Carothers, DeHayes outline plans for future of university

04/15/08 - In his annual State of the University address Friday morning, President Robert L. Carothers commented on the upcoming economic hardships, reiterated plans for a single tuition rate and spoke briefly about the impact of a retirement incentive for senior faculty. Carothers explained his reasoning behind writing an opinion piece in the Providence Journal last month, where he proposed a single tuition rate for all students due to an expected $12.1 million in cuts to the university. His proposal would create a state scholarship fund using the state appropriations the university now receives and would instead give money directly to in-state students who attend URI. Ultimately the direct, out-of-pocket tuition expenses would be the same for in-state students as they are now.

"We're really looking at shaking up the model and the reason I say this, and the reason I wrote that piece, is if you look at the trend line for public funding for higher education, URI goes zero in about 2020," Carothers said. "Now short of zero, obviously something has to change, the fundamental paradigm of the university has to change. And I put that out there as a way to think about those relationships and what those relationships will be to the university and the state in the future."

Carothers said in two years members of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, who just reaccredited URI, will come back and ask about the financial relationship between the university and the state.

That morning, members of the press were also introduced to new Provost Donald H. DeHayes, who spoke briefly of his upcoming plans for the university.

"This is both a challenging time and an exciting time at the University of Rhode Island," DeHayes said. "There are some financial challenges that I have inherited in the last week but there's also a very exciting future."

DeHayes said the administration's current efforts include ensuring the value for students' experiences at the university.

"They are the heart and soul of what our institution is about and we need to make sure that there's every bit of value added in their experience here in preparation for them moving beyond the university out into the state and indeed the world," he said.

DeHayes said the university needs to think about re-envisioning, repositioning and possibly even restructuring the university to deal with the financial hardships.

DeHayes added that the university will also be looking at alternative ways to raise revenue and become self-sufficient.

"We understand the economic challenges of the state of Rhode Island and while we'd love to see more resources . we're also grateful for the resources that the state can invest in our institutions," he said. "And those resources on their own will never be enough, so we are going to be more creative in how we close out [the $100 million Making a Difference] capital campaign. We are going to be more creative about the kinds of programs that both matter to students academically and experientially, but also generate revenue."

Carothers and DeHayes also touched briefly on the retirement incentive that was recently approved by the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education. The incentive, which applies to faculty and staff who have worked for more that 15 years and are over the age of 58, will provide a one-time lump sum of $20,000 to those who accept.

DeHayes said out of about 810 full-time faculty members, almost 25 retire per year. He said he was unsure how many faculty members will take the incentive, as the deadline for those decisions is today.

"We're not phasing out faculty, we're thinking about replacing them strategically," he said. "We'll be trading some wisdom for energy perhaps as we rebuild URI over future."

Carothers also spoke about the current worldwide protests surrounding the passing of the Olympic torch en route to Beijing in response to the country's issue of human rights and the violence in Tibet.

The university has a close relationship with the Chinese government as the Confucius Institute, one of 20 in the country, opened at the university last spring. The university receives funds from the Chinese government to operate the program, which help to enhance the Chinese language program and the cultural understanding at URI as well as strengthen exchanges between the two countries. To move the program forward, the Chinese government is paying for two full-time Chinese professors at URI.

"I think by and large, and not everyone will believe in this, but staying engaged seems to be a better way to change them and to help us understand and deal with those issues better," Carothers said. "There needs to be continuing diplomacy and discussion and I think we need to continue to work with our partners and try to persuade them to think more about those issues.