President outlines campus response to poor economy: Comments

Comment on "President outlines campus response to poor economy"

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:21:53 -0500

Very reassuring to hear that budgets are being reviewed and you are looking to see where expenses can be cut. In the last analysis, it will be interesting to see if there will again be increases in next year's tuition, room,board and fees, or if you are able to hold the line.

- Phil Brooks

Comment on "President outlines campus response to poor economy"

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:32:49 -0500

Ms. Anderson,

Thank you for your response to President Chopp's recent message to the community. Similar to other colleges and universities, the value of Colgate's endowment has declined significantly in 2008. Nevertheless, please be assured that we have every intention of maintaining the meaningful support provided by the endowment for the university's operating budget.

As President Chopp reinforced in her latest message, Colgate is committed to helping our students and their families cope with the effects of this severe economic downturn by providing assistance when a family's financial circumstances have changed.

We have taken several immediate steps to enact budget savings and we continue to consider additional options to contain expenditures.

Thanks again,

David Hale
Vice President for Finance & Administration

- David Hale

Comment on "President outlines campus response to poor economy"

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:38:42 -0500

Dear Pres. Chopp, We are glad to hear that you are trying to cut costs and delaying more capital expenditures. Have you considered freezing salaries and using the endowment to freeze tuition and room/board charges? My husband's company froze salaries and cut benefits more than a year ago. And since then there have been 3 rounds of layoffs. Nobody's job is safe. We pay full freight for our son, a junior, and each year tuition has gone up substantially. He hasn't even been able to get a job there. Colgate could help us middle class parents (who could easily lose our middle class status) by freezing our costs which are nearly $50,000 a year. This is the time to use the endowment to help the students you have. We have another child who expects to go to college next fall and we honestly don't know how we will be able to do this.
Sincerely, Carol Anderson

- Carol Anderson

Comment on "President outlines campus response to poor economy"

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:53:38 -0500

As the parent of a first-year student, I began reading your message with some trepidation. By the time I finished, I had developed confidence that you, and the Colgate community, have the ability to deal with this economic crisis in a reasonable and prudent way. Hang in there -- we'll all help every way we can.

- Steve Kroyer

Comment on "President outlines campus response to poor economy"

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:34:42 -0500

Dr. Chopp:
Don't know if this will actually reach you, but it's worth the possibility to share what your address stirred up in me.

I happen to keep the emailed Colgate news updates (I signed on for them when applying for a chaplaincy position last year, you know, to do research on the community, etc. :) still channeling those good ethnographic instincts that dr. eisland's seminar trained us to have!) and while I'll be the first to confess my life is far too demanding for me to read anything but headlines; this time, I found the title of this address too compelling to ignore.

It made me proud to read the concern you expressed, the compassionate awareness conveyed, not by mere sentiment, but in the concreteness of the decisions you made in your capacity as President (requesting 5% of operating budgets to be freed up by various bodies, clearly holding above all else, the school's promise to support students (and their families) through sufficient financial aid, etc. and through such decisions, implicitly reminding everyone who receives something of their livelihood through the Colgate community, that the thriving of all is at stake, and cannot be accomplished during challenging financial times without the commitment of each to all.

Though Colgate has never been my community, I know what it is to be part of a community of learning of equal quality, where education -- and the value of learning, plain and simple -- is upheld as the highest treasure, honored as the greatest prize, and cherished as a reward unto itself. Your address reminds me that to be human, and to be human in a way that, as St. Irenaeus invoked, is so fully alive as to reflect the very glory of the Divine, IS to be one who is committed to discovering our human capacity to learn and know and understand. Even if it costs us, your words somehow suggest to me that the learning we are doing is worth PROTECTING, and keeping alive and healthy, as part of our most vital human function.

As one who's grad program has spanned a decade now, I have watched as our vocation (whether as student or professor, or you name it) has systematically been undervalued by the administrating in power, and have reaped in my debts over the past 8 years the difficult fruits of student loan amounts soaring, as grants diminished, and interest-rates on student loans rising now to be as high as 8% (fixed with the Grad Plus loans we have to take when our institutions can no longer fund us). I do not envy that your presidency, like that of President-Elect Obama, reaps the difficult and toilsome work of undoing a season of financial damage to our country unparalleled in history, and hope your community rallies around you, in the same way the country will need to rally around our next president (whether we elected him or not), appreciating the creative attentiveness, caring compassion, and sheer courage of intention evident in the words I read. Perhaps most convincing of all are the glimpses of the vision of Colgate that come through in this address; that you appreciate and honor the community you are rallying to support it's own makes me believe that the optimism inherent in your decisions undoubtedly represent the institution's best hope for not merely surviving, but truly thriving when all is said and done.

Wishing you all the best,
MK

- Mari Kim