Focus remains on 2010 goals

Greg Weidemann
Dean and Associate Vice President for Agriculture

(Text condensed from Spring Faculty Meeting address, April 30.)

The increase of more than 10 percent in undergraduate and graduate enrollment last fall was great news, and we must remain focused on increasing enrollment further to meet our 2010 goals. Also, as we continue to grow it will be critical not to lose our reputation as being the most student-friendly college on campus and retain our family-like atmosphere. We must continue to value each and every student under our care.

The College and Division continue to make excellent progress in the Campaign for the Twenty-First Century, with more than $64 million toward our $69 million goal, which is 92 percent of our goal in 88 percent of the time. I am confident that we will meet and exceed our goal over the next 14 months. Development officers Mark Power and Chuck Culver and our campaign committee are doing a great job.

We have increased our scholarship endowment by more than $3 million and have added three new chairs or professorships. The latest is the Donald “Buddy” Wray Chair in Food Safety, which will be filled by a national search. Park Waldroup is the first holder of the Novus International Professorship in Poultry Science, and Derrick Oosterhuis was named to the Clyde H. Sites Professorship of International Crop Physiology.

Our Classrooms for Tomorrow initiative is making a real difference. Plant Science 7 and the AFLS Auditorium are currently being renovated, and we will start this summer on the auditorium and a classroom in Human Environmental Sciences.

Strategic Planning

The Division and College have started developing a new five-year strategic plan. We have heard from more than 500 stakeholders at listening sessions that we began in December. We have asked faculty to share their thoughts and ideas, and more than 30 percent have responded through our online process. We will seek input from our staff soon and then give students an opportunity to provide input in the fall.

The planning committee is highlighting major themes. We will create writing teams to create broad goals to address these major themes and will then engage the unit heads in pulling together the work of the teams. Once the broad Division plan is crafted in early fall, both the College and AES and CES will begin developing the respective management plans. It is these plans that will provide specific goals for each part of the family over the next five years.

Possible Budget Shortfall

As you all know, the Legislature met in special session to address the needs of public education. The approved raise in the sales tax will address much of the need but a portion must come from an increase in the state property tax. This tax must be approved by the voters in November. If this ballot initiative does not pass, the Legislature will convene in January with a projected budget shortfall before they can even address other needs. The projected shortfall translates into a budget reduction for the Division in excess of $2 million. Therefore, we will have to budget in a way that will allow us to sequester the necessary funds if the need arises.

Despite these concerns, we provided a salary increase for all employees at mid-year. With the increase in tuition, campus will provide a merit increase in July. Since the Division does not benefit from tuition revenue except with our academic appointments, we will not follow suit except to provide the state allowable increase for our classified employees.

On a more positive note, all but two of the campuses and the non-formula entities like the Division have agreed on a new formula for all future DHE funding proposals to the Legislature. Were the funds available, under the new formula, the Division would gain about $15 million and the campus over $30 million. While nobody expects that to happen overnight, it does set the stage to identify needs and charts a common agreement on funding distribution for the future.

Capital Projects

One of our greatest challenges over the next several years will be to provide adequate space for a number of our programs. Unfortunately, we can expect little or no help from the State over the short term. Nonetheless, we must move forward. We have identified a few smaller projects to address internally and are pursuing a Reynolds Foundation proposal for a new structure. It is quite likely that we will need to finance a project and incur some long-term debt to address some of our most critical needs. However, we want to ensure that we do not have to utilize our savings to address any possible budget shortfalls before moving forward. We will begin planning for several projects that we consider the highest priorities.