Task Force Overview Membership  the Honorable Thomas H

STATE OF THE COLLEGE ADDRESS February 9, 2011

INTRODUCTION Thank you all for coming today. The college is actually in a good state, all things considered. We have many achievements to celebrate at Ramapo and I will highlight just some of those. I will also describe our budgetary situation as we know it.

REPORT OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION TASK FORCE First, I will take you through the report of the Higher Education Task Force chaired by former Governor Tom Kean. Membership on the Task Force included representation from private business as well as public and private higher education. Task Force Overview Membership  The Honorable Thomas H. Kean, Chair  Robert E. Campbell, Vice Chairman (Retired), Johnson & Johnson  Dr. Margaret Howard, Vice President for Administration & University Relations, Drew University  John L. McGoldrick, Esq., Chair, Zimmer Holdings, Inc., Executive Vice President – Retired, Bristol-Myers Squibb  Dr. George A. Pruitt, President, Thomas Edison State College

Process  Met with more than 150 people from May to November  Issued a 9-point questionnaire to college Presidents and Trustees

Recommendations in 6 major categories:  Financing/Affordability  Governance  Mission  Rutgers University  UMDNJ and Medical Education  Workforce Development and Economic Development

3 The Task Force held extensive meetings and I know that they canvassed very broadly. I had two meetings with them myself. Their recommendations were in six major categories: Financing and Affordability, Governance, Mission, Rutgers University, UMDNJ and Medical Education, and Workforce Development and Economic Development.

TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS: FINANCING & AFFORDABILITY This is a direct quote from the report, “After twenty years of declining state funding and increased tuition, the fortunes of citizens of our state hang in the balance. Student access to an affordable college education and the economic prosperity of our state are at stake. New Jersey must decide to change course and provide greater support for higher education.” Financing & Affordability

“After twenty years of declining State funding and increased tuition, the fortunes of citizens of our state hang in the balance. Student access to an affordable college education and the economic prosperity of our state are at stake. New Jersey must decide to change course and provide greater support for higher education.”

Ramapo College: State Support as a Percent of Revenues

4 4 Now, each year I show you this graph and as you can see, we are running out of space at the bottom. If you go back to 1997 and look to the top of the chart, 60% of our revenues came from the state. If you then go to 2011 and look at the bottom of the chart, 24.8% of our revenue came from the state. You don’t need to extrapolate much further to realize that we stand to be a public college for a relatively short period—that issue is met front and center in this report. Financing & Affordability Recommendations

Tuition  State should not impose tuition caps  Institutions should not increase tuition in one year increments that are unreasonably large compared to previous year increases

Capital Support  State should immediately issue general obligation bonds (the last bond issue was in 1988)  Institutions should receive annual capital support  Restore Higher Education Incentive Funding Program (to attract private philanthropy) Operating Support  Provide greater financial support for operating budgets  Develop and implement a more rational approach to allocating state aid  The state should fund salary increases that it negotiates for state employees

Student Aid  Maintain Tuition Aid Grant funding,  Increase funding to Educational Opportunity Fund  Transform NJ STARS to promote student choice and mobility  Improve application process for student assistance 5

I would like to review some of the important recommendations listed. The first recommendation is to deal with tuition. The report says specifically that the state should not impose tuition caps, you recall that they did that last year. It is not the feeling that tuition increases should be unbridled, it is simply that they are the responsibility of the independent boards of trustees, not of the governor or the legislature. The report does say that institutions should not increase tuition in one year increments that are unreasonably large.

With respect to capital support, many of you know that we haven’t had any capital support since 1988. The report recommends that the state should immediately issue general obligation bonds. Now, there is a great deal of immediacy in the recommendations but far less in the responses. I will talk about that later. The report talks about providing annual capital support and restoring the Higher Education Incentive Funding Program to attract private philanthropy—largely a matching program that was very effective when it was in place.

On the operating side, the report calls for three recommendations. First, it calls upon the state to provide greater financial support for operating budgets. Second, and my personal favorite, it calls for the development and implementation of a more rational approach to allocating state aid. Those of you who are laughing must have been paying attention for the last five years while I have harped on about this at every single State of the College Address, but it has gotten worse since I arrived which I hope you won’t take as a testament to my effectiveness as a lobbyist. The fact is, now there is about a $15 million differential between what we would receive if we were treated the same way on the revenue side as The College of New Jersey. Third, the report says the state should fund salary increases that it negotiates for state employees. Well, we will talk about the budget gap that we face this year and that budget gap is occasioned by the fact that we have salary increases to pay that are not centrally funded.

