Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxliv, no. 11 | Wednesday, February 4, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891
President, provost detail tighter budgets Brown lags fiscal year 2010, which begins July 1, recommends that both the general budget and the separate budget for the Division of Biology and Medicine break even next year. That goal represents a departure from recent years, in which the University’s expenditures have outpaced revenue to fuel a rapid phase of growth. The proposed general budget would set expenses for the next academic year $21 million below previous projections. It would also increase payout from the endowment to the operating budget and raise
By Nicole Friedman Senior Staff Writer
Despite anticipating major endowment losses and tight budgets due to the slumping economy, the University remains committed to moving forward with some ambitious capital projects, top administrators said at a monthly faculty meeting Tuesday. They also provided details of planned budget tightening in the years ahead. The budget drafted by the University Resources Committee for
undergraduate student charges by 2.9 percent — smaller than the fourto five-percent increases of recent years. At the meeting, Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 also suggested that the University has not yet found ways to generate all of its needed savings, and President Ruth Simmons revealed that the University had scrapped plans to finance construction by taking on new debt. In her report to the faculty, Simmons said the worldwide economic crisis provided the University with
the opportunity to “question longheld assumptions about our needs” and emphasized the importance of maintaining educational excellence despite the financial downturn. Simmons said the University typically projects budgets five years into the future when planning, a practice it would maintain to “prevent radical, shortsighted solutions.” Since there is no consensus among economic experts on the economy’s prospects for recovery, she said, planners are assuming that the crisis will last lon-
the television and print reporters, Bogard said he felt the conference was successful on both accounts. The act would allow candidates, if they chose to take part, to collect a certain number of $5 contributions to show that they have continued on page 2
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By Melissa Shube Senior Staf f Writer
It may have been snowing, but that did not deter members of the Brown chapter of Democracy Matters from trekking down to the state house Tuesday afternoon, posters in hand, for a press conference in support of the Rhode Island Public Financing of Elections Act.
METRO Melissa Shube / Herald
Members of the Brown chapter of Democracy Matters head to the steps of the Rhode Island State House.
the press conference to drum up support for the legislation, which would create a voluntary system of public financing for all statewide and legislative elections. The act was first introduced five years ago but has struggled to make it past several committees and onto the floor.
“Our goal was first to expose the issue to more legislators,” Jonathan Bogard ’09, a member of Democracy Matters, told The Herald. “The second goal was to expose the issue to Rhode Islanders.” Pointing to the ring of legislators watching the press conference from above the rotunda and citing
Student activities endowment on track to representatives from UCS and the Undergraduate Finance Board — a goal UFB Vice Chair Stefan Smith ’09 said was “not happening any time soon.” But Davitt said the University would “love” to raise at least $100,000 — a minimum floor for endowments, she said — by the end of June. The Council’s Student Activities Committee initiated the proposal to create an endowment for the Student Activities Fund at the beginning of the fall semester, presenting the University with a report on the benefits of such a move. The chair of the Council’s Student Activities Committee, Ryan Lester ’11, told The Herald last month that he was
by Ben Schreckinger Senior Staff Writer
www.browndailyherald.com
Endowment changes since July 2008 0
Dartmouth
Duke
Northwestern
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
-20 -25%
Emory
-15
Columbia
-10
Georgetown
-5
U. of Chicago
News.....1-4 Higher Ed.5-6 Sports......7 Editorial..10 Opinion...11 Today........12
Percent change
inside
An Undergraduate Council of Students initiative to have the University raise an endowment for the Student Activities Fund will go forward, one of Brown’s top fundraisers said Tuesday, though increased stress on donors is likely to slow the project. The plan, which would seek to ultimately eliminate the $164 fee all students currently pay into the fund, was approved in December, said Vice President for Development Kristin Davitt ’88. The University would need to raise between $17 and $21 million to completelyeliminate the fee, according
By Lauren Pischel Staff Writer
Brown ranks second-to-last in the Ivy League in the percentage of black students enrolled in the Class of 2012, according to a recent study published by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Blacks made up 6.7-percent of the first-year class at Brown, compared with 12.1 percent at Columbia University, which led all 29 upper-echelon universities the study examined. Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, second and third in the Ivy League, had 10 percent and 9.4 percent respectively. Among Ivies, only Cornell enrolled a lower percentage of blacks than Brown — 4.5 percent of its incoming class. Brown’s 6.7 percent enrollment tied it with Johns Hopkins, Washington and Vanderbilt Universities for 17th among the 29 universities, which were included in study because of their high scores in U.S. News and World Report’s annual college rankings. “We admitted more African American students last year than in the history of the institution,” said Dean of Admissions James Miller ’73, but that did not lead to a rise in black students’ matriculation. The Class of 2012 matriculated 104 black students, one fewer than the Class of 2011. “We did not have a good year last year,” Miller said. The relatively low 6.7-percent enrollment is not due to a lack of blacks in the applicant pool, nor in the number admitted. The problem
Students rally for campaign finance reform
As students stepped over ice and through piles of snow, they called out, “Elections, not auctions,” and, “People in, money out” — though they accidentally chanted “People out, money in” while marching through Kennedy Plaza. On their march, they passed out faux $5 bills featuring advertising icon Mr. Clean advocating for campaign finance reform. Democracy Matters organized
in black enrollment
ra c y o u trea c h
surprised by the plan’s rapid progress. “My goal was that we would create this report last semester and ask for the money this semester,” he said. Davitt said she hopes to compile a list of potential donors in the next two months, although she said it was not a top priority. “It’s a little tricky in this economic environment to look for additional dollars,” Davitt said, adding that the annual fund and financial aid expansion are requiring increased attention. Lester said the possibility that the activities fund endowment might be put on the back burner given the University’s other priorities was not a continued on page 2
Courtesy of Andrew Vottero ’09 New MSex posters “were interesting to people of all genders and sexualities.”
Higher Ed, 5
Sports, 7
Opinions, 11
Schools lose money Brown isn’t the only school with huge endowment losses
Gymnastics on top The gymnastics team is in first place in the Ivy League
More Ratty Issues Kate Doyle ’12 lists her dining hall grievances
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