{"id":3812,"date":"2011-05-06T16:29:05","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T23:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=3812"},"modified":"2012-11-08T10:06:35","modified_gmt":"2012-11-08T17:06:35","slug":"president-haeger-optimistic-as-university-moves-toward-semi-public-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/president-haeger-optimistic-as-university-moves-toward-semi-public-status\/","title":{"rendered":"President Haeger optimistic as university moves toward ‘semi-public’ status"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northern Arizona University is reinventing itself as a semi-public institution amid record enrollment increases and diminishing state support, President\u00a0John Haeger<\/strong>\u00a0said during a public forum held this week at the High Country Conference Center.<\/p>\n

More than 200 people attended the event to hear the president address how the university will mitigate the\u00a0$30 million cut<\/a>\u00a0for FY2012, with nearly 700 more participants tuning in via live web stream.<\/p>\n

The president said university budget reduction strategies currently under consideration are evaluation of changes to employee benefits, restructuring of class offerings and examination of programs, cost\/benefit analysis of Extended Campus sites and additional employment of technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a way to exist in this new funding model,\u201d Haeger said. \u201cAs a semi-public institution, we can be more entrepreneurial. It can unleash huge potential, as we\u2019ve already demonstrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of technology has led to 90 separate actions taken to streamline processes at the university thus far, including eliminating paperwork and shifting business functions and course material delivery to the web.<\/p>\n

The president also cited the university’s use of alternative revenue streams as a sound strategy to complete necessary fire and life safety renovations and construction of new facilities, a practice that enabled the campus to accommodate the ever-increasing student population. Several renovations including the\u00a0Skydome\u00a0and\u00a0Liberal Arts\u00a0building were funded through\u00a0SPEED<\/a>\u00a0bonds, while the new\u00a0Health and Learning Center<\/a>\u00a0was funded primarily through student-approved mandatory fees.<\/p>\n

New ventures with public and private entities also played a role in the university keeping up with growth, Haeger said. He pointed to the university\u2019s collaboration with the city of Flagstaff and\u00a0Drury Hotels\u00a0in creation of the High Country Conference Center<\/a>, the NAU Foundation and Sodexo\u2019s collaboration in the creation of the\u00a01899 Bar and Grill<\/a>\u00a0and private donations that partially are funding the\u00a0Native American Cultural Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NAU\u2019s newest partnership with American Campus Communities includes a $65 million private investment in which the company will build and maintain two on-campus residence halls that will add accommodations for more than 1,100 students next year.<\/p>\n

The president said the university will continue to explore partnerships with private investors and public agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are an economic development agency for the community,\u201d Haeger said. \u201cAnd we can legitimately ask the community to continue to support us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite declines in state funding, Haeger said the Legislature is likely to exhibit more control by implementing performance-based funding. This may be measured by credit hour completion, number of bachelor\u2019s degrees awarded, research funding attained, success in meeting the state\u2019s economic development goals and the quality of education offered.<\/p>\n

The president said the university will continue to focus on methods for increasing retention and graduation rates as it moves toward achieving the Arizona Board of Regents\u2019\u00a0goals<\/a> for 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many ways, we have a challenge ahead of us and I would not like to minimize the difficulty of the budget cuts,\u201d Haeger said. \u201cBut I remain very optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Northern Arizona University is reinventing itself as a semi-public institution amid record enrollment increases and diminishing state support, President\u00a0John Haeger\u00a0said during a public forum held this week at the High Country Conference Center. More than 200 people attended the event to hear the president address how the university will mitigate the\u00a0$30 million cut\u00a0for FY2012, with…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-staff"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}