To: Dean De Rosa

From: Luis Schang, Chair

Date: June 1, 2026

Subject: FPC Annual Report

Committee Membership

• Diane Burton (ILR)
• Donald Kenkel (CHE)
• Francesca Molinari (CAS, CS)
• Dan Luo (CALS)
• Rebecca Slayton (CAS)
• Muna Ndulo (LAW)
• David Ruppert (CIS)
• Nancy Chau (Johnson)
• Gideon Saar (COB)
• Sule Alan (CAS)
• Luis Schang, Chair (CVM)
• Eve De Rose, Ex Officio
• Adam Smith, Ex Officio
• Rebecca Hann, Ex Officio
• Kavita Bala, Ex Officio

Introduction

The Financial Policies Committee of the University Senate meets at least monthly during the term or as academic fall and spring terms or as required during the winter or summer. The schedules include two meetings with the Provost and/or VP Budget and Planning per term, to discuss ongoing and predicted budgets, including Operating Budget, Capital Budget, and related issues like long term impact of inflation on affordability, and long term projections. Other leadership members are invited to discuss pertinent topics as required.

The highly interactive and productive discussions provide University administration with Faculty feedback and questions regarding budgetary and other financial issues and gather information that Administration wants to share with the Faculty. Other themes pertinent to Cornell Financial Policies are discussed internally and with guests, which typically are from Cornell University administration of the Faculty body.

Meetings continued to be remote this year because of the increased security at Day Hall requiring card access. The remote format also facilitates the attendance by members or guests who are not close in Day Hall, or even in Ithaca at the time of the meeting, which has proven to be most powerful to be able to schedule additional meetings as required despite the complex calendars of the members and guests. All participants are provided with a secure Zoom meeting link to join from a private setting, such that all interactions remain private.

This academic the FPC was focused the changing landscape of Federal funding and other executive orders potentially affecting the University finances and the tactic and strategic management of the challenging landscape. A summary of each meeting is provided below.

The membership of the FPC had only one change from last academic year, with incoming member Sule Alan replacing departing member Annetta Richards.

The FPC convened for 14 meetings during the fall 2025 and spring 2026 terms.

Monthly meetings summaries

Friday, August 27, 2-3pm – Internal meeting

Considering the only change in membership, the meeting started with a brief introduction of all members and a summary of the FPC charges. The meeting the focused on setting the agenda for the first term, including the potential need for additional ad hoc meetings scheduled in short time if they were necessary. The main focus was on the changing landscape of the higher education landscape in the country, but other themes were also considered.

It was decided to schedule a meeting with VP lovely, Chief Human resources, to get an updated status of the approaches used by Cornell to ensure equity, the staffing changes since the COVID-19 crisis and the implications in the changing landscape and financial pressures. Another meeting was scheduled with the Associated Dean for Graduate School, Jason Kahabka, to discuss the implications of the student’s unionization for the education mission of the University. Another meeting was schedule with Vice Provost Undergraduate education Lisa Nishii to discuss the undergraduate programs and admissions, including financial assistance and TA needs and the impact of unionization. The FPC also scheduled a meeting with the then interim VP for budget and planning, Rebecca Hann and the standard meeting with the Provost, Kavita Bala.

Friday, September 5, 2-3pm – Meeting with VP Lovely, Chief Human resources officer

After the round of introductions, the meeting focuses on the approaches used by Cornell to ensure equity. The discussion highlighted that this is a decentralized process lead by the different units but it is reviewed annually with central administration and federally audited. The process followed by Cornell is generally recognized as robust. Faculty affairs, Staff, and Faculty equity are handled by different offices. There is an office at central administration focused on compensation for Staff, but there is no equivalent office focused on faculty compensation. Cornell participates in salary surveys with peer institutions, which are limited by anti-trust concerns to ensure that the peer institutions are not constituting a cartel to coordinate salaries. The FPC highlighted the existence of public databases of public education institutions which can be used to enhance the breadth of the data. The FPC raised the evidence showing that extending the tenure clock for family or other reasons show benefit for men but not for women. The FPC was informed that a Cornell committee is reviewing faculty leaves policies, and those for staff fall under separated legal requirements.

The discussion then moved to the cost and savings in the planning under the current funding uncertainties. A strategic savings model was preferred over across the board savings. A consultant was in the process of proposing revised models and realignments and will analyze in depth the proposed scenarios to evaluate the factual expected savings, whether they are to materialize or not. A preliminary plan was expected by the end of October, and some savings were expected to occur in this FY, while others are to be materialized in the longer term. The administrative consolidation may have some impact in the individual units and the saving efficiencies are expected to affect staff to some extent. The discussion centered on the impact of the possible administration reorganizations on faculty, which were being considered thoroughly. Some changes and adjustments are to be expected (needed versus desired). The FPC raised the issue that savings in other personnel often translate in getting the faculty to do the same job at a much higher cost and with lower efficiency. This has been considered. Better training and support for the staff is expected to help in supporting the Faculty better and may also result in significant savings. The meeting adjourned with the FPC offering to have some participation in the conversations

Friday, September 26, 2-3pm – Internal meeting

The FPC scheduled this meeting to review and re-evaluate the objectives for the year, and the roles that the FPC could play in the dynamic situation. Along these considerations it was decided that the proposed meeting with VP Lisa Nishii would be postponed until the situation stabilizes and there is a long term plan for undergraduate programs and admissions, including financial assistance and TA needs and the impact of unionization

The FPC also reviewed and discussed the information gathered at the meeting with VP Lovely, Chief Human resources officer. With respect to a follow up about equity, salary, leaves, tenure clock, any related topics, the FPC considers that the best approach to analyze equity would be through Cornall units and HR. However, the decision was made that considering the complexities of this approach and the urgent needs, this topic is to be tabled for the time being. The committee was very satisfied with the information shared about the financial planning and the adjustments expected to the financial situation.

The FPC then developed the agenda for the meeting with Jason Kahabka, Associate Dean for Graduate School. Firstly, the FPC was informed that and Dean Lewis, Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost for Graduate Education would also join the meeting. Then the agenda was discussed, including Student Unionization, impacts n TA, size of graduate and undergraduate programs, balance between them, sources of support for graduate students, and international students.

