Bowling Green State University has hired an international management consultant to study its
operations in hopes of finding significant savings that will prevent future tuition increases.The
university’s board of trustees was informed Friday that the administration has contracted with Accenture to
conduct an “Opportunity Assessment.”In a letter from President Mary Ellen Mazey to faculty and staff the
goals of the project are: “Evaluate the current state of the University’s operating structure” and “Identify
and recommend measurable, attainable, realistic opportunities to streamline operations both in the short
term and the long term.”An Accenture team has already visited campus this week and is ready to get to work
in earnest next week, said Sheri Stoll, the university chief financial officer and vice president for
finance and administration. A report is expected in early December.“They’re looking across the
institution… for operational efficiencies,” she said.With state funding declining for six years in a row,
she said, finding those savings is crucial.In the letter to faculty, Mazey said, the university could be
looking at shortfall of as much as $10 million over the next two to three years.The university, Mazey said,
cannot continue to make that up by raising tuition especially given BGSU’s tuition is third highest in the
state system and student debt is on the rise. “Simply put, our current operating model is unsustainable.”The
company will be paid just shy of $500,000, Stoll said. That’s a “not to exceed” figure.Accenture is already
familiar with the university. In 2010 it did a study of all of Ohio’s public four-year schools. As part of
that process BGSU provided five years of historic data, Stoll saidWhile other schools went ahead and had the
company study their individual operations, BGSU was not in a position at that time to engage the company
given it was searching for a new president and a new provost.Now the university is ready, and with an
Accenture team already working at the University of Michigan, the time is right.“Our ultimate goal,” Mazey
said in her letter to faculty and staff, “is to develop a new, more efficient organizational design that
helps us achieve large-scale cost reductions without jeopardizing our core mission.”Miami University
realized “very significant” savings from Accenture’s report, she said.Mazey said she hoped any staff
reductions that may result would be through attrition. But that, she added, is not a guarantee.