Good morning. I just want to add a couple of comments this morning, one in general and then specifically address a few of the recommendations that were made with regard to Institutional Advancement since that particular area was covered extensively in the Fisher report.
Let me just echo the comments that have been made this morning with regard to the importance of having someone outside the institution take a close look at what we're doing. I think anytime you can gather 300 different opinions from a diverse group of people across the state of Illinois and some national perspective as well, while we don't necessarily like to hear everything they have to say, it's very important for us to hear what they have to say and to weigh those comments and use them where we can to make changes at Illinois State University. The other thing that I thought was interesting about the overall findings of the Fisher report is that they very much parallel the opinions that were solicited in a year-long study that we completed last year in a master communication program. study. I thought it was very interesting that there was not a lot of new information in the Fisher report that was not already gathered by many of those internal reports that we've looked at, so I thought that was a strong validation of the work.
I'd like to concur with Al in that I think the over-riding most important recommendation that the Fisher report makes, at least for Institutional Advancement, is that it encourages the University to set priorities, direction, mission, vision to work on fine tuning what we put in place in 1989 and early 1990 in the Strategic Plan for the University. That's ten years old, it's time to look at it again and fine tune it to meet the new future direction for Illinois State. That is critical to what we are trying to do in Institutional Advancement. We base our friend-raising and fund-raising on what we want to accomplish at Illinois State University. Unless we have a clear picture of what that is, it is very difficult to do a good job in Institutional Advancement.
Let me just specifically make a couple of comments about the recommendations that were made with regard to Institutional Advancement. You might be surprised but I think I would respond by saying that I think they were pretty fair in their assessment of the previous performance of the program. As Carl pointed out, this is a relatively young program, ten years old, when we started investing some significant funds in Institutional Advancement and the kinds of assessment that you saw in that report, again, is fairly accurate. It also was very encouraging, while it was fairly damning, in some of the comments that were made. It was very encouraging for me to see that the recommendations made with regard to Institutional Advancement on behalf of the Fisher report again are very similar to two other external reports that have been done specifically for Institutional Advancement, one called the Campbell Report and the other the Benz/Whaley/Flessner Report. Taking those three studies together, I think we have a very clear picture from a lot of different external groups on what we need to accomplish.
The last point I would like to make is that I, too, was disappointed in some of the comments that were in the report. I thought that Alumni Services got very short shrift, I certainly thought that any direction with regard to our young alumni received short shrift in the report. I was pleased with the Fisher report's recognition of the important role that Institutional Advancement must play in the future direction of the University and certainly in the encouragement that it provided to the Board with regard to the important role that the future president of Illinois State University must play in fund-raising in Institutional Advancement and image-setting for the institution.
I would like to just conclude by giving you my little "four bags of money" story that I like to use with lots of different audiences and I've not had a chance to share it with you. When I look at the Fisher report and I look at what we need to accomplish on behalf of Illinois State, I know one of the questions is going to be who is going to pay for all of this, and that's a very legitimate question. It's something that we will all have to wrestle with. But when we look at the opportunities before Illinois State University, we've got four bags of money sitting on the table. One of those is the tax revenue that comes from the state or a general revenue portion and I think all of you know who have been to Senate Appropriation hearings that that is not a bag of money that they are interested in opening up and seeing major percent increases in. Tuition and fees is the second bag of money sitting on the table. Likewise we have a board and university policy and directive to keep that as low as possible on behalf of our students for affordability and access. Thirdly, we have a grants and contracts bag of money. That bag of money at Illinois State has remained fairly constant in its size and unless we make significant changes in mission, I don't see that it will change. This brings me to that fourth bag of money that's sitting on the table and it's filled with private dollars, not public dollars, not tuition and not grants and contact money. That's the bag of money that as an institution we have the most capability of influencing. It's the only one that by the sheer wish, work and will of the Board and the University that we can make the greatest impact. I want to encourage you to look at this report and to use this kind of thought about the involvement of Institutional Advancement and in the entire fund-raising effort as you use this report to begin to do a final review of your presidential candidates and certainly look for someone who can make a positive effect on that fourth bag of money that I just talked about.
Back to list