On the student aid side, the report recommends maintaining Tuition Aid Grant funding, increasing funding to the Educational Opportunity Fund, and transforming NJSTARS to promote student choice and mobility—which is perhaps code for abolishing it, and improving the application process for student assistance.

Now, you have to admit that on the operating and capital side under the Financing and Affordability category, we couldn’t ask for much more in a report. This is exactly what we in the sector would have written had we been in charge of authoring the report.

TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS: GOVERNANCE Let’s turn now to Governance. There was of course a considerable degree of consternation years ago when UMDNJ ran into trouble and the feeling was that there wasn’t adequate oversight. Well, what this report emphasizes is that such oversight really should be the responsibility of the independent Boards of Trustees to run the institutions. The report has some very concrete recommendations on this front. Governance Recommendations

 Eliminate Commission on Higher Education  Identify Secretary of Higher Education and Governor’s Higher Education Council* (*Authorized in Executive Order #52 signed on January 4th)  Colleges should initiate the trustee nomination process  Pass tool kit bills to reform worker’s compensation, collective bargaining, and elimination of civil service  State should pay for any unfunded mandates  Eliminate policies that hinder competitiveness: • Caps on state pension contributions

• Local approvals for construction projects 7

First, it recommends eliminating the Commission on Higher Education which has become so ossified in its deliberations because its staff has been so cut back that it takes us about five times as long to get approval of a program as you would normally expect.

Second, it seeks to identify a Secretary of Higher Education and the Governor’s Higher Education Council. We were very concerned, you may recall, when this commission was established, that it might wind up recommending the recreation of a Department of Education with a bureaucracy that during its prime had a budget that rivaled the budget of our College. And so what has been recommended here is the creation of a single position with a volunteer executive council. And the executive order creating that council has already been signed.

Third, the report says that colleges should initiate the trustee nomination process. That would make nominations apolitical, or at least less political.

Fourth, the report recommends passage of the Tool Kit bills to reform workers compensation, collective bargaining, and the elimination of the civil service classification in colleges and universities. The workers compensation reform has already been done. The Tool Kit bill that I think has caused the most controversy is allowing individual institutions to bargain collectively. What you may not know is that the nine public colleges in New Jersey, leaving aside the research institutions and the independents and the community colleges, all of whom bargain separately, the nine publics are the only group in all of North America who have someone else do the bargaining for them and then have to deal with whatever is negotiated on their behalf. So, I will tell you and I have told my union colleagues this, that I am personally in favor of collective bargaining school by school because I think we can do a better job at reaching agreement about our particular needs at Ramapo than to have it done centrally for us in Trenton. I think the proof is in that pudding by looking at what has happened in the past.

Fifth, the report calls upon the state to pay for any unfunded mandates. That would be a happy change from my standpoint.

Sixth, the report calls for the elimination of policies that hinder competitiveness. Caps on state pension contributions being one recent example of this, and more seamless approval of constructions projects being another.

TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS: MISSION We now go to the Mission category where the Task Force put a great deal of emphasis on mission differentiation, the idea that under autonomy, which the schools have had since the abolition of the Department of Education, that they have been able to pursue independent missions, and they have been able to do so successfully. The report says, “Relative to their resources, (NJ’s nine state colleges) are one of the three best performing public baccalaureate and master’s sectors for six year graduation rates of bachelor’s students; and given their resources, they are in the top four states in producing bachelor’s degrees relative to their student populations.” That is something that we sometimes forget. Mission Recommendations

 All institutions should undertakeundertake a review of their missions - Ramapo reviewed its mission in 2007 and again in 2010

 Princeton University should enhance its role in researching and recommending solutions to NJ’s public policy and educational issues

 The legislature should refrain from micromanaging institutions “Imposing a tuition cap on the ffourour year public colleges last year may have been a mistake.” - Governor Christie

 The state should charge a fee for out of state institutions seeking licensure

 More transparency and accountaccountabilityability of teacher education programs

Under mission recommendations, the report makes five suggestions. First, all institutions should undertake a review of their missions. We have done that. We did it when we advanced the Strategic Plan in 2007 and we did it recently for Middle States.

Second, the report says that Princeton University should enhance its role in researching public policy and recommending solutions to NJ’s public policy and educational issues.

