President Conner provides update to Skidmore staff

President Marc Conner offered an end-of-semester update to Skidmore staff on important initiatives, including the search for the College’s next vice president for advancement, the strategic action agenda for this academic year, preliminary work on a new campus master plan and other projects.  

Conner opened the Dec. 4 meeting by congratulating and thanking employees for their contributions to a successful fall semester despite many hurdles related to COVID-19. 

“It's just been an enormous accomplishment, and I’m extraordinarily proud of the job we’ve done,” Conner told around 200 employees at the virtual meeting. “We’re not going to let the present challenges keep our eyes off the future.” 

The College expects to maintain current health and safety measures into the spring semester and also anticipates similar enrollment numbers. Although the College foresees a balanced budget for the current fiscal year, Conner said that additional savings would need to be realized in supplies and services. The president also noted that there will be continued uncertainty about the summer because many camps and programs that would have been held then have been canceled.  

Conner highlighted the continuing work of the Health Care Working Group, which is tasked with making recommendations to address rising health care costs. The working group, co-chaired by Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Management and Business Tim Harper and Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer Donna Ng, will resume its outreach to employees early next year before making recommendations to College leadership in the spring.  

The president announced that the search for the next vice president for advancement has begun. The search committee, which is chaired by Conner, includes student representative Nicole Wong ’21; staff representative Sade Moore (assistant director of student support and advocacy for the Opportunity Program); cabinet representative Martin Mbugua (vice president for communications and marketing); and faculty representative Beau Breslin (professor of political science).  

The president also announced preliminary work on a new campus master plan to replace the College’s current plan, which was last updated in 2007. The College aims to select a professional campus master planner by February to help the College community develop the plan. Extensive outreach will be conducted to all campus constituent groups with the goal of submitting the report to the Board of Trustees in May 2022.  

 “This will give us an opportunity for a highly collaborative series of discussions about the present and future shape of our campus,” Conner said, adding that details about the lengthy planning process ahead would be shared by email.  

The new campus master plan will help to inform plans for the College’s future, including the formulation of the College’s next strategic plan and future capital campaigns, Conner said.  

In addition, the president discussed the College’s strategic action agenda for the current year. Goals include: 

• Successful execution of the 2020-2021 academic year, which has been profoundly affected by the challenges of COVID-19.
• Completion of the 12 action goals of Skidmore’s Racial Justice Initiative.
• The successful conclusion of Creating Our Future: The Campaign for Skidmore, which is set to end this month. 
• The development of a plan to address Skidmore’s structural budget deficit by realizing long-term budget savings.   
• The commencement of the campus master planning process.  

Conner also answered questions from employees about planning for next semester, the campus master plan, efforts to achieve budget savings, the Racial Justice Initiative and other topics.  

The president concluded the meeting by wishing the Skidmore community a restful and restorative break and holiday season. The next staff meeting is scheduled for Feb. 5, 2021.