{"id":4722,"date":"2011-09-22T09:53:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T15:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=4722"},"modified":"2011-09-23T10:46:46","modified_gmt":"2011-09-23T16:46:46","slug":"president%e2%80%99s-town-hall-provides-future-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=4722","title":{"rendered":"President\u2019s Town Hall provides future view"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"President<\/a>CU President Bruce Benson was optimistic and complimentary during his first campus Town Hall meeting of the fall Tuesday while advising that neither Colorado nor CU are out of fiscal danger.<\/p>\n

Benson began his four-campus tour of the university with UCCS. He shared personal anecdotes as well as compliments between bits of caution about what\u2019s ahead for the university.
\n\u201cOur fiscal environment continues to be challenging,\u201d Benson said. \u201cWe will still see another 70 to 120 million dollars in state cuts to higher education next year. For the university, it\u2019s between 30 and 50 million dollars in cuts again next year. That\u2019s the bad news but we always figure it out and make things work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"President<\/a>Benson estimated that CU\u2019s budget is about $180 million less than what it should be from the State of Colorado. That lack of funding puts pressure on the university to boost enrollment and be entrepreneurial, including private fundraising, sponsored research, and partnerships with other organizations. He also said CU will work to pass additional legislation to help make the university more efficient.
\n\u201cWe will continue to be as efficient as we possibly can,\u201d Benson said. \u201cWe are going to do strategic cuts and revenue enhancements which is largely enrollment growth. I thank everyone who was involved in increasing UCCS enrollment this year. It\u2019s a big effort and it takes a lot of work but I really appreciate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Benson noted the record enrollment of 9,300 students at UCCS this fall as well as improvements in student retention. He emphasized the importance of continued enrollment growth, particularly non-Colorado residents including international students. He reminded those in attendance of recent actions by the CU Board of Regents to approve space for 200 more students to live on campus. He also complimented Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak\u2019s recent outreach efforts with rural community colleges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I have people say \u2018we\u2019ll just hold flat we won\u2019t do anything new,\u2019 I say \u2018you don\u2019t go flat, you go down,\u2019\u201d Benson said. \u201cSo, we\u2019ve got to strategically keep trying to move upward with programs that make sense for the community and for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

To see a video of the meeting, visit http:\/\/www.uccs.edu\/townhall.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"UCCS<\/a><\/p>\n

— Photos by Jeff Foster, University Advancement<\/em><\/p>\n

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CU President Bruce Benson was optimistic and complimentary during his first campus Town Hall meeting of the fall Tuesday while advising that neither Colorado nor CU are out of fiscal danger. Benson began his four-campus (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4723,"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":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-events"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/IMG_2906.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-1ea","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4722","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4722"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4730,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4722\/revisions\/4730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}