Third, it says the legislature should refrain from micromanaging institutions. The Governor himself said, “Imposing a tuition cap on the four year public colleges last year may have been a mistake.”

Fourth, the report recommends the state charge a fee for out of state institutions seeking licensure in New Jersey. Right now the state does not do that and many states do.

Fifth, the report calls for transparency and accountability of teacher education programs—an issue I honestly don’t quite understand, but it is there.

TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS: RUTGERS UNIVERSITY Now we move to the recommendations for Rutgers University. The short form of the report’s recommendation is that Rutgers has to go from good to great. I happen to think that this is a fair recommendation but it has to be accompanied, as it is, by a statement that Rutgers needs to be funded appropriately if it is going to be a great research university. It is not funded appropriately right now and it has a legitimate right to complain that its support from the state isn’t adequate to the purpose of becoming a great research university.

Rutgers University Recommendations

 Rutgers should eliminate redundancies in personnel, utilities, and programming

 State should stabilize financial support to Rutgers

 Rutgers should merge with University of Medicine and Dentistry and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and School of Public Health

 Rutgers should increase the resources it provides to Rutgers-Newark and evaluate the resources it provides to Rutgers-Camden

The report is a bit pointed in its recommendations though noting that Rutgers should eliminate redundancies in personnel, utilities, and programming. Among the recommendations for Rutgers, this one is likely the most controversial…that Rutgers should merge with the University of Medicine and Dentistry and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and School of Public Health. The Governor has indicated that he is not minded to accept that recommendation on its own, and that he believes that it needs further study. I will talk about that in a moment.

TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS: UMDNJ & MEDICAL EDUCATION The issue of UMDNJ and medical education in New Jersey is an issue that has gone around the carousel for longer than I have been here by a long shot. The report sums it up, “New Jersey needs a clear vision of medical training and research for the 21st century.” I think you will see some action on this but that action is unlikely to take place until an advisory committee has been convened to do some of this work. The first recommendation regarding UMDNJ is that it should be fundamentally transformed. It has a budget of about $1.5 billion and that is a lot of public money to be allocating to a system that appears to not be working particularly well. UMDNJ & Medical Education Recommendations

 UMDNJ should be fundamentally transformed

 Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and School of Public Health should merge with Rutgers

 Advisory Committee* should be convened to implement these recommendations (*Authorized in Executive Order #51 on January 4th)

TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS: WORKFORCE & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT The report notes, “Job projections indicate New Jersey must increase the number of its college–educated workers.” Well, indeed it must. The Georgetown Center for Labor and Education indicates that New Jersey, in much the same situation as other states, will have to dramatically increase the number of college educated graduates if it is going to be able to ramp up its economy the way it needs to—even to replace those that will be leaving in the next 20 years.

According to the report there are two significant obstacles that stand in the way of accomplishing this: (1) too many New Jersey high school graduates are not prepared for college level work, and (2) the significant number of well-prepared high school graduates that leave New Jersey to attend college. We have about 28,000 high school graduates who leave the state very year. We have the lowest capacity virtually of any of the states. In North Dakota, there are 70 places for every 100 high school graduates (there are 70 colleges and universities in the state). In New Jersey, there are 15. I am not saying you can draw a perfect parallel; the point though is that that proportion is vastly out of line. It is important for us to understand the underpinnings of this recommendation because it may have implications for the way in which funding increases might be granted and they might run counter to what it is we are trying to do at Ramapo. As for those students that are not prepared for college level work, we have to remediate significant numbers of students who come through our doors in math and reading in particular.

The report has five major recommendations under Workforce and Economic Development. First, the report says the state should develop a comprehensive longitudinal data system to track indicators of college readiness. Fair enough.

Second, the report calls for improvement of K-12 alignment. Fair enough.

Here is the recommendation that might be a sleeping giant for us…the report recommends increasing capacity at state colleges and universities. If the state says that it is going to put more money into higher education but we are only going to give it to those who take on more students, then we will have a fork in the road and we will not be able to do what Yogi Berra said when you encounter one, “Take it.” We will actually have to choose. Right now our position is that we are not going to expand our undergraduate enrollment, we have basically peaked. We think we are the right size now. We are though going to increase our graduate enrollment. If the state came along and offered very significant financial inducements to us, we might have to rethink that. We might have no choice. Those mandates might be very pointed indeed. There is no indication that they will be however.