The discussion then focused on the FPC roles and charge in the context of the current fluid financial situation. It was considered that there is limited clarity about the financial situation and its implications, including time scales or whether it was expected to result in transient or a permanent changes. The FPC considers that this limited clarity most likely results from the fluid situation for tertiary education and research in general and Cornell in particular. The FPC would be willing to develop some positions to discuss with administration, but this possibility is restricted by the lack of clarity of the ongoing situation. The Provost would be the one indicated to talk about the ongoing situation, and a proposal was approved to invite to the meeting as soon as possible. Inviting Cornell’s CFO was also considered but was concluded not to be urgent. The FPC discussed that the potential options under potential consideration, and the potential impacts of the situation, must be known to be able to represent the faculty voice on those topics before final decisions are reached. It is also important to represent the diversity of opinions among the faculty. Other items discussed were the changing model of university education and funding; the impact of the financial situation on retention packages, and whether there was data about the results of recent past reduction in personnel. The FPC agreed on the need to know the potential options that are in the table, the long term strategy, and the potential use of contingency funds. The FPC also agreed in the need to volunteer to have an increased engagement, as during the COVID-19 crisis, and to raise the risks of losing human capital, including Faculty retention. The need to streamline relationships with industry and other non-governmental sources of finding was discussed, too.

Friday, November 22 2-3pm – Meeting with Vice President Laura Syer

This was the customary fall meeting with VP Syer to get informed and discuss the operating budget from the past current and planned for next academic years.

The meeting discussed the general volatility in the education industry in general, particularly in comparison with the peer institutions, such as Princeton, Harvard, UPENN. The industry in general is still affected by the COVID-19 post-COVID-19 financial challenges

There have been some changes in the reporting organization. There is now a single overview for the financial and budget teams and Weill Cornell now cross reports together with Ithaca to the Provost. The Endowment payment last calendar year was 5%

Friday, October 10 2-3pm – Meeting with Jason Kahabka, Associate Dean for Graduate School and & Dean Lewis, Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost for Graduate Education

After the introductions, the first focus was on the impacts of the Student Unionization on Cornell’s teaching and research mission

Dean Lewis discussed that he was new to Cornell but he was in the same position at Brown before, where he worked closely with the Union. Cornell shares many common interest with the Union, including an excellent experience and working relationship between students and faculty body. Cornell has an interest in having salaries that are competitive to bring the best and brightest across the potential pools of graduate students.

The main challenge lies in segregating the education from the work relationship. All academic excellence decisions mut be exclusive purvey of Cornell, which has the expertise and experience to guide and direct them. The most challenging part is to streamline the actual grievances from academic concerns. Resources being developed to navigate the system. For example, to determine when a Union presence in a meeting is important (Academic performance versus work performance).

Bargaining was sometimes contentious early on and it took one year of hard work. There was no shared vision at the start, and students were displeased, but the negotiations reached a good final agreement.

Many R1 Universities have been unionized for a long time and have long experience with it. Cornell is only starting the process, so the transition is being managed. Academic mentoring and evaluation differ from supervising a graduate worker, and the faculty have limited training in the latter one at this stage. The faculty of graduate studies is sharply focused on supporting for the faculty during the transition. Beyond that critical issue, there are several global grievances like parking space, which are common in all Universities, which are being managed.

Many individual grievances are related to academic, qualifying exams, and so forth, which is not work-related; others are related to TA duties, which is. A student may claim to be about to be fired without due process, which must be properly considered. Sometimes, TA are missing classes or failing behind in grading, for example. A meeting with the TA, with representatives of the Union present if requested, could be scheduled to analyze the situation. Performance goals would be set, and consequences would be stated. Timelines for remediation are necessarily tight according to the coursework schedule (days, not weeks). The sooner a situation is dealt with is the best. Another challenge is that a GRA is both an employee and a student. Workload can be an issue. The service component is capped at 15 h per week. It is important to keep in mind that a student does not work for a PI but for their own degree. 12 credits (36h) are the baseline time commitment for a graduate student.

Cornell has produced video vignettes that can be shared with students. This resource could be better known among faculty and students.

There are some financial aspects of unionization. . As a result of the unionization, Cornell has changed the way of compensating students, from project to hours. However, unionization itself did not increase the cost per student by much, as the major corrections had already happened before. There is a matriculation payment, a $750 relocation and a starting fee. The total  cost went up by about 3.1%. The students pay for the union fees. All TAs are covered, whether they are M.Sc., or Ph.D. or others. Undergraduate TAs are not TAs under Cornell definition; they are hourly undergrad position course assistant. There is a potential for unionization of undergraduate students and residential fellows, too, but this has not happened.

Overall, unionization is only a minor cause of the financial pressures for student funding. Inflation and local cost of living have had a much larger impact on the cost of students. Cornell used to exceed the Ithaca living wage with a 9 month salary, which does no longer happens. This issue is well beyond the University’s abilities to solve. Other financial pressures are the planning for Cornell’s financial situation under the current uncertainty. Some external funding might be at risk. The decisions are made to prioritize the students wherever possible. The key lever is admission, so the graduate school is working closely with the fields to survey the expected size. There are other institutions that are seeing a decrease in the graduate student population already. The main goals are to maintain cohorts that are robust and have critical mass that can sustain appropriate course offerings. Travel grants were not planned to be cut because travel is an important part of the education.

Graduate students are important for Cornell’s mission in themselves, independently of any link to the undergraduate population. Nonetheless, the undergraduate population benefits from the graduate population, and vice-versa, and both are integrated. Different successful universities have very different ratios of graduate to undergraduate students.

There are ongoing conversations about whether we are at an inflexion point in  the University system. There are conversations with other Universities, and funding models for graduate education are being discussed. There has been a deep concern in the humanities regarding funding for graduate education for quite some time already, which has been exacerbated under the current distress.

Friday, November 14 2-3pm – Meeting with Rebecca Hann, Interim Vice President for Budget and Planning.

As this was the first meeting of the FPC with Rebecca Hann, the meeting started with the introductions and background of all members and VP Hann. After the introductions, there meeting focused on an overview of the budget for the ongoing and coming fiscal years, and an update on Cornell’s Capital budget.

The meeting also discussed the general volatility in the industry in general, in particular in comparison with the peer institutions, Princeton, Harvard, UPENN. The industry in general is still affected by the COVID-19 post-COVID-19 financial challenges. There have been a couple of changes in the organization. There is now a single overview for the financial and budget teams and Weill Cornell now cross reports together with Ithaca. The Endowment payment was 5%.

