Kerwin to develop strategic plan

Media Credit: KEUREN HOLLOMAN / THE EAGLE NEW PLANS - President Neil Kerwin discusses university funding at a town hall meeting Thursday. Currently, 95 percent of the university's funding comes from student tuition. Expanded fundraising is one of the areas the new strategic plan will address, Kerwin said.

The university will continue to see much of its funding come from student tuition and other fees during President Neil Kerwin's tenure, the president announced during a town hall meeting Thursday.

At present, the university gets 95 percent of its revenue from tuition and fees, Kerwin said.

"[The percentage] hasn't varied much probably in the last 40 or 45 years," he said. "The budget now is so large that in order to move the number from 95 to 90 percent would require an endowment somewhere on the order of $2 billion. I expect to be successful in fundraising, but I don't expect to be canonized for it."

Kerwin's statement came in response to a question about whether the university was going to seek out additional funding sources so it isn't as dependent on student enrollment.

Fundraising is one of many areas that could potentially be addressed in the university's new strategic plan, according to a memo Kerwin's office released to the university community Wednesday.

Kerwin discussed several aspects of the university's strategic planning process a day after his office released the memo.

The university will develop a facilities master plan alongside the strategic plan, Kerwin said. Additional student housing will likely be a major consideration in that master plan. Kerwin said he wanted to emphasize that his remarks were not an announcement of any plans for additional student housing at that time.

"It may not be just a matter of additional rooms; it may very well be a matter of substantially reconfigured spaces for students at different levels," he said. "I think it's fair to say that the strategic planning process is likely to raise issues about our enrollment future that lead pretty quickly to housing."

While many aspects of the planning process still need to be officially determined, the board of trustees should expect to receive and review a draft of the university's new strategic plan at their next fall meeting in November 2008, according to a memo.

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