Simmons: ‘Near-term decisions must make sense in long-term context’

The president addresses staff at forum sponsored by Staff Advisory Committee.

by Tracie Sweeney

At a March 7 forum held for University staff, President Simmons acknowledged the challenges a difficult economy presents to higher education: Endowments and charitable giving are down; Congress is taking aim at holding tuition increases in check; municipalities are exploring ways to tax currently exempt institutions.

Times are tough, Simmons said, and universities – including Brown – must reexamine where they are spending their money. Brown’s “near-term decisions must make sense in a long-term context” if the University is to make gains in the coming decade, she told the Sayles Hall audience.

Simmons said that she is often asked why Brown’s rankings are falling. “I tell them the rankings are fair” because the institutions that have surpassed Brown have invested more in key areas, she said.

“It is a challenge to envision how we’re going to get to a stronger position in 10 years,” she said. “Our initial strides began last year” as the University reached several milestones in its current academic enrichment plan.

Simmons said she was grateful for the University’s long-term planning process, which Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning, briefly discussed earlier in the forum.

Spies noted that at its February retreat, the Corporation endorsed the scale and scope of the University’s long-term goals. A summary of those proposals will be released to the University “in the next week or two,” he said. Although the proposals “are still very much evolving,” Spies said the plans look at six key areas:

• faculty and faculty support;

• undergraduate student support, which includes smaller classes and more of them, financial aid, and student life programs and facilities;

• graduate education, which includes support packages and housing;

• the Division of Biology and Medicine;

• multidisciplinary initiatives;

• diversity.

The third speaker at the forum, sponsored by the Staff Advisory Committee, was Provost Robert Zimmer. He briefly discussed the University Resources Committee’s recent budget recommendations.