Iowa State University
Office of the President
March 30, 2010
To Iowa State faculty and staff:
After a long and challenging winter, it's finally beginning to feel
like spring, with many wonderful campus activities coming, including
VEISHEA. We have accomplished a lot this year, thanks to your great
work, but much remains to be done, especially our planning for the
future.
We have made good progress on the development of our next Strategic
Plan to cover the period 2010-2015, and the goal is to have it
completed by mid-summer. Four key planning teams recently submitted
their reports, and they are available at
http://www.provost.iastate.edu/sp/ . The first draft of the Strategic
Plan should be completed and posted on the web in early April, and an
open forum has been scheduled for April 8 in 1115 Pearson Hall for the
campus community to give feedback. Please send any comments on the
planning team reports or on the draft strategic plan directly to
Provost Hoffman.
Budget planning is also well under way for the fiscal year that begins
July 1, 2010. An important piece of that budget picture recently was provided
when the Iowa legislature approved our final FY2011
appropriations of $224.9 million. That's a reduction of $20.4 million,
or 8.3 percent, from our original FY2010 allocation, and that
reduction must now be absorbed by campus units as we complete the
budget planning process. We also received a special one-time
allocation of $3.2 million which will be used to assist units in
smoothing the transition to the lower base budgets.
Provost Hoffman has informed unit leaders of their budgets for FY2011
and has asked for their preliminary budget plans to be submitted by
April 12. Those plans will be reviewed by Provost Hoffman and
finalized so that they may be implemented as quickly as possible after
April 12. I will present a summary of the more important aspects of
those plans to the Board of Regents at its April 28-29 meeting.
It's been a difficult year from the budget perspective, and although
we're not yet out of the woods, I believe that better times lie ahead
as our economy slowly recovers. I have tremendous confidence in our
faculty, staff and key leaders who are involved in the budget and
planning process, and I strongly believe that collectively we will
make wise decisions as we deal with the current budget
challenges. Those decisions will be difficult as we work our way
through them, but I'm confident that they will position us well to
fulfill our land-grant mission with high impact and excellence in the
years ahead.
We have some very good news to report with an impressive increase in
sponsored funding for the university. As of March 1, sponsored funding
for the year passed $229 million, a 50 percent increase over this time
last year. We should all be deeply appreciative of the exceptionally
good work of our faculty, staff, and students who are responsible for
this impressive result.
Finally, even in these stressful times I hope all of you can keep your
spirits high and enjoy the spring that has finally arrived!
Gregory Geoffroy
President
Office of the President
1750 Beardshear Hall
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011
(515) 294-2042
president@iastate.edu
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