BU freshman class will be down...again

[Bravesfanchicago]

Sounds like the entering freshman class in the fall will be down by approximately 100 students from the admins goal. This materially low level of entering students is worse than the tough years from a year or two ago.

This resulted in an email from the Prez this morning to campus folks trying to manage expectations....and the even more pronounced budget pressures that will result.

[tornado]

In part some of this is due to an overall bad economy...despite what you hear from some press reports about a recovery....

Bradley is, of course, more expensive than state supported counterparts.
But even in the state systems there will be cutbacks.....I noted that some schools in the state funded University of Wisconsin system are dropping sports directly because of....."budget reduction by the university mandated by UW-System cutbacks effective July 1, 2014."
This is not unusual - it is also happening in other states...

[Bravesfanchicago]

This type of outcome for Bradley is more acutely impactful for BU because BU is so tuition dependent.

[tornado]

yes - and a HUGE part of that current alarming financial report referred to elsewhere cites the enormous INCREASE in Athletic Department spending in the face of enormous decline in Athletic Department revenue...a nasty double-whammy

[Da Coach]

This financial report has been circulating publicly, and I am a bit surprised the Peoria Journal Star has not wanted to report about it. I am told that a lot of people have seen and are aware of it.
Here was a summary of it-

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24001

It has a lot of people at Bradley concerned. It was compiled by a committee made up of a highly respected group of esteemed Bradley professors from the departments of Finance, Philosophy, Education, Accounting, and Engineering, as well as members from Bradley's Controller's Office. It is a detailed financial report full of a lot of numbers analyzing resources ($) in and out for the last several years.
In brief, it details that in 2013, for the first time, resources out exceeded resources in by a significant amount. Obviously, the university cannot afford for this trend to continue.

By the way, athletics expenditures were up substantially, and were a major reason for the deficit.

[tornado]

wow Athletic Department expenses have more than doubled in the years since the house cleanings began and new people were hired...
in that same interval the Athletic Dept. revenue has gone down with the declining attendance and loss of donor base ....
If this isn't the single most damaging fallout for our beloved university of all that could happen over the past 3-5 years, then I don't know what people are looking at.

We've had losing stretches before under Mo, JL and this never happened then...so there's way more than just losing to blame this on...

[bigjimmy]

If the board doesn't see who the blame falls on then they are just being blind. She needs to go. NOW.

[QPS]

It was announced at the beginning of this presentation, and the one in March by Gary Anna, that the presentations are officially off the record and intended solely for the information of the Bradley University Community.

Your posting of this information is contrary to the instructions given by these presenters at the start of the presentations. It should be removed from this forum.

If someone want's to put it together and conduct their own analysis, go get the 990's from guidestar.com and the annual report's from the Bradley controller's web site.

[Bravesfanchicago]

So the report last year and this year already called for greater "transparency" and the fact that incomplete information was being provided to the Committee by the Admin ...and this was presented in an open Faculty Senate meeting.

So referring readers to publicly available 990 tax returns to replicate this data is silly.

It strikes me that there continue to be those at BU that want try and hide the financial state of affairs. As the Committee suggested, more transparency is essential right now.

[Da Coach]

It was announced at the beginning of this presentation, and the one in March by Gary Anna, that the presentations are officially off the record and intended solely for the information of the Bradley University Community.

Your posting of this information is contrary to the instructions given by these presenters at the start of the presentations. It should be removed from this forum.

If someone want's to put it together and conduct their own analysis, go get the 990's from guidestar.com and the annual report's from the Bradley controller's web site.

That's interesting, QPS. Why are there copies of the report circulating in the public, and who made it public if it was supposed to be kept "off the record"? From what I understand, many have seen the report, and nothing in the report states it is not to be made public. In fact, as Bravesfanchicago said, it is clearly stated in the report that there needs to be Increased Transparency.

[QPS]

That's interesting, QPS. Why are there copies of the report circulating in the public, and who made it public if it was supposed to be kept "off the record"? From what I understand, many have seen the report, and nothing in the report states it is not to be made public. In fact, as Bravesfanchicago said, it is clearly stated in the report that there needs to be Increased Transparency.

I am only reporting what was stated at the beginning of the presentation: it's off the record and intended only for use by the Bradley Community.

Copies of the presentation were available for those who attended. I cannot explain why someone who attended the presentation decided to circulate his/her copy of the information to others outside of Bradley. They are doing so against what was announced at the start of the meeting. Perhaps you should ask this of the person who provided copies to you.

For the record, the report contained more than the graphs which were displayed. It included suggestions for better reporting. Better reporting = increased transparency.