At its May meeting, the University of Vermont Board of Trustees took historic steps to approve Phase I of a General Education initiative, a curricular reform the university has grappled with for more than 30 years, and launch what promises to be the largest fund-raising campaign in the university’s history. It also approved a 5.8 percent tuition increase, but with an important proviso.

The General Education plan, which had passed the Faculty Senate on Thursday afternoon, was approved unanimously by the board and will be implemented beginning in the fall of 2011.

According to the Phase I plan, a newly appointed committee constituted by the Faculty Senate will work in consultation with the Office of the Provost to refine the initial set of learning outcomes, which will eventually be infused throughout the undergraduate curriculum: Communication and Information Literacy; Quantitative Reasoning; Cultures, Diversity and Global Perspectives; Sciences, Systems and Sustainability; Art, Aesthetics, and Design; and Integration and Application of Knowledge.

Also as part of the Phase I plan, the Gen Ed committee will inventory courses and gather data on where and how the outcomes will be achieved; draft implementation and assessment plans; and determine the required resources.

“It’s a Faculty Senate-driven process with phased-in implementation,” said Brian Reed, associate provost, who is spearheading the Gen Ed effort. “The first year, we are building the infrastructure,” he said, describing the effort as unprecedented in the way it has engaged with all constituency groups.

Provost Jane Knodell called the initiative “transformative.” It demonstrates “in a powerful way, the value of a UVM education and what we mean in our mission statement when we say our graduates will be accountable leaders,” she said. 

Campaign officially underway

Trustees also gave UVM approval to launch a new and substantial fundraising campaign, only the third in the university's history, and took another key step in defining the university's relationship with the UVM Foundation, a new non-profit corporation that will facilitate the campaign’s success.

Kathleen A. Kavanagh, senior executive vice president and managing director at campaign consulting firm Grenzebach Glier and Associates, gave a presentation on a potential financial goal for the campaign.

Kavanagh and her firm endorsed a provisional goal of $500 million for the eight-year campaign and pointed to several steps that will need to be taken to optimize the likelihood of success: The campaign’s priorities and goals will need further refinement; the university's largest potential donors will need to be more fully engaged with the current and future case for support; and greater investment in the fundraising infrastructure is needed if the university expects to generate exponentially more resources from private philanthropy.

She also underscored a number of positives that underlay her firm’s recommendation: the strong image the university enjoys among its constituents; the large number of capable volunteers willing to step forward and support UVM in the next campaign; and a widespread willingness on the part of prospects, despite the slow economy, to make gifts appropriate to their circumstances.

After a wide-ranging discussion, the board passed a resolution endorsing the launch of the four-year advance phase of the campaign, after which the total fundraising goal will be set as the university enters the public phase.

O. Richard Bundy, III, UVM's vice president for Development and Alumni Relations and CEO of the UVM Foundation, stressed that setting a dollar goal in the early stages of a campaign is less important than determining what the university needs. 

“A campaign is not about a number,” he said. “It’s about the impact of these funds for our students and faculty -- how many scholarships, endowed chairs, signature programs, and new and renovated buildings they will enable us to create.” The process of determining those needs 00 which will also sharpen the goals and priorities of the campaign, he said -- is being led by the provost through ongoing discussion between and among deans, vice presidents and the university’s senior leadership team, with support from UVM’s Development and Alumni Relations staff.

The board also passed a resolution authorizing the university to continue negotiations with the UVM Foundation on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the university and the foundation. The MOU will be subject to the approval of the proposed terms by the trustees’ Executive Committee and the UVM Foundation. The UVM Foundation is a nonprofit corporation whose mission is to secure and manage private support for the benefit of the University of Vermont.

5.8 percent increase, with caveat

The board also approved a 5.8 percent tuition increase, as part of the $292.5 million FY 2012 budget, offset in part by an increase in financial aid of $11.8 million.  Much of the discussion during the Budget and Finance Committee centered on the growth of financial aid on the overall budget and solutions for mitigating its impact on future budgets.