Friday, December 12 2-3pm – Meeting with Provost Kavita Bala.

This meeting involved an extensive discussion with Provost Bala regarding the financial distresses and potential scenarios and how Cornell is dealing with them, and a further discussion about “Resilient Cornell” and the need to increase the operating margins of the institution. In brief, the very thin margins that Cornell has been using for a long time fail to provide sufficient coverage for repeated crisis or other financial distresses. In the recent history, the global financial crisis of 2008 was followed by the COVID-19 crisis about ten years later, which was then followed by the distress in post-secondary education and research of the recent years. As evidenced in each of these crisis, the thin margin model does not provide with any mechanism to deal with them, and when reactive actions are taken it is expected that the costs incurred will be reversed in the following ten years or so, but this has been continuously interrupted by the ensuing situation. Resilient Cornell requires rationalizing the expenditures and ensuring that any current rationalization is not promptly reverted once the immediate crisis is overcome. The discussion also included the impact of the current budget model in the inter-unit relationships and the Cornell experience of the units.

Friday, January 23 2-3pm – Internal meeting

This meeting developed the agenda for the term, including the possibility of adding additional meetings if necessary when considering the evolving situation. The agenda for the term included invitations to meet with the Provost as necessary, a meeting with the Future of the American University committee, and another with Christopher J Cowen, executive VP and CFO, and a closing meeting to wrap up the term and organize the transition to the next Chair. The meeting also set the agenda for a meeting with Provost Bala, and the FAU committee, and raised the topics to discuss with VP Cowen.

Friday, February 13 2-3pm – Meeting with the Future of American University committee

The meeting was directed at gathering the information about the committee work, aims and areas of interest, its integration with resilient Cornell, and the potential for future interactions between the FPC and the FAU. The FAU was represented by Adam Smith and Praveen Sethupathy, and the meeting was chaired by Donald Kenkel, as Luis M Schang could not attend for medical reasons.

Friday, February 27 2-3pm – Meeting with Provost Kavita Baba and Rebecca Hann, VP Budget and Planning.

This meeting focused on a discussion about the ongoing challenges facing Cornell. 2025 was a tough year, and the new administration realized that Cornell operates with very thin financial margins. This is fine on regular years, and is consistent with Cornell’s mission, but it becomes difficult in challenging years. 2025 was a challenging one, with the SOW orders, grants terminated (70M in USDA grants alone), and other challenges. Some funding did eventually return, but some like USDA did not. Indirect costs were lost while the grants were not operative anyway. It amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars of research funding in jeopardy, and international students had major challenges, too, which also affects Cornell financially. The expected deficit appeared extremely challenging at some times during the year, but the worse-case scenarios did not materialize. New regulations on student loans also posed a challenge. NIH is now paying the full funding upfront, which resulted in a bump on the funds received in the year, but the total amount of NIH funding is decreasing. Inflation, decrease in capital funding (from the state), and the union agreement all compounded the financial stresses, as did benefits, which are going up in the contract Colleges. On the positive side, it was a good year for gifts, particularly for CALS and engineering.

The potential 400M loss in one year was exceptional and something that could not had been foreseen. However, an analysis of top 20 Ivy+ shows Cornell is at the bottom four in operating margins. The top of the Ivy+ in the margins category operates with a surplus of about 100M per year, far above Cornell’s budget planning.

Regarding financial aid, Cornell will stay need blind; no University in the peer group operates in a need-aware bases. Financial aid is complex and the actual tuition rate is difficult to estimate. For financial aid will continue, though, it must be properly budgeted, which is mostly from the operating budget. Cornell invests about 460M per year in financial aid, of which 70M is from endowment. Cornell must therefore carefully design the amount it is willing to invest in financial aid.

Revenue generation is challenging. Increasing international for mostly financial reasons is a risky decision, with many drawbacks and limitations. Revenue generation from international students is high risk, and not considered an appropriate long term strategy.

Cornell is an Ivy league school, but in contrast to most others it has about 60K students in total, which creates some unique challenges. Cornell has a relatively large bureaucracy, which does not necessarily translate into better education, research, or extension.

The planification to deal with the thin margins issue makes no differentiation between staff and faculty, and although there are some differences between contract versus endowed colleges, they are intrinsic to the structure. Employes of the contract college are state employees, regulated as such, which does not yield Cornell much, or any, flexibility. Any changes in personnel or compensation required to maintain the sustainability of Cornell would not result in larger differences than the ones that already exist and result from the differences in the structure of the contract versus endowed colleges and units.

Provost Bala generously offered to continue the conversation at an additional meeting, which was eventually scheduled for April 10.

Friday, March 20 2-3pm – Meeting with Christopher J. Cowen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

After the usual introductions, the meeting focused on discussing the strategic planning, policy, and actions for the long term financial health of Cornell

Near term issues are being tackled as needed, but decisions with immediate impact are rare and difficult. Very much like steering an aircraft career, changes in direction take time. The role of the CFO is to think in the several years ahead to deal with setbacks and make the most of the opportunities as early as possible, considering current and future needs. On occasion some issues may get out of balance and some adjustments are necessary on the go.

Several “one in a generation event” affecting Cornell’s finances have occurred often in the last years. Financial planning typically expects improvements in 10 years from the last crisis but of ate the new crises have been hitting long before 10 years from the previous one. There are external and internal factors modulating the magnitude of these crises.

Cornell has historically operated at very thin margins, which affects and restricts the ability to respond to the crisis. This approach is not sustainable in the long term when several hits come relatively close together in time.

The ability to grow revenues is limited. There is no possibility for market pricing of the education: it would go against Cornell’s mission and it would also be politically challenging. However, state support is not growing at the inflationary rate. Tuition increases, but the increases are modest, perhaps around at 3% yearly on average. Research revenue does not result in net income. Cornell thus depends on current and past philanthropy. Of late, the endowment has been performing well again, which has helped, but any downturn can negatively affect the baseline. Any cost that increases above tuition increases unavoidably results in diverting resources from other sources. Revenue from activities like extension is highly variable, and typically leaves small margins, if any.

