Budget cuts and campus expansion were on the agenda at the first Board of Trustees meeting of the academic year this weekend.
The Board heard an update on Duke’s investments and plans for growth, a year after a $1.7 billion drop in the endowment forced the University to make wide-ranging cuts.
The endowment returned 13.2 percent in fiscal year 2010, which ended June 30, and was worth $4.8 billion at year’s end. Duke still needs to close a $40 million budget deficit.
“We are still working to get [the endowment] back to the place that it was and that’s going to take a couple more years, and in the meantime we need to make sure our spending is tight,” said Trustees Chair and Democratic state Sen. Dan Blue, Law ’73.
President Richard Brodhead said the University is on track to eliminate its $40 million deficit in the next two years by making cuts and finding new sources of revenue.
“It’s a matter of keeping up the discipline... reducing where it is appropriate to reduce and investing where it is appropriate to invest,” Brodhead said.
He noted that the University’s schools, departments and other units have some autonomy in how they choose to balance their budgets.
Arts and Sciences is looking to control its budget by reducing the number of faculty members—currently at a high of 645 regular-rank professors. Brodhead said the Arts and Sciences faculty has grown so large because fewer professors have chosen to leave the University as a result of the recession. He noted that “it was never our goal to have a faculty of 645.”
“The question is, do you have the faculty to teach the courses and do the research, not do you have the same number of faculty members as last year,” Brodhead said.
The Trustees approved construction of the School of Medicine’s new educational building, the Learning Center, scheduled for completion in 2013. The $53 million project is funded by a $35 million pledge from the Charlotte-based Duke Endowment, other donations, reserve funding and debt financing.
The six-floor, 84,000 sq.-ft. building will house clinical labs, classrooms, a ground-floor auditorium seating up to 400 and a student life center that will include dining and study space. The Learning Center will be the first building dedicated to medical student education since the School of Medicine began holding classes in the Davison Building in 1930.
Dr. Nancy Andrews, dean of the School of Medicine, noted that there is “tremendous excitement” about the facility because it will be useful to faculty and students.
“I anticipate that it will have greater impact on recruiting students,” Andrews wrote in an e-mail. “It will be an advantage for us to have a learning center that is both state-of-the-art and beautiful.”
The Learning Center will be located near the center of the medical campus, on Bryan-Searle Drive on West Campus. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2011.
The Board also discussed the investigations into cancer researcher Dr. Anil Potti. Blue said it is important for the Board to be aware of the investigations because accusations of incorrect science could harm the University’s reputation and also affect patients in clinical studies.
“If the science is good we should definitely ensure that the treatments it brings are available,” Blue said. “The process for determining the reliability of the science is in place and I think at the end of the day it is something we will all be happy with the way it is resolved.”
In other business:
The Trustees reviewed the Nicholas School of the Environment’s strategic plan and discussed progress on internationalization efforts.
Blue said Nicholas School Dean Bill Chameides described the ways in which the Nicholas School and Duke are leading the country in sustainability efforts and outlined steps necessary to achieve the Nicholas School’s strategic vision.
Greg Jones, vice president and vice provost for global strategy and programs, briefed the Trustees on Duke’s ongoing efforts to become an international presence, Brodhead said. He added that the completion date for the Kunshan, China campus has been pushed back to the summer of 2012, which Brodhead called “a more realistic timeline.”
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