Legislative trustee Carolyn Branagan (’76, G 84) expressed concern over the increase and asked for some assurance that future budgets would include less dramatic tuition hikes. 

To address her concern, shared by other board members, an amendment was added to the resolution stating that the administration would deliver an initial draft of a plan to slow the growth of tuition increases to the board at its October 2011 meeting. The draft is expected to be part of a larger comprehensive plan to reduce costs university-wide that the administration will present to the board at the meeting.

The board also approved a 3.7 percent increase in room rates and a 4 percent increase in meal plans, bringing the cost of a traditional double room to $6,426 and a traditional meal plan to $3,282 for the 2011-2012 academic year.

Slowing budget growth

In his report to the Committee of the Whole, President Daniel Mark Fogel provided examples of the financial challenges facing many public universities and contrasted their plight with UVM’s comparatively positive status.

After citing a variety of reasons for UVM’s financial health and continued advance, he sounded a note of warning.  Simply by maintaining the university’s physical plant and making essential investments in academic quality, even with annual 4.5 percent tuition increases, the university will face a deficit of as much as $120 million in five years, the president said.

Determining how to reduce costs and reallocate resources materially to slow the growth of university expenditures and to focus them on core activities and strategic priorities -- a process the provost will direct -- will be his number one priority in his last year in office, the president said. Trustees will see a draft of the cost reduction plan at the October meeting.

Chair Robert Cioffi, in his first report since the president announced he is stepping down, commended President Fogel for the job he has done during his tenure, which began in July 2002.

“On virtually every front we are in vastly better shape, from academic quality, to enrollment, to facilities, to strategic direction, to faculty compensation to the reputation of UVM in the state, the nation and the world,” he said.  “Thank you, Dan for all you have done, and all you will do, before stepping down from this relentlessly demanding job.”

Determining program viability

The board overwhelmingly supported a new program viability review process, discussed at length during the Educational Policy and Institutional Resources committee meeting.  Under the new process, at-risk programs will be evaluated yearly, rather than on the current eight-year cycle for all programs.

Triggers for review are programs that, over a rolling three-year average, produce fewer than two doctoral, five masters or 10 baccalaureate graduates per year. The program would then be subject to existing Faculty Senate protocol regarding possible elimination, though the potential for merging programs was noted. The numbers, Knodell said, are based on existing industry standards.

In other board developments:

• The Committee of the Whole heard a report an the annually updated Strategic Capital plan, whose prioritized list of capital projects reflected a new set of criteria that gave weight to the student experience as well as to academic factors.

• During the Budget, Finance, and Investment Committee meeting, Investment Subcommittee chair Samuel Bain informed committee members that the university’s endowment had reached $355 million as of April 2011, compared to $333 million at end of the calendar year. According to UVM’s investment manager, Cambridge Associates, the university’s long-term portfolio outperformed its peers during the first quarter of 2011 and shows positive preliminary results for April. Since Fogel’s arrival, the endowment has increased by more than $160 million.    

• Vice President for Enrollment Management Chris Lucier announced the results of an extensive engagement campaign exploring internationalization. Based on meetings with faculty, staff and students in all schools and colleges, Lucier reported that there was broad campus recognition that internationalization is essential to the university’s core vision, but widespread agreement that the initiative should go beyond enrollment to include academic exchanges of faculty and students. There was also strong sentiment that international diversity not come at the expense of domestic diversity. The need to provide adequate cultural support for foreign students was also considered imperative.        

• The board also gave approval to Phase I of an upgraded athletic field for soccer and lacrosse that will meet NCAA game standards also gained approval. The synthetic surface is safer and more consistent and significantly reduces maintenance costs. The $1,500,000 field is entirely funded by a gift secured through development.           

• A new Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies, a more research-oriented program than the Ed.D. was approved, along with a new Ph.D. and master of science in bioengineering.