The Board of Trustees approved the sale of a piece of Guilford’s campus near the meadows, as well as a new tuition increase and next year’s budget, at their Feb. 25 meeting.

“The spirit of the meeting was, number one, the property — the trustees want to make sure the college does what’s best long term in dealing with our assets,” said Ty Buckner, associate vice president for communications and marketing.

The trustees approved the contract for the property to be sold to a medical services provider, but it is not officially sold yet. A certain company made an offer, and the trustees have now accepted and approved the contract to be drawn up. The college has maintained an easement right between the piece being sold and the edge of the meadows so that the college can still maintain full access to the meadows at any time.

The trustees were sure to point out that the property being sold is piece of property that the college bought in 1996.

“This is not the start of a trend,” said Chair of the Board of Trustees Joe Bryan, Jr. “Someone made an offer we could not refuse for a piece of property that was not part of the original campus.”

“If the contract goes through to completion, and the project we have been told about is built, there will be other benefits to the college and the community,” added Chair of the Finance Committee Carole Bruce.

Because the property is being sold to a medical company, there will be an obvious health benefit to students.

Both Bruce and Bryan believed that the project shouldn’t take too long to finalize, but certain things like land and environmental surveys might lengthen that time. The money made from the sale of this property will ultimately be added to the endowment.

Also on the agenda was the approval of the budget for the 2013 fiscal year and the approval of the tuition increase for the next school year.

The approval of the budget is currently a budget in principle, which essentially means the budget will be used next year, but only after another round of review and approval in July and then again in October once the school knows the final enrollment numbers.

“It’s exactly the same process that (President and Professor of Political Science Kent Chabotar) established for budgeting when he got here,” said Bruce. “We’re taking it slow so that the trustees can make the best decisions and have all the best information.”

“But we work with the budget as if it were final as of the July 1 meeting, because it doesn’t change much usually,” added Bryan.
The trustees also raised tuition. The increase comes on the heels of budget cuts across the board for all colleges in the state.

“(The increase) is the lowest percentage increase we’ve had in about 15 years at three percent,” said Bruce.

“I’ve never done an increase this low in my 30 years on the board,” added Bryan.

Buckner explained that Chabotar has a strong commitment to making sure that the college does not end up running an operating deficit, and will help the trustees do that by making sure the college and the trustees look at the long term in regards to the budget, not just the short term.

Also, while the impact of the budget reductions is significant, the trustees are committed to making sure that Guilford remains as affordable as possible to both traditional and CCE students.

Bruce pointed out that the real question is how it all affects the students.

“We’ll be a better college if we can have a more diverse student body, not just racially but also intellectually and socioeconomically, and all of those things are affected by net tuition,” said Bruce. “The core of the discussion was trying to reconcile all of the things like the cut with Guilford’s core mission as a Quaker college.”