Campus Connections

President’s Report to the Board: February 2007

At the February meeting of the Board, I will give the Trustees an extensive report on the state of fund raising at Lewis & Clark in the wake of Phil Akers’ departure as Vice President for Institutional Advancement. Please let me take this opportunity to highlight several changes within the Institutional Advancement division that have taken place recently that are a tribute to Phil’s leadership, particularly in bolstering the human resources now in place at the College to expand our effort at fund raising and outreach in the future. As we enter the transition to new leadership in this critical area of College administration, I am confident that we have in place a superb team of experienced professionals who will sustain the momentum that we have built up under Phil’s direction.

As I have reported earlier, Catherine Crooker, Associate Vice President for Development, has assumed responsibility as Interim Vice President for Institutional Advancement. I welcome her assistance as we continue our efforts to tell the Lewis & Clark story to an ever expanding audience of friends and to cultivate an ever widening base of donors.

Fund raising during the current year has achieved some remarkable successes in the face of daunting challenges, not the least of which is the change of leadership within Institutional Advancement, and I will report on the search process for replacing Phil Akers at the Board meeting. Other challenges confront us as well. As you know, the declining level of scholarship support from the Miller Trust has reduced funding from that source by $500,000 from last year, and next year the College will receive its last gift from the Trust to support students in the College of Arts and Sciences. Despite that loss, however, overall giving for current operations—including scholarship support—for the College of Arts and Sciences at the end of January, 2007, stood at $3.6 million, more than $500,000 higher than the figure at the same point last year. This is a very encouraging sign, and it appears that at least for this year, we will weather the phase-out of the Miller gift. Giving at the Law School is also up substantially over last year, although the Graduate School of Education and Counseling lags behind in its record of giving relative to last year. On balance, the core base of giving to the College is as solid as it has ever been, and it is growing. More to the point, I have every confidence that the staff within the Institutional Advancement division have the commitment, the necessary experience, and the drive to move the College forward in expanding the level of giving necessary for Lewis & Clark to prosper and gain in quality and reputation in the future.

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As I have reported earlier, the statistics with regard to student applications and enrollment are very positive this year. The number of early-action applications in the College of Arts and Sciences was up by 20% over last year, an absolutely amazing achievement. These applicants are typically our best qualified students and the most likely to accept our offer of admission. Total applications as of today remain high relative to last year, running at about 14.4% above the 2006 figure. Please remember that last year’s applicant pool was up by about 12% over the previous year’s number. Mike Sexton reports that the quality of the pool has not in any way diminished as it has grown in size, also a very positive indicator. To the extent that the applicant pool reflects the overall attractiveness and reputation of the institution, Lewis & Clark is undoubtedly among the hottest colleges in the nation at this point. I am also pleased to report that spring enrollments in the Graduate School of Education and Counseling are at their highest level in the history of the College, a very positive sign for the future as well. In the Law School, applications for fall, 2007, are running about even with last year’s figure, no small achievement in a profession where declining enrollments are the norm.

Let me conclude by noting how very pleased I am with the budget that we are recommending for approval at the February meeting of the Board and with the process through which it has been developed. As I have mentioned above, the College is taking aggressive action to address the loss of funding that we are experiencing with the reduced support for undergraduate scholarships from the Miller Trust. At the same time, we are at a point where the amount needed to service the substantial debt that the College has incurred over the last decade is reaching its scheduled maximum at about $5.5 million annually, up by $300,000 from 2005-2006. Debt service will remain at this level for the next decade and beyond. The budget that Carl Vance, Vice President for Business and Finance, will be presenting addresses these fiscal realities squarely, while still permitting a $500,000 set-aside for an institutional Strategic Initiatives Fund in 2007-2008. Equally heartening to me as President is the collegial and transparent way in which the budget for 2006-2007 was developed. I am very grateful to Provost Jane Atkinson for her able leadership in guiding the budget deliberations of the Operations Council, the new institution-wide administrative organ that we created this year (in response to a recommendation from the Planning Task Force last spring) in an effort to foster dialogue about institutional issues between the Schools and Common Services and to encourage greater effectiveness and efficiency in management across the College. I am also most pleased that our financial planning under Carl Vance’s stalwart guidance has now acquired the discipline necessary to ensure equilibrium between the constraints posed by our resources on the one hand and our ambitions for enhancing the College’s academic and student life programs and maintaining our magnificent campus on the other.

Respectfully submitted,
Thomas J. Hochstettler
President