Trinity Budget Issues?

<p>Hey I just noticed on <a href="http://www.nescacnation.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.nescacnation.com&lt;/a> that there's a story linking to the Trinity student newspaper about the school having budget woes. Is this true? Anyone know anything?</p>

<p>i started a thread on this in this forum a couple of days ago, under "money woes," with an article from the hartford courant. look for it. theres also another article in todays courant with student/professor point of views.</p>

<p>If u want to read more, you can read this:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.trinitytripod.com/news/2006/04/25/News/Jones.we.Do.Not.Have.A.Budget.Crisis-1876585.shtml?mkey=2196103%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.trinitytripod.com/news/2006/04/25/News/Jones.we.Do.Not.Have.A.Budget.Crisis-1876585.shtml?mkey=2196103&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I wrote the same thing in the other thread. But its relevant in both of them...</p>

<p>The budget crisis simply got out in the news at the wrong time!
This news will definitely turn-down many students, who were once willing to join Trinity.</p>

<p>But remember what president Jones said, "Institutions like trinity are facing the very same problem!" The only differnece is that it is not advertised too much whereas Trinity's crisis-control move (of removing professors and majors) was simply too conspicuous to remain overlooked.</p>

<p>He also adds that nearly all educational institutions face the similar problem due to high gas prices....except if the institution is as rich as Harvard of course.</p>

<p>I bet colgate's having a hard time too.</p>

<p>Yeah, you know, the college is going through a crisis, haven't you heard about the cuts in courses. some professors got cut, I don't know, for a college that has an endowment of $440 million dollars, where is that money being allocated? this president seems just as jaded as our own Country's Leader. the least he can do is give himself a paycut or something to that extent, it's the least he can do for doing such a poor job</p>

<p>I heard that Trinity's going to delay the beginning of classes as well, like the last week of September or something to that extent</p>

<p>Where did you hear that, and why would we do that? I would assume profs get thier salary anyway, food service is under contract for whatever they are already billing etc. Also, I don't know sports at all but wouldn't that put us out of step with other institutions....yeah, I don't see a late start happening short of a natural disaster, but I have been wrong b4.</p>

<p>Also...as for the endowment. The endowment is touched as little as possible at Trinity. The way President Jones explained it to me the last time we met in April if the endowment were used as a bank account there would be no endowment, funds must first be distributed from tuition and other income. The endowment is sort of treated as an emergency fund here, for example, we have to do some major renovations on the long walk buildings because it was just discovered how vulnerable they are to the elements or something and most of that has to come out of the endowment, the new hockey rink, by contrast, came out of private donations and such. Any school that uses its endowment as you are implying, especially a school like Trinity with a very small endowment (not large), will not have an endowment for much longer.</p>

<p>I thought that a school's endowment is not allowed to be used for any reason. $440 million is a large endowment for a school of Trinity's size, but not very much of the money doesn't have a specific purpose. The endowment is generated only by donations to the College and most gifts are given with a specific intent (fin aid, athletics, English dep). The College is not allowed to just take money out whenever they want. The College barely owns the money, really.</p>

<p>They are always saying how our endowment is small compared to the other NESCAC schools (amhearst, colgate, bowdoin, etc.) and it is, and I believe it is actually closer to 300 million. And you are right, the school rarely uses the money except in the cases of emergency's where money cannot be raised in time, like the chapel renovations a few years back.</p>

<p>Yeah, maybe it is small compared to some of the NESCACs, which Colgate is not a part of, but compared to all schools of its size it is huge. But actually there are several schools (Bates, Conn., Colby) that have even smaller ones (and they're still rich schools). It was just bad management that caused this to happen at Trinity. The endowment doesn't have too much to do with it.</p>

<p>While this article examines the impact Trinity's budget woes have had on the surrounding community, it does a good job of scrutinizing the administrative difficulties behind it.</p>

<p><a href="http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content.html?oid=oid:121942%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content.html?oid=oid:121942&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>That article is a year old so here are some updates....the Trinity Center for Neiborhoods has been shut down completely, the president has however stated that he is committed to funding the Trinfo.cafe and if I am not mistaken we are mostly financially uninvolved with the Boys and Girls Club although it is still staffed mostly by students (I think). Additionally, the new hockey rink or "Community Sports Complex" is being funded in large part by the city of Hartford and should (emphasis on should) be an asset to the community.</p>

<p>Just found this on the Hartford Advocate's website...unlike our friend who has been disseminating some questionable information, this is a somewhat more fair look at the current financial situation. </p>

<p><a href="http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:156471%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:156471&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Also...if anyone has any questions regarding cuts...you should really directly contact someone in charge at Trinity...including the deans and president. There is no better way to find out the info from the horses mouth than to....go...to the horses mouth. President Jones himself has encouraged people with any questions on any issue regarding the college to email him directly and that if he doesn't know the answer he will email someone who does (I have emailed him on sevaral occasions and always gotton timely responces) I'm sure that since a college president is the public relations face of a college that he would be thrilled to reassure the parents of prospecitve students or the students themselves. In all honesty, the college has made a lot of effort to make sure the budget cuts do not effect the students and I honestly haven't seen many differences at all. In my opinion....and this is all inference...I think that a lot of this controversy has been created by professors who are angry about the pay freeze plus the fact that they have to pay more towards health care, which, while not good....is affecting a lot of professionals today. The college, in fact, saved them from having to pay even more towards health care by shutting down the underused faculty cafeteria, which has caused more, rather than less, distance between the faculty and administration.</p>