East Carolina University Chancellor Steve Ballard held the first “State Of The University Address” today.
ECU, along with other colleges in the North Carolina University System, is coming off a tough budget year.
"You know that our world has changed greatly in response to the global fiscal crisis over the last two years,” said Ballard.
And East Carolina is not immune. Chancellor Ballard spoke to faculty and students about the challenges the university faces now and in the future.
Ballard said, "They have made us cut back on many things. We're doing services differently, we're not offering as many non-academic services for students, we're not growing employees, our grounds and yards don't looks as good as I would like them. So there are hundreds of things that have fallen down a little bit."
ECU is coming off a state imposed hiring freeze. Despite the cut backs, Ballard says his primary commitment is to a quality education, but it's an uphill battle.
"I'm afraid the worst impact on our students has been, students could not get all the money that they were eligible in terms of their demonstrative needs."
That means there's not enough scholarship money to go around. Ballard says for every $500 dollar gap in aid, students are 9 percent more likely to leave the university and once they're gone, it's hard to bring them back.
There are signs the recession is turning around, but Ballard says they can not rely solely on state and federal funding, the have to search for other sources of money.
The university will continue $300 million dollars worth of scheduled construction on a number of new projects including the dental school additional seats to the football stadium.
But Ballard says they have had to put some renovation projects on hold because of budget issues.
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