Aiken sees rise in prestige for U.

Describing plans for new dormitories and increased research funding, Provost Michael Aiken spoke last Friday of many far reaching changes that he said will increase the University's prestige by the end of the century. In a speech to more than 30 people, Aiken outlined seven major challenges in academic planning that the University will face in this and coming decades, including sustaining a research enterprise, improving teaching, attracting new professors, updating academic computing, putting a greater stress on internationalizing the university, bringing students back on campus and building linkages with the state and the community. Aiken began his speech by describing the economic setting in which the University will have to work in the future. While universities experience a slow down in revenues, they are at the same time trying to lower the rate of tuition increases he said. However, the provost added that private institutions of higher learning will be better positioned to deal with the economic slow down than similar public institutions due to the latter's greater dependence on government funding. He further projected that the University will have fewer than most universities like it due to the generosity of its 180,000 alumni. "You can count on [being asked for alumni donations] as sure as you can count on taxes," said the provost, which was answered by a round of laughter. Aiken also spoke about the recent uproar over universities being accountable for their funding. "I happen to believe that we are spending it well," he said. Aiken was positive about the University's future, saying that it would move up the academic "pecking order," which he referred to as "HYPS [Harvard Yale Princeton Stanford] Syndrome." "I think that we will come out of this decade better than how we came into it," said Aiken. In the question and answer period that followed, Aiken fielded questions such as how cost cutting will affect the University. To answer, the provost said the deans are feeling pressure to cut costs and there will be a trade off between faculty pay and the number of support staff, who currently outnumber faculty nearly six to one. After the lecture, Jonathan Goldstein, chairperson of Philomathean's Lindback lecture series committee, which sponsored the lecture in conjunction with the Lindback Society, said he was happy to provide a forum for students to meet the provost. "I think it was largely successful because it allowed people to engage the provost," said Goldstein, a College junior. "It gave people a candid impression of what he does and how complex it is." But Goldstein disagreed with Aiken's comment that people see themselves as students at the University instead of a particular school. Philomathean member Adam Korengold, a College sophomore, said he especially agreed with Aiken's plans for capital improvements, which he thought were crucial in the sciences. "I was very impressed by his very long term vision of the University," Korengold said.

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