Fourth, the report calls for increasing out of state enrollments. I kind of like that recommendation because I think it enriches collegiate life. I don’t think it is a good thing that the students who come here find that 90% of their colleagues also come from the state of New Jersey. That is nothing against New Jersey, I would say the same no matter where I was.

The fifth recommendation is to remove roadblocks to public/private partnerships. Of course we want to do that and our solar panel project is a good example of it.

So, the Governor said publicly that he supports the report’s recommendations but that it will take some time to realize them. He said that at the meeting that I attended a week ago Monday. Given the state of New Jersey’s finances, that is a reasonable statement. If he said he was going to immediately go out and do everything in the report we would have to question how in the world he could do that. However, there has to be some tangible expression of support in the Governor’s February 22 budget address. If there is no direct reference to public higher education and supporting it in some tangible way then I think we have the right to be concerned.

RAMAPO ACHIEVEMENTS Alright, let’s move to some very good things occurring at Ramapo.

At the individual school level, we have to count the Anisfield School of Business’ AACSB accreditation which was earned in December, putting us in the top 5% of business schools worldwide.

At the individual level, I see Professor Eric Karlin in the audience. Sometimes things happen serendipitously. When Eric was President of the Faculty Assembly, he would come and see me every couple of weeks and we would talk about what was happening and I would always ask him about his research. Eric, I think I was pretty good at feigning interest in it at the beginning, until you actually got me to the point where I actually understood something about it. To those of you that don’t know, Eric is a specialist in mosses. With a colleague from Duke University, he has been researching mosses on the west coast of the United States, New Zealand, and Europe. One of the things that he discovered was that these mosses were genetically identical, which is exactly counter to what one would think. If a plant is so hearty that it could propagate you would have thought that there would be some biodiversity but it all goes back to one plant. So having published that, the BBC and its science page picked that up as its item of the day and the floodgates opened as Eric was soon swamped with inquiries from across the globe. I share this achievement because this is not an isolated example. We have many colleagues who labor away in their areas of expertise, involve students in their research, and who achieve this sort of renown in their own circles. I think it speaks extraordinarily well of us.

Also at the school level, we have a major construction project due to begin this summer and that is the renovation of G-Wing and the 25,000 square foot build out from that, which will have a particular effect on the schools of Theoretical and Applied Sciences and Social Science and Human Services. We believe that project will be completed by the year 2014 but it might take a little longer than that.

At the college-wide level, I would like to share this graph of graduation rates with you:

I regularly say that our major academic competition in the state is The College of New Jersey and here I think that is born out. These graduation rates, published by the Star Ledger, show as you might expect that Princeton University has had the most success in graduating students within four to six years, followed by Drew University, then the College of New Jersey, and then us! This is a very significant accomplishment and I don’t want it to be lost on us. I’d also like to point out that in 2004, 36% of our students were graduating in four to six years and by 2008, that number increased to 53%. If you look at Princeton’s rates, it went from 86% to 90%. I joke that people at Princeton and Harvard don’t like output measures as much as we do, because what are you going to say if you’re at Princeton or Harvard—“We took a silk purse, and four years later, it is still a silk purse.” Ramapo actually made tremendous strides relative to the rest of the institutions and I think it is a lot to be proud of.

I would also like to share the data from the National Association of College and University Business Officers on the growth of our endowment. N.J. University/Colleges Rank FY 2010 Percentage Endowment Change from Funds ($000) 2009 Ramapo College of NJ 810 $9,110 29.5% Monmouth University 525 $53,309 27.2% Georgian Court University 584 $40,258 20.7% Fairleigh Dickinson 693 $23,928 19.2% College of New Jersey 766 $14,743 18.8% College of St. Elizabeth 733 $18,276 15.8% Princeton University 3 $14,391,450 14.1% Rutgers 105 $603,083 10.7% Seton Hall University 275 $162,889 10.2% Princeton Theological 80 $811,101 7.5% Rider University 557 $46,802 6.3% Drew University 249 $183,355 6.2% Stevens Institute of Tech. 316 $133,397 3.9% Rowan 330 $122,034 3.4% Here you see that Ramapo’s endowment is the top among the New Jersey institutions with a 29.5% increase in value from 2009 to 2010. Obviously that is significant; I don’t want you to get overwhelmed by the actual number. One would of course prefer to be Princeton University with its $14 billion endowment but, let it be noted that in 2006 our endowment principle was about $3.3 million. By 2010, it had grown to over $8 million. That growth is significant and valuable. Many of you in this room have enjoyed the sorts of small rewards the Foundation is able to provide and the growth in the endowment is significant as an indicator of the health of the Ramapo College and of the willingness of our supporters to continue supporting us. I should also mention, since I am used to comparing us to The College of New Jersey, that their endowment is only $14 million and they were created in 1855.

