Columbia President Warrick L. Carter re-emphasized his plans for the “belt-tightening” announced back in fall 2008, as well as other issues, at his annual State of the College address on March 12.

In October 2008, Carter announced a hiring freeze on new full-time positions, regulated traveling costs, both domestically and internationally, and a cut in unnecessary construction costs. He said there has also been salary freezes for him and his executives.

Jessica Valerio, president of the Student Government Association, provided the introduction for Carter, stating his administration will be announcing the policy for the ongoing issue of course fees at the SGA’s March 17 meeting. During his address, Carter did not provide any further details about the future policy.

Carter announced to the audience, which had more administrators, faculty and staff than it did students, the annual increase for tuition for 2009 is less than it has been in the past five or six years. The tuition increase for fall is a little less than 3 percent.

The cost of operating Columbia is continually increasing in things the administration has no control over, such as gas, electricity, the purchasing of new equipment and cleaning, Carter said.

Carter said he and his administration will continue to keep future tuition costs low, even if it means the college has to “live on less” in spite of the increase in future operating costs.

“We’ll have to tighten our belts a little more as we have done this year,” Carter said.

Some additional “belt-tightening” Carter mentioned at the meeting was the reducing of “food and drink” at the college.

“The staff can tell you every meeting they go to there’s food and drink,” Carter said. “We feed each other all the time. That’s not our responsibility. We’re not supposed to pay for eating and drinking every time there’s a meeting.”

Carter said the reduction of those expenses will help keep tuition down for students.

Refreshments were served at both the State of the College and the College Council meeting on March 6.

Carter also touched on the full-time hiring freeze at Columbia. He said in the current economic climate the college cannot afford to hire any new people.

“Although we need them and we’d love to have them, we’ve made it this far without them and we’ve done pretty good without them,” he said. “So, let’s not add to that expense.”

New positions, however, have been both made and filled since the memo in October 2008. At the end of February, the college announced the hiring of Robert Koverman, the new vice president of Campus Safety and Security.

Alicia Berg, vice president of Campus Environment, said Koverman’s hiring was necessary for the college.

“I think in this post Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University environment, the college determined that we were doing what’s best for campus safety and security,” she said.

Koverman was not one of the nine vice presidents introduced to the audience at the State of the College address.

Carter also discussed student affordability and said financial institutions, like Bank of America, aren’t giving as much money to students as in the past. In turn, the college is increasing scholarship opportunities to about 600 additional Columbia students, up from 1,700 to 2,300 students, as well as future federal and state funding for students.

“The Feds are increasing the Pell [grant] and the state of Illinois has voted to increase [the] MAP [grant],” Carter said. “But they haven’t funded the increase. At least we know if money is ever there, there’s an increase in MAP, but until such time it’s at the same budget.”

Carter also said Columbia’s endowment, which was around $100 million, took a 40 percent hit in the marketplace, which makes it now worth about $60 million. He said they are not putting any more of the endowment into that same account.

Carter also said the endowment was an “emergency nest egg” and they do not plan to use it for operating costs.

He also addressed Columbia’s enrollment deposits being down this year. He said the downside of low enrollment is low income for a tuition driven college, but the college is still doing well overall.

“Even in these economic times, we’re doing pretty good,” Carter said.

Mark Kelly, vice president of Student Affairs, announced at the meeting Columbia’s diversity is up about 35 percent in African-American applications and 30 percent in Hispanic, despite “cynical” estimations in the past.

“Our growth in applications is being driven by diversity in some ways,” Kelly said. “We’re going to hold onto that as a birth right. It’s central to the life of all students, having a very diverse campus. It’s something I think we can be very proud of.”

Kelly announced at the address where the spectators and administrators were largely white, with the exception of Carter and Eric Winston, vice president of Instiutional Advancement.

A new policy regarding academic advising at Columbia was also announced at the State of the College.

Louise Love, vice president of Academic Affairs, told the audience of about 60 faculty members, staff, students and other administrators the college is beginning a multi-tiered attempt to restructure how the college handles academic advising in relation with new students.

“[Advising] is something that has been spoken of as an area where we need to improve,” Love said. “We’ve had task forces meeting for a long time looking at ways to improve it and we now have a model that we are going to implement in stages.”

The policy calls for all students who have not decided on a major and have less than 30 credit hours at Columbia to meet with academic advisers rather than faculty advisers. After the 30 hours are met and students have moved from a “field of interest” and into a major, Love said students will move on to meet with their academic advisors.

She said the program will partially be implemented in fall 2009 and will be fully launched by the fall of 2010.