University officials welcomed students and faculty alike this past Wednesday for a campus-wide University Assembled forum, held once every semester.

Held in the Tohill Theatre in Bunce Hall, University Assembled was hosted by Dr. Ali A. Houshmand, the president of Rowan, as well as Dr. Tony Lowman, the chancellor of Rowan, Dr. Vojislava Pophristic, the provost of Rowan, Joseph Scully, Rowan’s senior vice president of finance and chief financial officer, and John Veilleux, Rowan’s chief marketing officer. 

University Assembled began with the confirmation of the number of students who would be graduating from Rowan this year. With over 24,500 students attending Rowan this year, only a few thousand will be graduating this year, between undergraduate and graduate students.

Administration also discussed the ongoing budget deficit for the current fiscal year, as Rowan has projected a $16.5 million deficit due to issues with international student visas, as well as the launching of projects such as Edelman Fossil Park & Museum and the Shreiber School of Veterinary Medicine.

Despite this, university officials believe that Rowan is still on the right track, hoping to focus on efficiency and cost reduction to ensure budgetary concerns don’t impact the experience of students on campus.

“As the president mentioned, we are in a good financial position at the university, but we are not out of challenges because of higher education in general. We are constantly battling the state providing support for the university,” said Scully. “We’re also facing federal challenges, whether that be in student loan programs that are out there and difficulties with the international student visas, in which this year we lost seven million dollars in revenue because our international students couldn’t obtain their visas. But, you know, even with these challenges, we saw a lot of these challenges coming ahead.”

Following the discussion of the budget and Rowan’s online growth, Dr. Houshmand also touched upon Rowan’s West Campus project, which is expected to generate $14.3 million in annual tax revenues, 4,170 construction jobs, and over 900 other permanent jobs. The West Campus project, financed by Fairmount Properties and its partners, applied for financial support from the State of New Jersey through the Aspire Program, which is administered by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA).

Dr. Houshmand and Dr. Pophristic also mentioned that Rowan saw around 2,400 applicants for 60 different positions this year, though Rowan only searched for 17 faculty positions to be filled.

“What goes into the decision about how we distribute funds is a number of different factors. One is we want to ensure that we have enough permanent full-time faculty members on staff to help us deliver education, but also to help us come up with new programs or modify current programs, keep our programs current, and so on,” said Dr. Pophristic.

The final thing that the officials at University Assembled discussed was the Defy Definition campaign, and how much attention it has drawn to the school since its launch late last fall.

“It’s hitting the mark, and the students are coming. When you hear the president speak about finding new ways of revenue, this is one of these projects that is really going to support the growth in all directions,” said Veilleux. “This campaign will serve, by the end of this year, 603,000,000 impressions across television and social media. This campaign is doing exactly what we want it to do.”

With very little questions asked at the end of the open forum, University Assembled wrapped up for the day after around 40 minutes.