Memorial’s Board of Regents held its July meeting in St. Anthony July 23-25.

While in St. Anthony, the university’s governing body discussed a liaison between St. Anthony area economic development groups and Memorial University, toured the Grenfell Historic Properties and the L’Anse aux Meadows historical site and met with local residents.

The board also approved the university’s 2003-2004 budget during the meeting. The board has approved a balanced budget of $186,859,000. The new budget clears a small deficit which was carried over from 2002-2003.

Despite the fact that the university’s budget was tight, new monies were allocated to several areas. Some of these include more money for graduate studies expansion and recruiting teaching assistantships, money to maintain the library’s book and journal collection, and new funds for services to international students and student career development programs. The university has also continued its ongoing support of the Oil and Gas Development Partnership and has allocated money to develop the university’s marketing and communications initiatives. Significantly, the budget will also put $5 million towards deferred maintenance. This money will help improve and upgrade the university’s aging infrastructure.

“Although it was challenging to arrive at a balanced budget, I am pleased that we were able to do so,” Memorial President Axel Meisen said. “I am particularly delighted that we were able to secure additional resources for several key objectives, including the maintenance of facilities, enhanced student support,
especially graduate student support, and stronger marketing of our university.”

Brian Colbourne, director of Financial and Administrative Services, noted that creating this budget, his first university budget, involved a shift in perspective. “My background has given me experience with an ongoing budgetary process, one that emphasizes continuous budgeting,” he said. “Like other organizations, the university goes through a major budget process once a year. I hope to introduce measures that will enable our administrators to have more financial information available so that they can better monitor and adjust their budgets in light of changing circumstances.”

The board intends to hold at least one meeting a year in a location away from Memorial’s provincial campuses.

For more coverage of the Board of Regents meeting, see Board News.