THE NATIONAL & STATE PERSPECTIVE ON HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDING Now, let’s move to perhaps my favorite graphic of the bunch and look at changes to state appropriations in higher education from 2005-06 to 2007-08. Changes in State Appropriation in Higher Education 2005-06 to 2007-08

Between 2005-06 and 2007-08, New Jersey appropriation for higher education decreased by 0.3 percent as compared to a national average increase of 16.2 percent. This decline places New Jersey last among the 50 states in changes to higher education appropriations over the two-year period and makes the state the only 19 one in the nation to see an actual reduction in monies allocated to colleges and universities. The purple states here received more than a 15% increase in appropriations during that period. The orange states received 0-14.9%, and there is one state which is in the negative…New Jersey. I show this as often as I can, it is deplorable. Another way of looking at it is that the national average during this time was 16.1% and New Jersey actually declined. This information is taken right from the report of the Higher Education Task Force. The Task Force did not shy away from this data.

The Task Force also did not shy away from focusing on debt to operating revenue. If you’re ever feeling inferior, in this category, we are number one. Our debt to operating revenues is at the top of the pack.

New Jersey Public Institutions: Debt to Revenue Comparison

Notice that others have high ratios as well. Some do not. If you look at the Ohio systems, the Michigan systems, or the national median, you have to conclude that obviously in most of these systems there is support for capital funding. Well, there hasn’t been support for capital funding in New Jersey so we have done it on our own hook. But again, I emphasize to you that the majority of our debt is supported by a direct revenue stream, actually more than 70% of it, because we used the money to build residences and the residences of course have a stream of revenue. That is why when you look at the credit ratings, our rating is the same virtually as everyone else’s.

The A1 rating that Montclair, NJIT and William Paterson have is slightly higher than ours, but our A2 rating ranks comparably to the College of New Jersey, Richard Stockton College, and others. Why would that be? Because we made the case to Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s that our debt is supported by a direct stream of revenue and furthermore the debt we are intending to accrue in order to expand G-Wing was going to be supported by a direct revenue stream itself. That stream is the capital improvement fee.

THE BUDGET GAP Let me know talk a little bit about the budget gap. Many of you will ask why are we going out and borrowing another $54 million when we have to fill a gap of $6 million in our operating budget. Well the answer to that is that we have been filling gaps in the operating budget for years, that reality cannot stop us from progressing as a college. And, the renovations to G wing, particularly, to our labs, are so badly needed that we really have no choice.

More to the point, because we were able to satisfy the bond rating agencies in the past with evidence of a dedicated stream of revenue, we in effect created that again. Two years ago we instituted a capital improvement fee. Some other colleges had it, Montclair and William Paterson for example. Our initial plan which had been sanctioned by the departments of government was to impose a $1000 fee for each full time student. We ended up negotiating doing that over three years. The fact is that by Board policy, the proceeds of the Capital Improvement Fee may be used only for capital purposes. Once fully implemented, which will be the case this coming year, it will generate about $5 million in revenue.

The total cost of the new borrowing of $54 million, principle and interest, given the fact that the Foundation is helping defray some of the interest costs and taking into account what we have been able to set off from our reserves, will be about $4.5 million annually. So, we have a buffer. We will also have about $500,000 per year that can be used for deferred maintenance purposes. Let me be clear, we will have enough money from the dedicated capital improvement fee to be able to point to it and say, “We are not going to make any incursions on the operating budget in order to fund this debt.”

Now, how are we going to bridge the budget gap? A $6 million budget gap is relatively easy to create when you don’t get any central funding for salary increases and those have come home to roost. We also have significant inflation costs in things like utilities. No fair for guessing correctly on what has happened to our snow removal budget this year for example. We have about $4,000 left in a $600,000 snow removal budget which is enough to buy shovels for everyone in this room.

So, what are we going to do? We will increase revenues. There will be an increase in tuition and fees-- we don’t know precisely what that will be yet. There will also be an increase in residence costs. We are looking at increasing food costs in our cafeterias; they are relatively low in comparison to our competitors. I don’t like doing it, but we have to be realistic.

