Report of the President, Bowdoin College 1972-1973
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Bowdoin College Bowdoin Digital Commons Annual Report of the President Special Collections and Archives 1-1-1973 Report of the President, Bowdoin College 1972-1973 Bowdoin College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/presidents-reports Recommended Citation Bowdoin College, "Report of the President, Bowdoin College 1972-1973" (1973). Annual Report of the President. 82. https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/presidents-reports/82 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Special Collections and Archives at Bowdoin Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Annual Report of the President by an authorized administrator of Bowdoin Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Report of the President 1972-1973 BOWDOIN COLLEGE BRUNSWICK, MAINE Report of the President To the Trustees and Overseers of Bowdoin College: I have the honor to submit the following report for the academic year 1972-1973. The Financial Situation IT seems almost inevitable that presidential reports begin with a discussion of the financial situation of the College. It is there- fore a happy circumstance which enables me to say that the Col- lege is stronger today in a financial sense than it has been for many years. The fact that the College experienced operating deficits for a decade was a cause of great concern to all members of the college community, and this circumstance, coupled with the widely cir- culated and gloomy financial projections of the Carnegie Com- mission and the Association of American Colleges, has tended in recent years to cast a sense of foreboding over the financial sections of this report. At this time last year I noted that the College would enter the current year with a budget that projected a very modest excess of revenue over expenditure. It is absolutely clear at this point that the aim of a balanced budget will be achieved when the books are closed on the 1972-1973 financial year. In fact, there is every indication that the surplus of revenue will be substantially greater than was projected when the budget was submitted a year ago. The Committee on Policy has approved the establishment of two reserve funds, one to cope with deferred maintenance occa- sioned by our austerity program, the other for student loans, an area in which we have relied heavily on federal assistance, the fu- ture of which is now quite uncertain. Successful balancing of the budget is, in my opinion, the most notable achievement of the past year. That achievement was made possible by the concern and hard work of all sectors of the college community. Administrative and board action alone cannot solve budgetary difficulties. A solution requires the cooperation and suggestions of faculty members, students, and alumni. I would like to pay special tribute to the work of the Governing Boards Com- mittee on Investments. Their imaginative and aggressive concern for the management of the College's portfolio has produced excel- lent results. The rate of return which has been achieved compares very favorably with the standard indices, and the committee has done a skillful job of meeting the College's two potentially diver- 4 Bowdoin College gent needs, that for current income and that for future growth. I would also like to commend the Faculty-Student Committee on Budgetary Priorities for its continuing efforts. To be sure, not all of its recommendations have been followed in the final compilation of the budget, but the majority have been, and the committee con- tinues to play an important advisory role in financial affairs. Balancing the budget in a given year is a worthy accomplish- ment in itself. But it would have relatively small significance, were it not part of a long-term development. It is encouraging to note that the budget for 1973-1974 being submitted to the Governing Boards at their June meeting anticipates an excess of revenue over expenditure by a margin that is somewhat less precarious than was the case with the current year's budget. Moreover, it has been possible to build into next year's budget an increased con- tingency line. This is reassuring in the face of continued inflation- ary pressures, for it seems certain that the next year will see sharp rises in a number of areas. The College has the firm intention of operating within a balanced budget in the foreseeable future. However, I would caution against any easy optimism based on our experience of this year alone. Every major national study of the financial situation of higher education has stressed one main point, that the so-called new depression in higher education is not a short-term manifestation but a long-term one. The pres- sures causing rising educational costs will continue, and the Col- lege must be prepared to maintain continually the same searching scrutiny of its budgetary situation as has characterized recent years. Balancing the budget can have its costs, as well. In great part, the achievement of fiscal balance has come as the result of an increase in the student body while the size of faculty and staff has remained frozen. This has meant, in turn, an increase in the aver- age size of classes. I do not feel that the alterations in the faculty- student ratio have to this point eroded the quality of instruction at Bowdoin. Nor have they altered the fact that there are a wide variety of course types at the College, ranging from one-on-one tutorials to large lecture courses. In order to afford the capacity for individualized instruction it is necessary that there should be some large courses. Nor does it follow that the quality of teaching in the larger courses is less impressive than in the smaller ones. Some subjects, in fact, are more effectively taught in the larger context than they are in the individual tutorial. Yet there obvious- ly can come a point when the alteration of the faculty-student Report of the President 5 ratio will begin to affect the quality of the Bowdoin experience in an adverse way. At that point, attempting to solve budgetary prob- lems by further changes in the ratio may be self-defeating, for the price of survival under such circumstances will be declining quali- ty. Thus the College must be prepared to look to other methods, as well, to guarantee future budgetary balance. One such method is obviously to raise tuition. Since college costs are already very high, I have felt that a tuition increase should be the last expedient one resorts to. Bowdoin has been fortunate in holding its cost at approximately the same level since 1971. It will, however, be necessary to make an upward adjustment during the three years, 1974 to 1976. I am requesting from the Governing Boards autho- rization to make a tuition increase of up to $600 during that period, the annual increments to be determined by the economic necessity in any given year. In seeking this authorization, I am conscious of the fact that Bowdoin, as expensive as it seems, is at present charging less than almost all of its fellow colleges in New England. Just as other institutions have felt and responded to inflationary pressures, so must we. 175th Anniversary Program Budgetary considerations were, of course, much in the minds of those who planned the College's 175th Anniversary Campaign Program. Officially announced at the Alumni Day celebrations last fall after months of planning, this program is the most ambitious fund-raising effort ever undertaken by the College. In seeking to raise $14.5 million in the first three years and $38 million over a decade, the campaign is designed to assure that Bowdoin main- tains the front-running position it has achieved. The campaign has been launched at a time when the College is in a strong posi- tion, and it aims at preserving the margin that makes for excel- lence. Failure to obtain the objectives would lead, over the de- cade, to a gradual deterioration of quality that would cause the College to slip from its present front-rank position. Material concerning the campaign and detailing the needs of the College has already been widely circulated in the college fam- ily, and as the campaign progresses, further materials will become available. Rather than repeat in detail what has already been made available, I would like to comment in general terms about the importance of the campaign effort. The motto of the cam- paign—"The Purpose is People"—is more than just a catchy phrase. It sums up something very central to the Bowdoin experience, the 6 Bowdoin College deep institutional concern for people as individuals. What the campaign seeks to do is to give the College the financial support necessary for us to make the maximum possible use of our facilities in order to realize our commitment to that concern. A decade ago Bowdoin needed buildings, and as a result of the successful capital campaign it was able to create one of the finest physical plants among American colleges. Now our need is for support of our human resources, the students, the faculty, and the im- plements they need and use in the pursuit of scholarship. It goes without saying that Bowdoin must maintain a faculty that is out- standing. To do so, the College must be competitive in what it can offer to a faculty member. As I have noted in previous reports, this competitive capacity of the College was becoming badly eroded. With this in mind, the Governing Boards endorsed a five-year program to restore faculty compensation to a genuinely com- petitive level.