• On Monday, Marquette University's Academic Senate met for the first time this year.
• Provost John Pauly's report focused on a discussion of the current economic state of the university.
• Professor Edward Fallone, the faculty council chair, informed the Senate on developments concerning the remodeling of Varsity Theatre.

Provost John Pauly updated the University Academic Senate on Marquette's current economic state during the group's first meeting of 2009 yesterday.

According to Pauly, from September to December of last year, seven six-figure donations were given to the university for the College of Engineering's new Discovery Learning Complex building, proposed for the corner of 16th Street and Wisconsin Avenue.

"This is good given the current state of the economy," Pauly said.

But Pauly also said the university's endowment, as a whole, is down at a rate comparable to other institutions across the country going through the economic crisis.

"Last year at this time, we had an endowment of $64 million," Pauly said. "This year we're at $15.5 million, which is probably going to be about $33 million by year's end."

Even with the drop in endowment, Pauly said the university is still in good economic shape, with overall annual funds only down about 10 percent from last year.

"Broadly speaking, only about $5 million of the $300 million of our operating expenses come out of the endowment," Pauly said. "Some universities have 30 to 40 percent of their operating expenses come from their endowment."

Pauly said another statistic indicating the university's economic stability is the increasing application rate for admissions.

"Applications for incoming freshmen are up 17 percent from last year and 34 percent from two years ago," Pauly said. "This is not the way it is at other schools. Other Jesuits universities like St. Louis are down. We're not seeing any bad signs on the administrative side like many other colleges are."

Unlike last year, Pauly said there were no big problems with students coming back for the spring semester because of family financial troubles.

"We sold our bonds for the buildings under construction, we're not having a salary freeze and we're not cutting back budgets," Pauly said. "It's a terrible moment, but, compared to other universities, we're in pretty good shape."

Pauly also said a contingency plan is in the works if the university comes 50 to 100 students short next fall compared to what is estimated.

According to Pauly, there were 1,950 incoming freshmen last year.

He said the university has conservatively set next year's budget, anticipating 1,850 incoming freshmen. He also said the university, as a whole, admitted about 1,000 additional students this year, for a total of about 11,000 students.

"We're hoping to recruit around 1,900 incoming freshmen students," Pauly said. "So even if we have a 10 percent drop in the yield we'll be OK for next year."

Varsity Theatre

After the provost's report, Edward Fallone, associate professor for the Law School and chair of the faculty council, updated the Senate on developments concerning the remodeling of the Varsity Theatre.

"In general," Fallone said, "Varsity Theatre is going to be remodeled, because it's definitely in need of it."

But, according to Fallone, plans for the remodeling have centered on a debate between two sides.

Fallone said some people wanted to increase the seating of the theater to allow for a greater diversity of events that could be held there.

The theater is the largest room on campus for students taking the same exam at the same time because it holds 240 to 250 students, Fallone said. In order to increase the theater's seating capacity, the writing tablets on the seats would need to be removed, making it impossible to test students in the theater.

"An accommodation has been made so the first 17 rows will have tablet arms on every other seat for a total of 270 seats with tablet arms," Fallone said. "The remainder of the seats will not have tablet arms and will allow for more seating."

Major Eliminated

The meeting also featured a unanimous Senate vote to terminate the broad field social sciences major in psychology.

"We have no evidence that this degree has ever been awarded to anyone," said Margaret Bloom of the university board of undergraduate studies and vice provost for undergraduate programs and teaching.