Cornell manages the debt carefully. Debt to increase revenue is good debt as is opportunistic debt when it is possible to acquire debt at a lower interest to cover higher interest older debt. Borrowing to cover operating expenses is not usually good. There is also some significant borrowing ongoing because of litigation costs. The more of the budget that goes to debt services the least is available for all other expenses. Three years ago, Cornell was underleveraged, now Cornell is at the level where any increase risks losing credit rating. Cornell had several interest swaps in the books from before the mortgage financial crisis. These derivatives are not necessarily good in the balance sheet of an educational institution. Preserving flexibility in the portfolio is considered more desirable, not to have a long term inflexible debt structure.  The average current debt level is about 4.5%. There is continuous discussion regarding whether this level is optimal or Cornell is comfortable with it.

The discussion then focused on the revenue and expense model. Cornell operated historically in a model that reinvested any surplus into capital investment. Only recently, Cornell started building a reserve fund, but only at a target of 5M/year. As long as the income was growing, we needed not increase margins, but this approach is not sustainable with repeating crises. Cornell is not aiming at growing the income, just at having a 2-3% margin to operate.

Then the conversation centered in costs. Historically cost adjustments had not been structural, but rather reactive to a crisis and when the crisis reverted, the expenses went back to the previous base level. The real issue is how to permanently take costs out of the system. The major costs are salaries, central and at the units. Cornell is looking for efficiency, and some issues may be more efficient if managed centralized and some others, decentralized. To increase efficiency some things will have to change, and redundancies must be eliminated. Sometimes, the search for efficiencies can be expensive, the Concur example. Cornell is trying to do it differently now. For example, AI can be used to detect fraud instead of putting more policies and restrictions on people. As another example, Cornell had a procurement officer in Ithaca and another in New York, but there are benefits in size, getting both procurement offices together to leverage pricing. Similarly with shared services. Superdepartments across colleges, however, create some complexity. The turnaround to increase efficiencies must be quick to ensure the margins are increased in time to react to the current situation and in advance to the next crisis.

Compared to most other universities, and peers in particular, Cornell is more complex. The existence of contract and endowed colleges add a significant and unique complexity.  Nonetheless, the bigger item in the budget is salaries, and this is also the main capital of the University. Are we going to lose our best faculty? Are we going to be able to recruit the best? Resilient Cornell is trying to address this issue. To attract world-class faculty, Cornell must have a source for flexible resources to be able to invest in the key positions and areas. The goal is to invest in strategic areas to retain or hire faculty, trying to get the best faculty in a hiring market. Moreover, campus climate and environment are critical for recruitment and retention and recruiting, beyond the specific allocation to retain or hire a specific person or group.

The meeting also included a discussion of the effects of building policies on the crisis and finances. Capital budget is an area that needs focus and comprehensive evaluation. Do we need more space, or do we need to improve the space that we have? There is always the desire for new buildings, while it is hard to focus on maintaining old buildings. The total cost of ownership will be used for new building decisions. Since revenue is limited, the money to maintain a new building must come from other expenses if the total costs of the maintenance are not properly costed at the onset of the project.

The discussion then centered on Cornell’s budget model, including financial aid, revenue distribution and its consequences. One of the issues is how can the budget model be improved? There is no perfect budget model, and models are always different once in practice. In Economic theory terms, the budget model is fine. However, for these budget models to be effective, one must have to have the ability to fail, which cannot happen in academia. The model in academia thus needs safety nets to move money around, and then the model does not work as designed. There is also legacy, and there are always winers and losers in any model. In any budget model and incentives, it is not desirable to tax earnings and collaboration should be encouraged. However, the current model incentivizes duplication of classes over collaborative classes; it also erodes trust across faculty (and colleges) competing for the same pool of students. The budget model could perhaps be simplified.

After this extensive and productive discussion, the meeting was adjourned slightly after 3:00pm.

Friday, April 10 2-3pm – Meeting with Provost Kavita Bala

This meeting continued the conversations about Resilient Cornell and its impact. The meeting discussed faculty and staff benefits, including early retirement plan and its expected impact (financial, staffing, mission), how to secure the reserves generated for the times when they are needed, and that the thicker margins are preserved.

The meeting then discussed at length the implications of the current funding model contributing to internal competition across colleges, and duplication of efforts, and its impact on the quality of education. The benefits of having a budget model were considered a definite plus, but the current model was considered to need some adjustments, such as the inclusion of incentives to develop programs and courses across units, or to make the best use of existing courses or programs to avoid the duplication of efforts and dilution of the student population.

The conversations were highly interactive and Provost Bala invited the FPC to get engaged and propose ideas to refine the budget model to enhance Cornell’s mission.

Friday, May 11 2-3pm – Meeting with Rebecca Hann, VP Budget and Planning

As customary, this meeting reviewed and overviewed the FY25 and 26 budgets, forecasts and actuals

The FY25 budget now reflects a net positive balance of 3.4% (206M). Many storms have been weathered, although significant uncertainty remains. Multi-year awards have temporarily hidden the hit on sponsored research. Indirect cost recovery has not shrunken thanks to the Judiciary ruling that they cannot change while the existing contracts are in place. Rate negotiations for the future are starting, as the current rate expires this year.

Financial aid has improved from a peak of 46-47%, but it is probably not going to go below 42%. There was a big cohort four years ago who needed financial aid, which is graduating now, which will relieve the pressure on financial aid. The pledges are also coming down now, but the money was spent before the pledges came through. By and large the financial aid goes to undergrads. Cornell is no longer pushing in the recruitment efforts for first generation and equivalent populations that typically need higher financial aid.

eCornell is struggling financially with regards to years past, but it is still generating revenue for now. The market has changed. eCornell has adapted and decreased the expenses but the future is still uncertain.

Salaries, wages, and benefits increase in Weill Cornell because it is expanding the clinical services. In Ithaca, there is a clear decrease in salaries that neutralized a fast increase in benefits. Resilient Cornell is considering changes in the benefit structures and pricing. There is a consortium of universities working on transparent pricing for pharmaceuticals – strategic sourcing, among other approaches. We were considering a 25M deficit in benefits, but even with the increase in benefits rate planned to cover it, a significant deficit remains because of the increase in costs. Retiree’s benefits are in a trust which did not allow to use them until retirement. The funds will now become part of the global investment pool and the additional income will be used for retiree’s benefits. Benefits cost is often increased by a few items, like a specific medication or specific medical conditions.

Some other items are special considerations. For example, CEMI, Cornell Experience Modernizing Initiative, is entirely internally funded, split evenly in Ithaca and Weill Cornell. The budget will be approved by quarters; the actual impact of AI is still to be evaluated.

