Philosopher Christopher Pynes (Western Illinois), one of the editors of the PGR, writes:

I have to say that I feel bad for Illinois Wesleyan. Back in 2018, when Matt Bierman became a VP of finance there, I thought, maybe I should email the philosophers and warn them about him.  Matt Bierman was the budget director at WIU when philosophy, religious studies, women's studies, and Afrian American studies were eliminated in June of 2016.

Bierman was a major voice in the elimination of the programs as the WIU budget director. He believes that universities have to have six months operating cash in reserves (more than the WIU endowment by the way) and that all programs have to have so many majors and graduates a year to justify the programs. Have a look at my blog post from March 2016 on those metrics: https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2016/03/evaluating-philosophy-programs-a-cautionary-tale-about-the-ibhe.html

I don't know how much influence Matt Bierman has at IWU, but given what he did at WIU to promote the elimination of philosophy, promote layoffs, and other cost cutting measures, I believe he is at it again. He's one of the reasons I created the Budget Transparency Committee for our Faculty Senate. I now wish I had reached out to the philosophers at IWU, but it's hard to warn others of an idealogue like Matt Bierman without coming off like a crazy person oneself.  I figured at a liberal arts school, they could handle it.  I was wrong.

Here's the Bierman appointment announcement from 2018.

https://www.iwu.edu/news/2018/bierman-named-vice-president-for-business-and-finance.html