As part of the first-ever (and remarkably successful) Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference held in Washington D.C. this weekend, Provost Kent Fuchs made some remarks on the state of Reimagining Cornell to a packed luncheon on Saturday. Highlights from his talk include: -- A draft version of the strategic plan is now available and the Provost is welcoming public comment on the draft. Later this spring, there will be a second "comment window" for a revised draft. -- The $200 MM+ long-term structural deficit appears to be largely under control due to a) cuts already taken, b) the $90 MM in administrative savings that the consultants have found. -- A new budget model for the Ithaca campus, greatly simplified and streamlined, is very close to being approved. Fuchs put up slides of both the old budget model and the new model to get a laugh out of the audience, but the slides were actually very telling -- under the old model undergraduate tuition revenue went straight to the college that "owned it", but the new model has Day Hall distributing the funds back to the colleges based on both "quantitative and qualitative factors" . Additionally, Day Hall will be "taxing" all revenue streams to the various units, presumably at various rates depending on the source of income, and re-allocating the "taxed" dollars to institutional priorities. In a nutshell, what this means is that the Hotel School will have to start subsidizing the folks that culture (Arts) and feed (Ag) it. -- Fuchs talked at length about this article and chart. And I'll have more about it later. -- Interestingly, Fuchs mentioned that the University was "somewhat seriously" considering the idea that students wouldn't have to associate by college until their sophomore year. I'm certain the Hotel School and Engineering School really love that idea. -- As far as state appropriations, Fuchs could only really say that a) New York State is seriously constrained and b) beyond that is anybody's guess. How Cornell's relationship with New York State changes throughout this process is crucial to the shape and scope of our 'reimagined Cornell', and I think it remains to be seen. -- Finally, I was able to ask Fuchs where he saw undergraduate business education in ten years. (Loyal readers know this is a favorite issue of mine.) He wasn't able to give a firm answer, because the final decision obviously hasn't been yet, but he did indicate that he expects the undergraduate business part of AEM (as opposed to the agricultural and resource economics part of AEM) to develop a "stronger" relationship with the Johnson school. We live in interesting times.
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