OT: Is the University planning to walk away from its Flint regional campus?
Rumors are flying about the viability of the Flint campus. Anyone privy to what’s likely to happen - as in, leaving Flint entirely or right-sizing the brick and mortar obligations?
The Flint campus was established when a General Motors co-founder, C.S. Mott, agreed to fund the Children’s Hospital in exchange for it. Similar to the Ford family establishing the Dearborn campus.
75 years later the Flint campus is languishing. Regional peers like Oakland and Grand Valley poured billions into modernizing their campuses, while UM-Flint looks antiquated and austere. Enrollment has crashed, to the point the University seems to be questioning the point for it to even exist. I assume the online course boom since 2020 underscores the point that a fading brick and mortar regional school is a colossal money sink.
January 29th, 2023 at 1:29 PM ^
This is not a rant. This is an informed response. As someone who matriculated to Flint and became a full-time resident for almost a decade upon graduation, I thank you for posting.
January 29th, 2023 at 3:04 PM ^
I get it. Flint made headlines for years as being a dangerous place, a baron wasteland after GM left, then with the water crises bringing Flint back into the headlines. To those who are looking from the outside-in… I implore you to actually visit downtown before passing judgment on the city.
The city is ripe with opportunity… and that’s why Mott is literally buying everything up for pennies.
Beside UM there is also Kettering and Mott Community college. These three schools have been pivotal is the city rebounding. As the city continues to grow in the right direction you can see the city becoming more connected, with far less dilapidation between because of these schools. Not to mention Powers Catholic investing back into the city with its new campus near the Michigan School for the Deaf.
It has been wonderful watching the city’s rebirth. As Michiganders, Alumni, fans or residents of the city we should all be rooting for The University of Michigan to continue to invest into all of their campuses.
#GoBlue!
#FlintHard.
January 29th, 2023 at 3:51 PM ^
As the city continues to grow…
Nice to read your pride but unfortunately this is not true. Flint lost 21% of their residents from 2010 to 2020. And another few thousand since the 2020 census. Flint has less than 80,000 residents right now.
January 29th, 2023 at 4:52 PM ^
Sorry Chuck, I didn’t mean grow in population. I meant grow as in sprouting into a new life.
January 29th, 2023 at 8:53 PM ^
Would be awesome to see Kettering, UM Flint, and Mott all interconnected more so then they already are.
January 30th, 2023 at 4:42 AM ^
+1 for the mention of the other two education cornerstones of Flint, Mott Community College and Kettering (although old-time Flint kids like me still think of it as GMI).
Kettering's improvement to the city is evident if you participate in the Crim Festival of Races, held every August. For years I'd walk the 8K, which takes you from downtown north on Saginaw St. and then west on Third Ave. Granted, you go through some pretty sketchy areas on 3rd, but when you get to Kettering's campus, it's beautiful. And I really like that they bought and renovated Atwood Stadium, site of so many athletic contests over the decades. (Now if they'd only do the same with Mott Park Golf Course, site of so many golf balls that I sliced into the river.)
January 29th, 2023 at 7:48 PM ^
Thanks for posting. I grew up there, but haven't been back since my parents moved away 10 years ago.
I can't believe Churchills is still open that's where all my friends and I drank when we were in HS when downtown wasn't so nice in the 90s. Quarter beers on Thursday nights. Good memories.
January 29th, 2023 at 8:13 PM ^
+1 for the "rant," and especially for the mention of Churchills. I can remember a couple of very memorable nights I had in that place back in my youth. And I'm sure there were a couple more that I can't quite remember.
January 30th, 2023 at 10:37 AM ^
I have a different take, but that doesn't mean I'm right. I was born and raised in Flint, attended UM-Flint for my undergrad days, worked in both the UCen and TLC (which was responsible for basically supporting IT / AV stuff for classrooms). The campus experience, for Flint, was awesome. I loved the campus. Leaving my philosophy course in Crob and watching the events unfold on 9/11 with everyone else on the 3rd floor of the Ucen is a moment of time I'll never forget, ever, for obvious reasons. The White building on the old Autoworld spot is a bit removed from the 'college environment', but at least the river and walking spots there are safe and have come along in the last decade.
