthodox introduction to the school for the then-55-year-old man who was about to become Inver Hill’s next president, especially after a tour guide mistook him for the parent of a potential student.

At the same time, the tour was strangely fitting for Wynes, a man who Inver Hills administrative staff describe as dedicated to and intensely interested in the student body of Inver Hills. Wynes, now 56, took over the presidency of the school in July 2010. He inherited the position from former president Cheryl Frank, who retired after a 12-year stint with the college.

His arrival coincides with a particularly challenging time for the campus. Outgoing Chief Financial Officer Larry Margolis predicts that the state, facing a projected $6.2 billion deficit, may cut 10 percent or more of its annual funding for the college. That means Inver Hills could lose upwards of $1 million in state money if Margolis’ expectations come true.

In 2009, state funding for Inver Hills totaled $13.2 million — or 33 percent of the college’s annual revenue that year. In 2010, that number fell to $12.4 million, or 27 percent of the school’s total revenue. Tuition and fees were the single largest source of revenue both years for the school, according to financial statistics provided by the college.

Margolis’ frugal fiscal management means the college has a $10 million ‘rainy day’ fund to take the edge off the predicted cuts. But Margolis has been preparing for as much as a five percent increase in student tuition rates to compensate for the potential state funding reductions.

Raising tuition, while perhaps necessary for the financial viability of the college, threatens one of Wynes’ personal goals: Maintaining the accessibility of Inver Hills courses for low-income students.

Financial accessibility has been paramount for Wynes since he began his career in college administration at Indian Hills Community College in Iowa. The school, Wynes noted, was in “one of the poorest counties in Iowa.”

For many first-generation students in the area, an education at Indian Hills was life-changing opportunity, Wynes said. It’s a philosophy that Wynes has carried to another position as chancellor at Iowa Valley Community College before he landed the job at Inver Hills in March last year.

The diversity of Inver Hills student body and the college’s liberal arts approach to education were selling points to Wynes, he said. But it was the school’s invested, energetic student body that really held appeal for the veteran administrator.

Because they must respond to the needs of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system and are responsible for external fundraising, college presidents can become “unattached” to the student body, Inver Hills Vice President of Student Affairs Barbara Read said.

Not so with Wynes, said Read. In his six months on the job he has been extremely proactive in his engagement of the student body, according to the vice president.

Not only is Wynes connecting with students, he is also soliciting their input when determining the college’s future.

This year, Wynes said, the college administrators will revisit Inver Hill’s academic and technology master plans — documents that lay out the direction the campus will take in the next two years. Some of the roughly 10,000 students attending classes at Inver Hills will be consulted as part of the review process, Wynes said.

The master plan reviews will be important for school administrators as they decide what to cut if the state reduces funding for the school.

“I think we have some challenges in terms of where we’re going to be ending up,” said Margolis, who is retiring in February after more than three decades on the job. “There are a lot of unknowns at this point in terms of planning.”

But the school, Wynes said, can’t afford to go into “survival mode” because of the looming budget reductions, especially as the number of students at the school — and their needs — increase.

“You can become the first-choice educational option for students in the area if the college delivers on what it says it’s going to do,” Wynes said.