{"id":26281,"date":"2017-03-23T17:31:28","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T23:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=26281"},"modified":"2018-01-15T09:57:51","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T16:57:51","slug":"reddy-uccs-wont-lose-momentum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=26281","title":{"rendered":"Reddy: UCCS won’t lose momentum"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Faculty and staff filled UC 302 March 22 for a presentation on the university’s budget by Susan Szpyrka, senior vice chancellor, and Venkat Reddy, interim chancellor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Venkat Reddy opened his first all-campus forum as interim chancellor this week by outlining his near-term goals, then shifted to a discussion of what he called a stable campus budget.<\/p>\n

Reddy became interim chancellor Feb. 16 after the\u00a0retirement of Pam Shockley-Zalabak. He joined UCCS in 1991 as a faculty member and most recently was dean of the College of Business and associate vice chancellor for online programs in the Division of Academic Affairs<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is not to lose any momentum that Pam has built up for us, not lose the positive trajectory she put us on,\u201d he said at the March 22 forum. \u201cSo we are going to continue to be innovative, entrepreneurial, figuring out solutions for the problems we create and those that somebody else creates for us. None of that is going to slow down because we still have strong leadership across the campus at all levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reddy then offered a thank you to faculty and staff members.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been getting a lot of support across the board from the campus, and people have really stepped up,\u201d Reddy said.<\/p>\n

Reddy joked that he will advertise future forum topics as \u201cbudget\u201d to draw a similarly big crowd.<\/p>\n

UCCS, at nearly 12,000 students, is very different from the campus he said he joined.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re no longer that small organization we were before,\u201d he said. \u201cThat means we need different models, new models to try different things, new structures, new capacity modeling, new financial models that can keep us healthy and growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reddy described UCCS\u2019 financial situation as stable and urged responsible growth for the university. Two of the campus\u2019s key metrics \u2013 student enrollment and retention \u2013 \u201care really critical for who we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really want to emphasize this: Each and every one of us can be responsible for retention,\u201d he said. More students retained means more revenue for the campus, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I want to you think beyond that because when we retain a student, we\u2019re also helping them graduate. We\u2019re helping to take care of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

UCCS is doing \u201creally really well\u201d with 6.2 percent fall enrollment growth, particularly compared to other campuses suffering declines. One problem, he noted, is that fall-to-spring student retention continues to lag.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to figure out how we\u2019re losing these students and what can we do to keep them in school,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Enrollment growth has come in part due to new athletics teams, new academic programs, including exercise science and inclusive elementary education and a four-year chancellor\u2019s scholarship, he said.<\/p>\n

UCCS has developed three budget scenarios for the 2017-18 year, said Susan Szpyrka, senior vice chancellor, Administration and Finance, during her budget presentation at the forum.<\/p>\n

Each scenario takes into account what type of state budget \u2013 and therefore what type of funding for higher education \u2013 lawmakers will approve by the time the 2017 General Assembly ends in May. Tuition rates and maintenance spending, among other things, will depend on the final budget bill, she said. An employee compensation pool of 2.5 percent is part of the preliminary 2017-18 budget. The size of an employee uncompensated merit pool will depend on the state budget, she said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, staff members involved in student recruitment and enrollment are watching fall enrollment trends \u201cvery closely,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venkat Reddy opened his first all-campus forum as interim chancellor this week by outlining his near-term goals, then shifted to a discussion of what he called a stable campus budget. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":26279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-26281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","tag-administration-and-finance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Budget-Forum-March-2017.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-6PT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26281"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26317,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26281\/revisions\/26317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}