However, downtown Flint is not a 'hot spot'. You have at most 3-4 blocks and maybe a handful restaurants - Blackstones, Churchills, The Torch, Xolo, 501, Sauce in the hotel..You can throw the Farmer's Market in there. If you leave those few blocks, you are entering into areas you do not want to be walking around. It's that simple.
Enrollment for smaller / regional colleges in Michigan were trending down prior to Covid, and Covid didn't help. The number of students graduating high school will continue to decline until 2035 in Michigan - the fight for a shrinking student body of traditional high school graduates will continue to be fierce. Ann Arbor has record amount of students applying, and they will always be fine. Ferris State, CMU, NMU, SVSU, Delta, WMU, GVSU - all having numerous years on a downhill trend. Educause research shows current students want the brick and mortar experience, but also intertwined with online courses. College as we know it, unless you are attending a very large institution, has fundamentally changed for the worst vs. what many of us remember and enjoyed.
The narrative against the value of a college degree has to change. Otherwise, we will see many small / regional colleges close their doors in the next 5-10 years (also, per Educause).
January 29th, 2023 at 1:27 PM ^
I hope this isn't true. UM-Flint will always have a special place in my heart. It is where I earned a BSN, the degree that is the stepping stone that has allowed me to be 2 months from being a Doctor of Nursing Practice.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:00 PM ^
Despite having tons of UP family roots, and my whole family going to the school, I’m not too privy to the state of Michigan’s regional history all that much, so TIL that CS Mott was a GM co-founder and not an applesauce magnate.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:19 PM ^
Those squeezable pouches are great. I tell people they're for the kids, but really they're for me.
As for Flint, I hope both the city and campus find new life post-water crisis. I know life goes on, globalization, yada, yada, yada,...but that area was really something else 60 years ago.
January 30th, 2023 at 8:59 AM ^
Yea, big Applesauce is not an industry to mess with.
January 30th, 2023 at 3:35 PM ^
Actually he is related. That is why his estate in Flint is called Applewood.
January 30th, 2023 at 7:15 PM ^
C.S. Mott was not in any way connected to the applesauce empire. ‘Autos not apples’
January 29th, 2023 at 2:37 PM ^
I agree with what many have already said here. I don’t think it’s a consideration to close UofM Flint.
One of Michigan Medicine‘s core values is DEI. Santa Ono recently sent out a message about the results of the first phase of Michigans DEI initiative (spoiler alert: they’ve spent a lot but achieved very little so far). Closing flint would go against what they strive to do. Even if uofm flint loses money, the PR and political backlash from closing it would be tremendous. That’s not even considering the ethical side of it.
i bet they are re-evaluating their strategic plan with it, but I don’t think closing it is on the table currently.
January 29th, 2023 at 3:46 PM ^
Regionals are vital. They provide the opportunity for so many kids to get started. They're far more affordable, often have strengths with more vocational programs. Kids can get a good education and not leave with tens of thousands in debt. Many first-in-the-family kids. And many adults deciding to get a degree decades after finishing high school.
I'm biased because my wife is a professor at a regional campus in Ohio. There's more of a regional tradition here. Perhaps more cooperation with the main campus (she usually teaches one course per term). One difference is there are no dorms, like UM-Flint has. They're trying to get better at online teaching - the biggest challenge is getting students to take it seriously enough, because that's part of education's future.
That said, there's a lot of financial pressure on the regionals. College attendance is declining, and what's clear is that, unlike when most of us were in college, administrations are huge now and look at students as customers rather than people in need of an education. In many ways, college is replacing high school these days. So the challenge is how to demand excellence from students without risking losing them to college entirely.
January 31st, 2023 at 1:36 AM ^
One of the greatest strengths UM-Flint has is that it is the most accessible place for someone who is starting late in life or re-inventing themselves to get a Michigan diploma.
I have two degrees from there and every class I took had retirees, single mothers, autoworkers, veterans, you name it, in the seats around me. It's incredibly vital on a societal level that we do not give up on folks who didn't know what they want to be when they were 18.
February 5th, 2023 at 6:33 PM ^
Today’s front page Sunday Press story on UM Flint doesn’t sound very promising. The big plan to save the regional campus is an insignificant $10 million building (the first new building in 20 years) and a vague commitment of “up to $100 million”? That is not a serious effort for a campus so behind its peers.