MCLA president hopeful for higher education funding

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MCLA President Mary K. Grant speaks about the need for increased funding for public higher education during the college’s opening breakfast on Tuesday.

Wednesday January 18, 2012

By Jennifer Huberdeau

North Adams Transcript

NORTH ADAMS -- With the spring semester kicking off today, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts? administration, faculty and staff celebrated the new session on Tuesday in the newly renovated Amsler Campus Center with an emphasis on the critical need to lobby for public higher education funding.

MCLA President Mary K. Grant said that she is hopeful the state will appropriate additional funding to its public universities and community colleges this year, alleviating a portion of the ever-growing financial burden on families.

"We know every year that student costs go up across the country and right here at home, and we have to be thinking about how our strategic plan utilizes our resources," she said. "If you look at where fund levels were for all of state [university] institutions in 2001, the number looks vaguely familiar, as it does today. If you think about it, in a decade we?re back at the same level of funding, but all of our campuses across the state have more students. We have more programs, and nothing in the last 10 years has gone down in price."

She added, "When I think about the work we are doing, we are extremely efficient. What we need now is a greater investment in higher education to support the work we?re doing."

Grant pointed to a slide that showed, in 2001, funding for the state?s nine state universities totaled

$191,687,000, just slightly more than the fiscal 2012 appropriation of $191,029,099.

"When budgets go down, student fees go up. The relationship is pretty clear, and we need to turn this number around at home and across the country if we want to be the creative, entrepreneurial nation that we strive to be," she said.

Heading into the next budget cycle, Grant said the state Board of Higher Education has requested a 5 percent increase for higher education operating budgets, along with increases in funding for collective bargaining, scholarships and its Vision Project.

"I am hopeful, ever hopeful," she said of the request.

However, with more and more families struggling in today?s economy, she said the college?s admission staff is busy and always reworking its recruitment strategies.

"As we think about recruitment, we?ve got a staff that?s on the road and they?re looking at their strategies for how we expand our reach and how we look at financial aid packages in this market as the cost of higher education is getting more expensive and families are struggling," she said. "Transfer students are one of the biggest movements in the marketplace in higher education. We?re looking at students who are starting at a two-year college, graduating with an associate?s degree and then moving on to baccalaureate degrees."

She said the college is working to ensure it is providing the right type of support to transfer students to ensure their move into a four-year institution, such as MCLA, is smooth.

Several of the college?s union leaders also spoke out about the threats to public higher education, urging local politicians and college administrators not to fall prey to belief systems that call for less taxation of corporations and the rich.

The opening breakfast also highlighted ongoing work on the campus, including the start of construction on the Center for Science and Innovation, renovations at the Hoosac Hall dormitory and the move of Admissions from Blackinton Street into the Smith House. In addition, it was announced that English professor Paul Lesage has been named associate dean of academic affairs, a position he?ll hold for two years before passing it on to another faculty member. The position will allow faculty to be more involved in the administration and lend support to the Academic Affairs department, Grant said.

Source: http://www.thetranscript.com/headlines/ci_19763168?source=rss

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