ࡱ> &(%a 4jbjb,, "NN4 >>>>>>>t  t        ,RY >     >>   R> > Rf>>>> >> e r"0  >tt8tt828 February 2006 Dear Members of the Optimization Task Force, CEPP has read and discussed at length your preliminary report to IPPC (and shared with the community) recommending that the College maintain its current enrollment of 2,280 students, 130 students more than the Colleges budgeted target of 2,150 students. While CEPP is generally supportive of the task forces recommendations, we have some serious concerns about how this decision will affect academic programs. Should IPPC approve your recommendations, CEPP would like to be intimately involved in the implementation process. In particular we want to be involved in decisions regarding the allocation of resources for academic needs. We are pleased that the task force recognizes the need to increase funding to academic support services in order to make it possible for our academic programs to accommodate a student enrollment of 2,280. Academic support, including faculty, support personnel, classroom space, and technological services, is stretched extremely thin at this time and requires the immediate attention of the administration. We believe that a substantial portion of the approximately $2.8 million that will become available annually to the operating budget should be devoted to addressing academic needs, in particular the pressing need for several new faculty lines. We cannot make good on the Colleges declared mission to provide an intellectually rigorous, transformative educational experience if our classes are overcrowded, if we have limited time to meet with individual students, and if we are so over-scheduled that we cannot participate in co-curricular activities with our students. We do not believe that the College should consider increasing enrollment above 2,280 in the near future. We are concerned that enrollment will continue to creep up, even if unintentionally, as it has in the past. Given the extremely ambitious agenda set forth in the Strategic Plan it does not make sense to create added pressures by increasing enrollment over our current number. In fact, as our retention rate and yield continue to improve and the summer melt decreases, we would like to see the College decrease the size of the first year class admitted each year to take these improvements into account. We understand that there will be many competing demands on the added revenue in the operating budget but we believe that it is imperative that the administration prioritize academic needs. CEPP would like to be included in determining exactly what these needs are and how they are funded. Sincerely, CEPP { 24aJOJQJ?@ %&234`4 1h/ =!"#$%D@D NormalCJOJQJ_HmH sH tH DA@D Default Paragraph FontZi@Z  Table Normal :V 4 l4a _H(k@(No List 4  z4 ?@  % & 2 3 6 00000000000000?@  % & 2 3 6 8h 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 84 4 4 @D Y_ & * 6  6 :@pFg4 P @UnknownGTimes New Roman5Symbol3 Arial3Times"qhyiD24dT $3q6Dear Members of the IPPC subcommittee on optimization,newuserDeb Hall Oh+'0  0< X d p|'8Dear Members of the IPPC subcommittee on optimization,newuserNormal Deb Hall2Microsoft Word 11.2@F#@@yi ՜.+,00 hp  '鶹ƽ CollegeT  7Dear Members of the IPPC subcommittee on optimization, Title  !"#$'Root Entry F j)1Table WordDocument"SummaryInformation(DocumentSummaryInformation8CompObjXObjectPool j j FMicrosoft Word DocumentNB6WWord.Document.8