5. Mills College 2017 Financial Stabilization Plan

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At the end of her first year in command, Hillman announced her plan to "Save Mills".

The Financial Stability Plan has been removed from Mills' website. Fortunately the Internet is forever, and we found a copy of the Wayback Machine.

https://www.mills.edu/administration/presidents_office/documents/FinancialStabilizationPlan_26JUN17_FINAL.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20170628031601/https://www.mills.edu/administration/presidents_office/documents/FinancialStabilizationPlan_26JUN17_FINAL.pdf

President Hillman began her term at Mills College on July 1, 2016 - the start of Mills College's financial year. Her appointment was announced several months earlier, March 2016. Outgoing President Alecia DeCoudreaux - another lawyer - was threatened with a vote of no confidence, and resigned. She now sits on the board of the Hewlett Foundation, 60x bigger than Mills College with a $11 billion endowment.

Hillman came in hot, writing "Why the World Needs Mills" for Mills Quarterly and with big ideas to increase revenue:
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What were those ideas for bringing in more revenue? Why weren't they implemented? Item #4 in the Financial Stabilization Plan was "increase revenues". It seems some IP addresses were sold, and some priceless artifacts...was that it?

Hillman's view that it's tough to keep making cuts, and instead the emphasis should be on increasing revenues, was echoed by sociology professor Dan Ryan in a document that is now being widely re-circulated.

http://www.thecampanil.com/testimony-to-mills-college-board-of-trustees-professor-of-sociology-dan-ryan/

"Downsizing one’s way back to profitability is hard when you have real turn-around experts and you have highly favorable conditions. We have neither. We have a relatively inexperienced management team, we don’t have consensus around what our core product is, we don’t really understand our markets, we are more disruptee than disruptor, our team is rife with unrecognized goal ambiguity and goal contradiction. Whatever else comes out of your meetings, I hope you will reject the poorly conceived reorganization and restructuring plans that were thrown together to rationalize and take advantage of budget cutting."

Did the College ever engage "real turn-around experts?" Instead of new revenue-producing ideas, or embracing new opportunities from the global shift to online learning...the plan has been "more downsizing". The team is the same as 2017. Same Chair of the Board of Trustees, same President. A few changes in management, but if they were inexperienced back then, they should have learned by now. Right? If Annie tries everything and nothing works, is that proof that nothing can ever work? Or just that Annie can't make it work?

Was the Board of Trustees opposed to new ideas? Did Hilllman fight tooth and nail for 4 years to expand the College and address the financial emergency? Or did she get distracted with social issues which, while surely important, should not be more important than the continued existence of Mills College?

So far we can find no evidence of expansion plans implemented by Hillman. It was just cut, cut, cut; shrink, shrink. And now we are told "Mills has been shrinking for years, it's impossible to survive, we just have to stop granting degrees".

CONCLUSION You can't shrink your way to success. Was success ever the objective? Or was it from the start distressing the assets and demoralizing the students, in preparation of a final handover?

Four years later and President Hillman's plan has failed.

What to do?

a) demand accountability from management for the poor financial performance
b) get new leadership that can execute a financial turnaround plan
c) close the College entirely, make it an "Institute"

We are told (by President Hillman) that "c" is the only option. Nothing else should be considered because everything has been tried and nothing worked. Does she have the financial management skills to really know? She has never run a business or a College before this job, so there is no track record of success to point at. We have to go by the performance we have seen to date, which appears to be driving Mills College off a cliff - despite its valuable asset base.

The independent Board of Trustees has an obligation to all stakeholders to do the best thing for Mills College, the wishes of Cyrus and Susan Mills, all the alumnae who ever attended, current students, faculty and staff, and the wider Oakland community that Mills has played such a crucial role in.

If the Board voted that President Hillman's poor financial performance is acceptable, and based upon that therefore her new plan must be financially sound, they are opening themselves up to liability from any & all of those stakeholders.

There has been some good discussion at r/EastBay:
https://www.reddit.com/r/eastbay/comments/mb8nic/mills_college_balance_sheet_is_strong_why_must_it/

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5. Mills College 2017 Financial Stabilization Plan

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