President James Dean delivered the 2024 State of the University Address to the University of New Hampshire (UNH) community in the Strafford Room of the Memorial Union Building (MUB) on Tuesday, Feb. 13, touching on the successes and challenges of the year for the university.
In the address, President Dean confirmed that UNH’s budget reduction target of $14 million was achieved with no further cuts planned.
“While a scrupulous look at our spending on supplies and services helped us to get part of the way there, we also made some incredibly difficult decisions about workforce reduction,” he said.
Mary (MJ) Condon, student body vice president for the 2023-2024 school year, stated before the address that she has questions about the budget cuts and “what decision-making process happened to disseminate these cuts.”
“That’s where I have a lot of question marks personally and I think that’s where a lot of the community has question marks,” she said.
Some of the staff in attendance at the address expressed compassion for their fellow staff members.
“It’s a hard thing to lose your job,” said Pat McCabe, human resources partner. “My best friend lost her job right after Thanksgiving and she was calling me and explaining it all, and it’s like, I know it’s really hard and what she got was not nearly as generous as UNH.”
Students shared their support as well.
“[President] Dean did a good job keeping things together and keeping spirits high,” said Elias Grabowski, a first-year student at UNH.
However, UNH has been resilient academically despite current financial constraints. One of the successes President Dean highlighted was the ranking of UNH as top 10% among public universities for graduations and 5% for Pell recipient graduations.
“I’m so glad [the Pell Grants] continue and that more students are able to afford to come here and then stay here. I had three jobs when I was in college trying to avoid having a loan to pay off when I graduated,” said McCabe.
Additionally, the President commended the 94% of undergraduate students and the 98% of graduate students who either became employed or continued education within six months of graduating in 2023.
“We have a lot of potential. We’ve had a lot of great history and tradition of success over the years,” said Allison Rich, director of UNH Athletics.
Those in attendance continued to maintain a positive outlook for the future and acknowledge the efforts of the UNH community.
“We’re seeing a lot of empowering leaders in the administration who are really doing their best to uplift the whole community, especially students,” said Condon.
“This is a team sport to run a university,” Rich added. “It takes all of our different departments and staff and faculty; that includes coaches, that includes all of us to make sure that we can reach our goals and plan for the future.”
