Keenum, Gilbert address university’s financial future
Mississippi State University will have lower budget cuts than expected in the upcoming year, President Mark Keenum said during the last regular faculty senate meeting of the school year on Friday.
“When the dust [of the legislative session] settled, we fared well as a university,” he said. “We planned for substantial cuts. We got a 1.4 percent [cut]. I never thought I’d be thrilled to [have a 1.4 percent budget cut].”
Jerry Gilbert, MSU provost, said budget plans had been constructed to prepare for a 12 percent budget cut. A proposal is being created for the pod of money after the university takes a cut. Additional faculty positions may be added, though not as many as were added in the first round.
“[The plan] proposes some modest returns of operating funds to the departments,” he said. “Operating funds is what went first [under the cuts] and we want to give some, but not all, of that back.”
He said MSU is planning a reserve fund to have money set aside in case of any financial changes, though these funds could be later committed if there are no additional cuts in the fiscal year 2013.
 
MSU also received $100,000 for extension services, Keenum said.
“We’re growing as an institution. We need money to help us with facilities,” he said. “My priorities never change. Students come first, and they always will.”
He said the support given to students and faculty through the StatePride program will continue next year, and he expects more endowed professorships.
MSU has received $16.2 million in a bond, and there is money set aside from Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning that MSU can compete for, he said.
“I’m astounded by that [$16.2 million] number,” Keenum said.
MSU’s current facility priority is the renovation of Lee Hall, he said.
“The money will help us move forward with Lee Hall. There’s a lot of logistics [to discuss],” Keenum said.
The money from the bond bill will also go toward a new classroom building that will be high in quality and technology, Keenum said. The Wise Center will also expand in classroom size.
“At the end of the day, I’m pleased with where we stand,” he said. “We are doing very well financially. Our state budget is going down — it’s flattening out — but it is still going down, and I don’t see it turning around anytime soon.”
The 6.2 percent increase in tuition will help fund MSU financially as the student body grows in size, Keenum said.
“I am worried at a federal level for research dollars and facilities,” he said. “We have been asked and told by leadership to get competitive funding, and we have had great success getting [those funds].”
He said each department needs to compete for the funding available to them, even though some may have limited opportunities.
This is the fourth year without faculty pay raises, he said.
“I find that atrocious,” he said. “That’s one reason we have the StatePride program, to address that discrepancy […], we’ve got to do something [about the lack of raises]. We are way too low below the average pay. We should be above the average.”
The 21 new faculty hires is a conservative number for MSU’s needs as enrollment grows, he said.
“We need to invest back into this institution. We need to develop a strategic plan to map out our goals and vision for the institution,” he said.
MSU plans to advance in national university rankings. Keenum’s goal is to develop MSU into one of the nation’s top-50 public universities, Gilbert said.
The university is looking to do things that would advance itself in the rankings, he said. A variety of different measures would be looked at for this movement.
Currently, MSU is seventh in agriculture funding and 34th in engineering in the country, he said.
“We already are in the top 50 in some of these rankings. We need to leave it up to others to say where we are,” Gilbert said. “We need to grab onto this as a goal until it becomes ingrained [in] people’s minds.”
University looks to create freshman summer program. To utilize summer school to relieve pressure on  fall enrollment, MSU may create a freshman bridge program, Gilbert said.
The program would take place during the second term of summer school for incoming freshman.  Participants would take one to two courses. The program is expected to have 1,000 seats but may start off with only a couple hundred, he said.
‘[The program] would give students a jump on adjusting to campus life,” he said.
The bridge program would be a way MSU could seek to improve retention rates, Gilbert said. MSU will pursue the program, and it may be an option for entering freshman in August 2012.