Facilities budget is keeping up with the costs of inflation and the increasing base of sq footage. Deferred maintenance is included in the project.

For the next academic year, the total SIP pool will be between 2.25 – 2.5%. Tuition will increase by 3.75%. The long term investment pool will pay 5%, plus an additional 0.5%

There is an intention to unify the discussion and synchronize the capital budget cycles with the regular budget.

The voluntary retirement plan target was 175 people and 170 applied and all were accepted.

The meeting adjourned at 3:00pm

Friday, May 18 2-3pm – Internal Meeting

The purpose of this meeting was a general overview of the year and preparation for next fall.

The FPC considered that a major topic is the evolution of the budget model. Perhaps the FPC may consider surveying the faculty to gather information about the perceptions of the faculty regarding needed changes, strengths and weaknesses of the model. The Dean of Faculty must be consulted before engaging Cornell’s faculty in a survey. Also, the available data may be evaluated. For example, enrollment data is openly shared and network analyses have been performed, which may be useful in deciding what is needed. The general conclusion was that adjusting the budget model without the input of the faculty may not be the best path forward. The FPC considered that involvement in the discussions about the adjustments to the budget model should be central during next year’s activities.

Another important issue is the financial aid. Cornell is not moving away from need blind admissions, but the impact of the recruitment target populations in the need for financial aid is very important. The issue of financial aid should be closely followed by the FPC.

The FPC considers that the implementation of a common budget model for Ithaca and New York campuses is critical, but the harmonization will be challenging.

The FPC should be involved in some way in the discussions, planning, and dissemination of any adjustments to benefits, retirement and health care

The FPC should keep on raising the risk of cutting costs by restructuring resulting in downloading work on faculty, and the potentially very high hidden opportunity costs.

The discussion then focused on what will be  the next challenges to implement the financial adjustments. It was considered likely that a major challenge will move to the units striving for efficiency. If so, does the FPC still play a role when the process goes to units? The consensus was that the FPC should at least be involved in ensuring that the Cornell experience is shared by all students and there is equity among all Faculty. However, it is challenging for the FPC as a member of Cornell’s Faculty Senate to interact efficiently with the individual units separately.

There was also a discussion about potential for RTE representation in the committee, but it was agreed that this decision lies in the Senate and the Dean of Faculty.

Donald Kenkel was introduced as the upcoming Chair for the next academic year, and Luis M Schang thanked the members for the hard, dedicated, and excellent work during the past four years.

The FPC adjourned for the summer break.

To: Dean De Rosa

From: Luis Schang, Chair

Date: June 30, 2025

Subject: FPC Annual Report

Committee Membership

Diane Burton                 (ILR)

Donald Kenkel               (CHE)

Francesca Molinari      (CAS, CS)

Dan Luo                          (CALS)

Rebecca Slayton           (CAS)

Muna Ndulo                  (LAW)

Annette Richards          (CAS)

David Ruppert               (COE, CIS)

Nancy Chau                    (Johnson)

Gideon Saar                   (COB)

Luis Schang, Chair        (CVM)

Eve De Rose, Ex Officio

Chelsea D. Specht, Ex Officio

Laura Syer, Ex Officio

John Siciliano/Kavita Bala, Ex Officio

Introduction

The Financial Policies Committee of the University Senate meets monthly or more frequently during the term or as required during the summer. The schedules include two meetings with the Provost and/or VP Budget and Planning per term, to discuss ongoing and predicted budgets, including Operating Budget, Capital Budget, and related issues like long term impact of inflation on affordability, and long term projections. This year, the first meeting with the Provost was with the then Internal Provost, John Siciliano, and the second with the new Provost, Kavita Bala. The highly interactive and productive discussions provide University administration with Faculty feedback and questions regarding budgetary and other financial issues and gather information that Administration wants to share with the Faculty. Other themes pertinent to Cornell Financial Policies are discussed internally and with guests, which typically are from University administration of the Faculty body.

Meetings were remote this year because of the increased security at Day Hall. The remote format also facilitates the attendance by members or guests who are not close in Day Hall, or even in Ithaca at the time of the meeting. All participants are provided with a secure Zoom meeting link to join from a private setting, such that all interactions remain private.

For the first part of the Academic year, the FPC was focused on following the general themes that affect Cornell Financial Policies and their implementation, including Endowment management, Development, Contingency Funds, eCornell and other remote initiatives, and compliance. With the changing landscape of Federal funding and other executive orders potentially affecting the University finances, the focus was changed in the second term of the year to the strategic management of the challenging landscape. A summary of each meeting is provided below.

The membership of the FPC had only one change from last academic year, with incoming Diana Burton replacing departing member Vanessa Vohns, both in ILR. Beyond changes, Gideon Saar was back from his sabbatical.

Monthly Meetings Summaries

Friday, August 30, 2-3pm – Internal Meeting

After a brief introduction of all members and a summary of the FPC charges, the meeting focused on setting the agenda for the first term, including meetings with the Provost John Siciliano, VP Research and innovation Krystyn Van Vliet and Senior Director for the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research Development Mary-Margaret Klempa, VP Budget and Planning Laura Syer, and, as decided during the meeting, with CIO Ken Miranda.

The meeting then discussed taking on the long term topics while the Cornell Leadership was undergoing a transition at the time, reaching the consensus was that the FPC should continue the conversation with administration about the long term plans for Cornell, regardless of any ongoing transition.

The FPC had consensus on continuing the critical discussions about equity, and it was concluded that the best immediate next step would be to first discuss it with the Provost in generic terms and then invite Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Christine Lovely to be informed about Cornell’s processes. This initiative got superseded in the second term with the necessity to explore the changing landscape and its influences in Cornell financial policies but it will be resumed in the next academic year.

There was strong consensus in continuing discussing salaries for faculty and staff and their implications in hiring and retention and on the differences in financial policies across different Cornell Units and their consequences. These items would be included in the discussions with the Provost and VP Laura Syer.

