May 31, 2013
TO: SDSU Faculty and Staff
FROM: President Elliot Hirshman
Provost Nancy Marlin
Vice Presidents Sally Roush, Mary Ruth Carleton and James Kitchen
Vice President and Graduate Dean Stephen Welter
Summer provides us with an opportunity to reflect on our recent accomplishments. One such accomplishment is the completion of our strategic plan. We greatly appreciate your collaborative efforts and energies to craft a strategic plan for our university. As you focus your attention on the upcoming fall semester, there is much information to share and to celebrate.
University Budget
Governor Brown issued his revised budget on May 14. His proposed budget maintains the additional $125 million for the CSU that is the basis of SDSU's planning numbers for our 2013/14 budget. SDSU's budget situation is positive going into the 2013/14 fiscal year, as a result of our conservative planning and budgeting during the recent years of budget reductions, increases in self-generated revenues and strong enrollment numbers that enable the university to reliably predict revenues and therefore plan expenditures within available resources. Our integrated budget strategy in which we consider all the revenues available to the university was implemented in the current fiscal year, and will continue to provide an important foundation for the future.
As we begin budget deliberations for next year, the completion of the university's Strategic Plan Building on Excellence has provided guidance on strategic investment of resources in existing and developing areas of excellence. Recommendations from the Strategic Plan include increasing the number of tenure-tenure track faculty and staff in critical areas, as well as investing in the high priority areas of Student Success, Research and Creative Endeavors and Community and Communication.
The President's Budget Advisory Committee (PBAC) has held its first of three budget review meetings that will culminate on June 13 when the committee will meet to consider funding proposals from the university's major divisions and make a recommendation to the President for the 2013/14 budget. We anticipate allocating approximately $10 million in new base budget dollars and a similar amount in one time funds. The actual amounts will be finalized at PBAC's June 13 meeting and a recommendation will be presented to President Hirshman. We anticipate a final budget will be approved and in place prior to the beginning of the new fiscal year. An announcement of the final budget will be made once approved by the President.
Commencement by the Numbers
Nearly 9,100 students received degrees from SDSU during commencement ceremonies. Of those graduating, 6,794 earned bachelor's degrees, 2,109 received master's degrees and 135 earned doctorate degrees. Included in the overall graduation figure are 262 bachelor's degree candidates and 10 master's degree candidates from SDSU's Imperial Valley campus. Note: These numbers are estimates based on projected graduates this summer.
Campaign for SDSU
With more than 41,000 gifts from alumni, friends, faculty, staff, parents and community partners, The Campaign for SDSU now totals more than $400 million, marking the strongest period of fundraising in San Diego State University's history. The campaign has benefited from 75 gifts of $1 million or more. It includes more than $200 million for SDSU's eight colleges to establish faculty endowments and support academic programming. Another $55 million in gifts support students through scholarships, internships and research opportunities.
Additionally, SDSU has been honored by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) as a 2013 exceptional development program for Overall Fundraising Performance. Universities were selected based on a number of criteria, including a pattern of growth in total support, overall breadth in program areas, a pattern of growth in each program area and a pattern of donor growth.
Read more about The Campaign for SDSU's latest milestone
Building on Excellence
Based on recommendations in the campus strategic plan, in addition to hiring faculty and staff in critical and strategic need areas, the campus initiated a strategy for hiring new faculty along a theme, defined as "areas of excellence". The new multi-disciplinary hires will help transform current strengths on our campus into areas of excellence, which in turn opens up new partnerships or approaches to shared interests or goals. These areas of excellence are intended to foster the development and growth of scholarship that will bring both distinction and distinctiveness to SDSU. The areas of excellence were selected by a review committee consisting of 3 outside reviewers, college deans, the 9 member faculty review committee, and the Vice President of Research. Four new faculty hires will be made in the four selected areas of excellence for a total of 16 new faculty lines over the next two years. The four areas of excellence include:
- Climate and Sustainability Studies
- Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience
- Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age
- Viral Information Institute
In addition to these investments, more general investments are being made to support the university's research mission through the use of one time funds. The one time funds support our research infrastructure; inclusive of facilities and equipment, an external peer review program, and writing support for large, multi-authored research proposals.
Read more about the Areas of Excellence
With Much Appreciation
Additional strategic planning investment information will be available at the end of the budget process. The successful completion of our strategic plan would not have been possible without the collective efforts of our campus community. Thank you for all that you do to support our university.