We also have to cut expenses. We will not have as much money to dedicate to strategic planning as we have in the past. And a part of cutting expenses, but, a part only, is a reduction in salary costs. I don’t want anybody to be under the illusion that somehow we think that $6 million is going to be made up by cutting salaries or that even a majority of that would be made up by cutting salaries. It will not. And you will recall in the documents that have been sent electronically, the four ways we propose to potentially reduce salary costs: first via attrition, second via the possibility of voluntary contributions by way of furlough, third via the reduction in employment contract periods from 12 months to 10 months, and fourth, and only as a last resort, via layoffs. There are too many uncontrolled variables right now for me to know how likely a prospect that is. We don’t yet know what our appropriations will be from the state. We don’t yet know if the state will cut us indirectly. We don’t yet know what sort of tuition and fee increase we could need to offset that and whether the Board of Trustees would approve it. We are meeting with the Board on February 16 to discuss that.

It does lead us to the question, “Why continue hiring and why continue with renovations to G-Wing?” It is because we must do so to maintain our vitality as a liberal arts college.

CONCLUSION I want to conclude by just reflecting a bit on that. Any of you who read Newsweek magazine might have seen in April of last year the title “The Death of the Liberal Arts.” Now, by the time a popular magazine gets to a title like that, usually the tide has reversed, and I mean that quite seriously. There are already signs of the tide of public opinion reversing. But, there are some harrowing statistics as well. A professor at Michigan State for example reported that in 1990 there were 212 liberal arts colleges in the country, and by the year 2000 that number had dropped to 136. I don’t know whether that is true, I assume it is. I have no reason to quibble with it. It is a bit harrowing to think of but I am not worried about it and I will tell you why.

First, I am not worried about it because the danger of abandoning the liberal arts remains the same. If you place your emphasis on vocational and career training, then that deemphasizes critical thinking skills, the ability to write, analyze and synthesize information—all the things that make you potentially nimble in an economic crisis. Second, post-secondary education is definitely overwhelmingly occupational. It is occupational at Ramapo College too. That is different from being vocational. Occupational means that the liberal arts trains students appropriately for graduate and professional degrees which are indeed oriented for preparing them for careers. There is nothing wrong with students coming to Ramapo College and saying, “I want you to show me what occupation I am likely be able to enter.” Similarly, our students should be asking, “What is it about the education and training I am going to receive here that is going to enable me to participate in the workforce and society?” We answer these questions regularly, recognizing that much, if not most of the vocational training, is actually provided by the business entity itself. I will give you some examples of that…the CEO of JP Morgan Chase has an undergraduate degree in psychology, the CEO of IBM has an undergraduate degree in history, and Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, has an undergraduate degree in political science.

It is often the case that people who study in the liberal arts move on to quintessentially vocational or skills-applied careers and indeed we should celebrate that. Anthony Carnevale recently wrote, focusing on the complaint you hear that so many taxi drivers have PhD’s, “Many workers are just passing through low-wage, low-skill jobs as part of their natural career progression and are not indicative of career long effects of college degrees…There are many more brain surgeons who used to be cashiers than there are cashiers who used to be brain surgeons.” I’ll accept that assertion on faith, I really don’t need an empirical foundation on that.

I’d like to share with you a quote from NJBIZ magazine. When NJBIZ expresses these sentiments you know that the tide has turned against this view that somehow a liberal arts education is dispensable. The magazine noted, “We cannot grow new programs at the expense of a broad liberal arts education. History, economics and philosophy prepare our students for a range of professional and personal challenges, not least in developing vital skills in oral and written communication and information analysis, organizational and research abilities, and information and project management skills. This more traditional model remains essential for helping students achieve their full potential in education beyond a four year degree: in professional programs, law, business, and the medical field- - and in graduate programs that lead to a range of careers.”

To conclude with an excerpt of an interview with Richard Arum, the author of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, the book that is all the rage in the talk circuit now, Arum said, “The environment that kids face has changed. They're going into an increasingly globalized economic system. Even if you have subject-specific skills, the labor market is so uncertain that people are increasingly moving from job to job as adults. You need to have developed these higher order skills: critical thinking, complex reasoning and the ability to communicate in writing. If you haven't, you're going to be at a lifelong disadvantage in the economy. Equally or more troubling, if you're graduating large numbers of kids that have not developed critical thinking and complex reasoning, how are they going to function as democratic citizens?”

I think the state of our college is sound and I would be happy to take any questions.