Ave Maria University Tightens Belt with Aim of Balanced Budget in Three Years
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Published on Friday, 13 May 2011 17:23
Ave Maria University's new president, Jim Towey, began to roll out his plan to balance the university's budget Friday, announcing a program that cuts spending by $3.5 million in the coming academic year and reorganizes several departments.
The plan, announced in a memo to the university staff and faculty, aims to get the university to economic self-sufficiency in three years, which would end the school's financial subsidies from founder Tom Monaghan, who has put about a quarter of a billion dollars into the Ave Maria endeavor.
Mr. Towey's budget for the coming academic year eliminates a number of positions and cuts discretionary expenditures across the board by 5.5 percent to reduce spending by a total of 10 percent.
One exception to the cuts is in the area of academics where, Mr. Towey said, "no faculty will be laid off as a result of these difficult but necessary spending cuts."
"In fact," he said, "we will be hiring new faculty members in business and psychology as well as filling other teaching vacancies as they arise so that the classroom experience is not affected."
He also called the outlook for the coming academic year's enrollment "very promising," with a significant increase at this time over last year in the number of new students who have made deposits to attend AMU in the fall. "We expect to enroll 300 or more new students this August which would include our largest incoming freshman class ever," Mr. Towey said.
Mr. Towey's plan cuts a number of current positions which, he said, "unfortunately means that 14 full-time employees will be leaving."
At the same time, he said AMU intends to create three new positions - a chief information officer, webmaster and budget director - funding them "through savings accruing from a reorganization fo our maintenance, security, technology and business operations." The religious discernment program also will be reorganized and placed under the auspices of Fr. Robert Garrity, the director of campus ministry.
Mr. Towey's memo to the university community also announces the appointment of a new Vice President for Enrollment and Marketing, Dennis Grace, who held a similar position at St. Vincent's College in Pennsylvania where he had been recruited by Mr. Towey when he assumed the presidency there five years ago.
Ave Maria University's competitive sports programs are also affected by the cuts, with the number of full-time coaches being reduced "substantially," although the sports in which the university competes at the club and intercollegiate level are not significantly affected. Mr. Towey's memo said that track and field would be eliminated as a sport, but the program had been in doubt because of the departure last month of track coach Mike DeWitt, who was hired by Belmont Abbey College. The university's most ambitious sports program - intercollegiate football - is still on track to play its first game this fall.
Mr. Towey's memo thanks the university's founder, Tom Monaghan, for subsidizing the school's finances for so many years in what the new president refers to as the university's "start-up phase."
Now, however, Mr. Towey says, "The Board of Trustees, the accrediting agencies, the banks that lend us money and our donors expect us to stand on our own two feet, and we will."
Click here for related story from Naples Daily News: Ave Maria University cuts jobs, reduces sports programs to trim budget