The FPC was very keen in a second meeting with CIO Ken Miranda to discuss the current performance of the endowment as well as any effects that last year’s protests may have had on the management and allocation of assets- if any- and how to mitigate them; this meeting was then scheduled by the Chair for late in the term

The discussion prepared the agenda of items to discuss with Provost John Siciliano in September, including continuing the conversation regarding the processes that Cornell pursues to ensure Equity across all faculty, the financial headwinds, including student’s unionization, which have several impacts on Cornell, and their effects on faculty searches, Financial Aid, and other policies. The longer effects of unionization on finances, teaching, and learning experience at Cornell, as well as the impact of the changes in travel reimbursement policies and processes on faculty and specially on trainees. Another topic of interest was that Cornell compliance and related activities appear to be having a significant impact on the ability of Faculty to apply, secure, and spend extramural funding via grants, contracts, and other means. A number of faculty in different units have raised a variety of challenges they face in raising or even spending the funds. The FPC would like to discuss the level of awareness of this potential problem and its implications and how to manage it. The FPC was also interested in discussing the renewed the agreement with the City of Ithaca. As Cornell occupies a large piece of land in the City and is a major contributor to the City, this arrangement has a large impact on the faculty and staff living in Ithaca. The FPC would appreciate the perspective of administration regarding this agreement and its financial implications to the faculty and staff living in the city.

Friday, September 20, 2-3pm – Meeting with Provost John Siciliano

After the introductions of the FPC members and Provost, the discussion focused on the previously selected topics.

Regarding equity, the Provost discussed that equity is highly focused on CIP, which provides some discretion but between tight bounds. The decision making rests in the units under central administration supervision There is a multivariate model including years in service, productivity, etc. that is used to find potential outliers, with focus on race, gender and other variables. Most of the anomalies detected are justified. As a potential limitation any algorithm focusing on outliers does not detect full groups of faculty falling behind that would result in a systematic discrimination. This potential is being monitored but the details were not discussed. The algorithm is used post-hoc, not a priori, and it has been implemented for some 12 years or so. The discussion centered on what is rewarded in CIP recognition, and it appears that Scholarship tends to prevail. It would be perhaps positive to release an analysis about whether there are issues regarding different compensations for different groups of people performing the same work.

Regarding the Financial Challenges, the UAW discussions had ended in a good agreement after challenging negotiations. The administration is of the opinion that sustainable living wages were reached and Cornell made significant efforts. Financial support for students continues to place some strains but dedicated development may help. The discussions about Graduate student unionization were mainly addressing non-economic matters at that point and most issues should be relatively straightforward. The challenge is delineating precisely what are student activities and which ones are employee activities, and whether the source of salary for a student (a specific grant or contract, for example) can be interpreted as limiting the scientific freedom of the student or not.

Compliance is a major issue for the administration as Cornell is getting overwhelmed by compliance. It is critical to determine what is critical and what is not. Increase in compliance is drastic and the new mandates are typically not funded by the agencies increasing the compliance requirements. These discussions are spearheaded by the Legal counsel.

Regarding the negotiations with the City, the City tax base becomes increasingly precarious as industry and commerce leave town. Cornell takes a long swath of land but is also the largest employer and lifts the county significantly. There is a large concern about K-12 education quality, which has no easy solution. Public School quality is dropping and Cornell is aware, but the area schools are outside Cornell jurisdiction.

Friday, September 25, 2-3pm – Meeting with VP Research and Innovation Krystyn Van Vliet and OSP Senior Director Mary-Margaret Klempa

After the introductions, the discussion focused on OSP as an organization and its work supporting the very large Cornell research enterprise and the associated challenges.

Cornell is a top 20 University in the country year over year in research expenditures. Growth of the research enterprise has been very good, by about 50% in the last 5 years. OSP has a total of 48 FTE, but staffing has not grown in synchrony to the increases in the research enterprise. Two of the eight new positions requested in 2021 were assigned. Tools are also needed to continue supporting adequately the growing research enterprise. Funds are limited and the challenge is that all OSP resources come from central allocation. Therefore, any OSP funding increase results on less funds allocated to the independent Cornell units.

OSP is involved in all supported activities, not just research. Issues like “fee for service” are in a grey area, they are not necessarily processed through OSP (they still need to go through innovation and research). There have been some issues with fee for service situations, and OSP has developed templates that Colleges sign and administer themselves to facilitate the process.

OSP has developed a pre-award support team, PRO. PRO supports the College of Engineering, Cornell Tech, most of Arts and Sciences, and Architecture and Urban Planning. CALS and CVM have independent PRO support, although these PRO teams cannot negotiate contracts on their own. Although they are independent, they interact closely with OSP.

Sponsored financial services takes the financial administration of the awarded contracts or grants and manages the financial risks.

ORIA deals with compliance, including research security and international compliance. There is a new export control officer in ORIA.

OSP expressed interested in the Faculty Senate, likely through FPC, collecting data about the challenges the faculty face raising and using funds to sponsor research.

Friday, November 22 2-3pm – Meeting with Vice President Laura Syer

This was the customary fall meeting with VP Syer to get informed and discuss the operating budget from the past current and planned for next academic years.

The meeting discussed the general volatility in the education industry in general, in particular in comparing with the peer institutions, such as Princeton, Harvard, UPENN. The industry in general is still affected by the COVID-19 post-COVID-19 financial challenges

There have been some changes in the reporting organization. There is now a single overview for the financial and budget teams and Weill Cornell now cross reports together with Ithaca to the Provost. The Endowment payment last calendar year was 5%

Friday, December 13 2-3pm – Meeting with CIO Ken Miranda

This was the first meeting of the current FPC committee with CIO Ken Miranda, to discuss the past and current status, and future strategies for the Endowment.

Ken discussed the principles of investment based on long, intergenerational, term. Consequently, the endowment is heavily leveraged in equity and the management is not reactive, or short term. The portfolio is diversified and market timing is minimized and only strategically used.

Cornell does not invest directly, using instead a manager approach to have access to the best management in the world. Expensive managers are only hired when they add significant value, however. Otherwise, the goal is to keep the managing costs as low as possible. Consistently, fees and cost are kept low, 18 base points or less and staffing is managed according to portfolio size.

Cornell has the smallest endowment per student among its peers, at about $368,000 per student, but it is not clear that this is the best metric for a research intensive university.

Allocations of the investments are similar to the peers (Ivy+), except that defensive allocations are lower for Cornell (18 vs 27% for peers).

The meeting then discussed some headwinds. Stress in the real estate market (office in particular) may have bottomed, as shown by office to residential conversion slowing down. Office to residential conversion is expensive and it mostly only works when the office value is significantly below the residential one.

