The Board of Governors gave its approval in May to a $530-million budget, which provides for major investments in key sectors in 2004-05.
The budget adds $15.4 million to the budgets of faculties to support the development of academic programs, faculty recruitment and undergraduate teaching needs.
Recruitment of professors will be a continuing priority. The University currently has 56 tenure-track positions under active recruitment as competition is on the increase across North America for faculty in certain areas such as management.
The budget includes the full year’s cost of eight faculty research development officer positions, which were created in 2003-04 to help professors prepare grant applications.
The largest investment for the renewal of undergraduate laboratory equipment – $3 million – will be in biology.
The library resources acquisition budget will also be increased by $1.2 million to reach $9 million in 2004-05.
Investments in capital construction will remain high due to several major projects now underway or on the verge of being started. Since 2000-01 the University has added 110,000 square metres of space. Nevertheless, buildings and systems have not been renovated or upgraded at a rate that will maintain the current infrastructure especially since the campus building stock is older than that of most other Ontario universities.
One major project in the early stages of study is the replacement or upgrade of the Student Information System and the payroll/human resources system. A fully integrated enterprise resource planning system (ERP) would require an investment of some $20 to $30 million over several years.
Operational grants ($203.4 million) and tuition fees ($151.9 million) continue to be the largest sources of revenue for the University. The increases in these revenue streams are entirely due to growing enrolments. The University will also receive $2.5 million as compensation for the tuition fee freeze and a further $6 million under the Quality Assurance Fund, a program that is not expected to survive in its current form beyond 2004-05.
