Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students,

We deeply appreciate the many ways you are serving and supporting our community during this unprecedented time. Teaching, learning, essential research activities, administrative functions, and support for students, faculty, and staff continue at a distance. The community spirit and care demonstrated by individuals, departments, and shared governance groups over the past eight weeks reflect the commitment to inclusive excellence that makes UMBC such a special place.  

As the campus prepares to complete this unusual spring semester and plan for the next academic year, we all have questions about campus finances, enrollment, and plans for the fall semester. We are sending this message to keep you informed of what we know at this time. 

While much uncertainty remains about the impact of the pandemic in the months ahead, we will continue to hold health and safety as our top priority, and we will be guided by our two overriding principles of protecting the academic program and supporting the people who make up our campus community.

Fortunately, the campus’s financial state was sound as the pandemic crisis began. Our principle of supporting people guided the decision to refund to students a wide range of fees and charges for housing, dining, parking, transportation, and other services not used during remote learning and work. These refund payments, as well as other losses and expenses related to COVID-19, reduced campus revenues by more than $23 million, or nearly five percent of our $485 million total budget. We have drawn on reserves to close this gap, a step that will affect the pace of program enhancements, facilities improvements, and other new investments we hoped to make in future years. Current building projects, including the RAC renovation and the new health and counseling building, are underway and will be completed. 

The campus operating budget depends primarily on tuition revenue generated by student enrollment and state appropriations funded by tax revenues. Given the many unknowns facing us, we are not able to finalize a FY 2021 budget plan until we have information about these revenue sources. We understand that lack of definite budget information naturally raises concern about the uncertainty of the future. We expect to have more news to share from the Governor and the University System of Maryland (USM) regarding our state appropriation in the coming weeks, and the campus is focusing strongly on summer and fall enrollments. We will update you as soon as more information is available. In the meantime, please know that we will do everything that we can to support the people in our community and the continuity of our important mission.

We are putting in place short-term strategies to manage financial resources conservatively. These steps include a hiring pause, spending reductions due to remote work, and urging campus leaders to conserve FY 2020 resources to the extent possible.

As students and their families face financial challenges and concerns about health and safety, faculty and staff are working very hard to support student success and retention through proactive academic support, flexible grading policies, and health and counseling services. Many across the campus are also engaged in outreach to new undergraduate and graduate students admitted for this fall, including through a very successful online Admitted Students Week, online open houses and webinars for prospective graduate students, and personal welcome calls.

The Strategic Enrollment Planning exercise (SEP) that we have been engaged in for the past year will help guide our efforts to secure and build enrollment both in the short and longer terms through initiatives in the areas of student success; recruitment, admissions, and marketing infrastructure; resource allocation; financial aid strategy, and program innovation. Given the potential impact of the COVID-19 crisis on future enrollment trends, we have already established a set of targeted enrollment initiatives in order to support our institutional mission and vision.

We understand that students, faculty, and staff want to know as soon as possible about future plans for instruction, research and creative achievement, campus life, and operations. While a few campuses across the nation are announcing intentions for the fall, most are engaging in detailed planning processes that consider a variety of potential scenarios before commiting to a plan. Earlier this week, USM Chancellor Jay Perman convened a group of academic, administrative, and shared governance leaders from multiple campuses to advise him on the essential conditions for students and employees to safely return to campus facilities. UMBC campus leaders are conferring regularly with the Chancellor and leaders of other USM campuses about these issues.

  

Our campus has also established a fall planning coordinating committee to explore options and facilitate plans for physical campus reopening, involving many campus community members in the work. The group’s charge commits to engaging shared governance groups and the campus community broadly; making decisions based on sound data, expertise, and evidence; and relying on guidance from federal and state government and the USM.

Co-chaired by the Provost and Finance and Administration Vice President Lynne Schaefer, this effort encompasses five working groups: 1) Research and Creative Achievement; 2) Academics; 3) Students; 4) Community Engagement and Events; and 5) Operations. These groups will integrate the lessons learned in the first stage of pandemic response on campus and elsewhere and will maintain a flexible approach, considering alternative scenarios and the need to rapidly adapt to changes.

While many important questions about the mode of our work together remain unsettled, we are certain that the UMBC community will continue to carry out our mission and our commitment to our students with distinction.

We will keep the campus community informed as more information is available. Thank you for all that you do every day for UMBC and for one another.