The endowment income was 8.7% in 2024 and the payout was 5%. Cornell trailed the benchmark for a second year in a row. Private equity is currently significantly underperforming, which explains the results, but there are signs that it is turning around now. Private equity is asynchronous with the rest of the market. Income for the last 5 years, was 10% per year (above benchmark). Over 5 years, Cornell endowment has beaten all benchmarks.

Friday, February 7 2-3pm

Resulting from conflicting schedules after the start of the term, the first FPC meeting of the second term of the 24-25 Calendar year took place in early February.

The first meeting of the term was dedicated to developing the agenda and focus for the term, which was decided would focus on the changing landscape for research and university education. This focus was changed as the challenges changed in the following weeks. The meeting covered an overview of the agenda and topics to be covered during the term.

The priorities were place the National research funding situation and its impact on Cornell, and the potential economic scenarios and their impact on Cornell. The FPC will continue working in the continuing procurement and compliance issues, but the priority for the term was set on the national funding and education landscape changes

Another priority was on establishing the interactions with the new Provost, including developing the agenda to forward to the Provost for the first meeting.

There was also a general discussion about how to best approach the graduate student unionization, including the increased costs and how to cover them. The FPC considered Possible future Meeting with graduate school and Associate Dean Jason Kahabka.

Another topic of consideration Cornell and Ithaca education. Leverage of the current situations. It was considered that this area may not be in the FPC mandate, and the Chair was tasked with consulting with the Dean of Faculty. It was eventually decided that this area does fall in the FPC charge, and it will be included in the following year, unless the changing landscape demands exclusive focus on the changing conditions.

Friday, March 14 2-3pm – Meeting w/ Provost Bala

This meeting was the first with the new Provost and it was dedicated to a general discussion about the vision and the challenges and opportunities arising from the current state of affairs.

After a brief introduction of the FPC members, Dr. Bala discussed her interest in, and vision for, the position. In brief, Dr. Bala was very excited about the position, being an incredibly consequential time in education, with the breathtaking pace of discoveries and progress in all areas. Also, a time of great challenges, with obvious society polarization, some lack of trust into superior education and research, and a general lack of credibility of science. Time of great opportunities, too.

It is challenging for the society to keep up with the breathtaking speed of progress, including the legal, sociological and ethical implications. It’s time to face and address the challenges that come through us at Cornell, through our mission to provide education to any person in any study, our land grant mission and the general lack of silos in Cornell.

The conversation then focused on the evolution of education and Research, with participation by the provost and the members of the FPC.

The society, and Cornell, needs new kinds of education and new kinds of research. For example, AI is changing the education, research, and workplace landscape. Cornell must prepare the students for an AI shaped world and must become a leader in this area in research, teaching and administration. Jobs are already changing, and some are being replaced by AI and similar technologies.

Cornell needs to keep innovation in education, but there are great challenges including the Impact of technology on the society and planet.

Threats analyses. There are many potential financial threats, which are being dynamically evaluated. There are several considerations to ameliorate some financial threats, which may include the use of AI to increase efficiency and developing or prioritizing other sources of support for research and education. The potential role of research that needs approval by the founder to be published in the future of research and education funding is considered.

The potential impact of the status on Cornell’s student body at all levels is being dynamically monitored. Faculty workload is being monitored as well as the evolution of the student to faculty ratio.

The potential impact of the Graduate student unionization on increased costs and quality of the Cornell Education mission is being actively monitored.

The previous VP research and innovation portfolio is now divided between the VP research and VP innovation and corporate strategy.

Friday, April 11 2-3pm – Meeting w/ VP Syer

The meeting was centered on an overview of the budget as of right now, highlighting the thinking about mitigating risks. The conversation was framed on the uncertainties of the financial and regulatory environment for a research intensive university

In general revenues were apparently going well, as were gifts, but there are now new uncertainties, yet to be fully defined. At the same time, compensation and benefits are increasing, as have general expense and purchased services and Legal expenses (mostly related to financial aid and lawsuits).

The current threats include the potential changes in the endowment tax, which could become highly consequential depending on levels, and in the IDC/F&A.

As a result of the quickly evolving landscape, the CIP pool for FY26 was yet to be defined at the time of the meeting.

Planning ahead, there are several issues that will need attention. For example, there is a growing tuition gap between endowed versus contract colleges, and financial aid expected to increase; many different strategies are being considered at this time.

Regarding expenses, personnel costs are the largest, as expected from a University, which is a people business. Considering the uncertainties, thus, there was a hiring freeze in place at the time of the meeting, till June 30. Regarding large capital expenditures, such as new buildings, the Cornell policy is to have 75% of the cash in hand before design and 100% before construction, so the changing landscape has no implications to potentially uncovered capital projects.

There was a discussion about the ongoing audit and review of the allocation cost model, which is reviewing the metrics and distribution of tuition and fees revenue.

Friday, April 18 2-3pm – Meeting w/ Provost Bala

The meeting was focused on discussing the current financial threats and challenges, and opportunities.

At the time of the meeting, all DOD funding to Cornell was frozen, but the cancer protocols with patients had been reinstated. Cornell has started the appeal process. Appeals are slow. Appeals to funding interruptions are started by the PI, then de Department then the Dean, then the VPR office, and only then the Provost’s office can get involved.

DOE has reduced the indirect costs paid, and Cornell is one of many plaintiffs in the legal challenge to this change.

Because of the abrupt and unanticipated changes, large essential facilities that have grant funding withheld or frozen are being run with support from the VPR. Likewise, the process to follow when is necessary to transfer expenses, for example students’ salaries, from grant-supported positions to discretionary funds, first the funds held by the PI are exhausted, then those held by the Department, then by the Dean, and finally by the VPR.

Also because of the changes in the funding landscape, graduate students who had not yet accepted an offer had the offers withdraw.

Nine international students had the status revoked, and some may have had the visa removed. This also affects’ Cornell research and education missions

At the time, new Faculty searches are not open.

Cornell administration is analyzing potential 2, 4 and 8 year scenarios, and the different adjustments that may be needed under the different future possibilities.

CIP for the upcoming academic year is under continuous ongoing evaluation; no final decisions had been reached yet at the time of the meeting.

Friday, May 2 2-3pm – Private Meeting

The committee discussed the progress during the term, but the focus was on the later meetings and the challenges and threats the current situation pose to Cornell finances and their implication to faculty, staff, and students. The FPC is keen in bringing faculty vision to the administration early on during these critical times. The ongoing changes in the education and research enterprise funding models in the country have direct impact on the Faculty and the student body. Several topics are of interest to the FPC, including the financial aid sustainability (including whether grants are a long term sustainable vehicle), equity in efforts across units, effects on faculty compensation and how to distribute any required efforts, and on unrestricted accounts of Units and faculty.  There are special concerns about the effects on faculty recruitment and retention and graduate student financing.

The committee discussed being willing to meet during the summer if required, and the Chair was tasked with discussing this possibility with the Dean of Faculty.

To: Dean De Rosa

From: Luis Schang, Chair

Date: June 24, 2024

ubject: FPC Annual Report

Committee Membership

Luis Schang, Chair (CVM)

Vanessa Bohns (ILR)

Donald Kenkel (CHE)

Francesca Molinari (CAS, CS)

Dan Luo (CALS)

Rebecca Slayton (CAS)

Muna Ndulo (LAW)

Annette Richards (CAS)

David Ruppert (CIS)

Nancy Chau (Johnson)

Gideon Saar (COB)

Dean Eve De Rose, Ex Officio

Associate Dean Chelsea D. Specht, Ex Officio

Vice President Laura Syer, Ex Officio

The Financial Policies Committee of the University Senate meets monthly or more frequently during the term or as required during the summer. The schedules include two meetings with the Provost and/or VP Budget and Planning per term, to discuss ongoing and predicted budgets, including Operating Budget, Capital Budget, the long term impact of inflation on affordability, and long term projections. The highly interactive and productive discussions provide University administration with Faculty feedback and questions regarding budgetary and other financial issues. Other themes pertinent to Cornell Financial Policies are discussed internally and with guests, which typically are from University administration of the Faculty body.

This year, the meetings were hybrid for the first half of the first term but had to be converted to fully remote when Day Hall security had to be increased. In person participants met in 305 Day Hall and remote participants attended via a secure Zoom meeting. Guests were offered the choice of joining in person or remotely for the hybrid meetings, which facilitates the attendance by members or guests who are not located in Ithaca. When the meetings transitioned to fully remote, all participants were provided a secure Zoom meeting link to join from a private setting.

After the COVID-19 focus of recent years, the FPC has now returned to the general themes that affect Cornell Financial Policies and their implementation, including Endowment management, Development, Contingency Funds, eCornell and other remote initiatives, and compliance. A summary of each meeting is provided below.

Monthly Meetings Summaries

Friday, August 25, 2-3pm

As the membership of the FPC had a significant continuity from last academic year, only the first part of the meeting was focused on the introduction of the new continuing members, and a brief overview of the FPC mandate. Then, the FPC established the agenda for the first term and set up the topics to be analyzed and discussed in the meetings with Provost Kotlikoff, VP Syer, and VP Van Vliet.

Friday, September 28, 2-3pm

The second meeting of the FPC was dedicated to a meeting with Provost Kotlikoff. The meeting discussed the central contingency funds, the separate funds for strategic initiatives, and the reserves at different units. The goal of the administration is to increase the contingency funds by 5M per year to reach a 50M total target. Another area of conversation centered on the SIP and tuition increases, which are linked. The significant inflation in 2022-23 eroded revenue and put pressures on salaries. SIP mostly follows ECI, which has a delay over CPI, and therefore salaries play catch up. SIP and tuition increases for the following calendar year are determined according to the projections of the CBO at the time when the decisions must be made.

Another area discussed was the management of the endowment, and the drastic positive change that has occurred of late. Cornell used to be towards the top among its peers in withdrawals and towards the bottom in performance, but the situation has now mostly reversed. eCornell and other non-traditional learning were also discussed in the context of their financial implications and demands on faculty.

The FPC also discussed with Provost Kotlikoff the financial commitments of Cornell towards the city of Ithaca, and the impact that it has on the affordability of the city for Cornell faculty and staff, in the context that Cornell provides its own services, valued at approximately $19M per year. Provost Kotlikoff was optimistic that the proposed financial agreement would be approved by the City, as it eventually was.

Another topic of discussion was the possible financial impacts of the then likely graduate student unionization, which has since been completed, with an emphasis of the neutrality of Cornell and faculty and staff and the importance of leaving academic matters out of labor issues.

Friday, October 28, 2-3pm

During the October 28 meeting, VP Laura Syer provided an overview of the updates on the budget 23-24, the projections for the 24-25 year budget and the early vision for the 25-26 budget. As always, Tuition and Fees are the largest source of revenue, close to 45%, and salaries, wages and benefits, of expenditures, close to 55%. Consequently, the major changes between FY23 and FY24 are in these two lines. The projections for FY25 are considering lower ECI and CPI and therefore lower increases in tuition and fees and SIP are anticipated. The implications of the current model to long term tuition rates and their sustainability were discussed.

 Friday, November 17, 2-3 PM

The November 17 meeting focused on discussing potential limitations or barriers to raising grant and contract funding that had been brought to the attention of the Chair by a number of faculty.

The main issues that have been raised appear centered mostly in non-standard funding sources, although some do affect mainstream ones as well. The FPC Chair conveyed the issues raised by Faculty and the committee discussed them and concluded that this was an issue that it would analyze in depth.

Friday, December 15, 2023, 2-3 PM

The December 15^th meeting was dedicated to gathering information about the processes that Cornell Faculty have to follow to secure grant and contract funding.  A number of non-FPC member faculty were invited to discuss the challenges and potential barriers. After the introductions, the invited faculty make brief presentations and then there was an active discussion.  The following items were highlighted by a number of faculty.

• There appears to be no optimized process to streamline the renewal of similar contracts, which must be renegotiated every time.
• F&A rates may be affected to the original source of the money paying a contract, but these sources can be difficult to track in some instances. Some examples were provided. Cornell’s F&A rate is typically higher than the standards in many fields, which can result in decreased competitiveness.
• Timing is critical, as some contracts are urgent (24 h to accept, for example), and there appears not to be optimized processes to deal with contracts in such a timeline.
• Contracts may involve software development, which requires participation of several Cornell offices for approval, which may not be entirely informed of the standards in the area.
• Another challenge resides in the requirement for line item budgets, which are not typical in some areas.
• There are different requirements between research from practice, although the tools used are the same.
• Some programs in health promotion started only in 2017, and there appears not to be optimized process to support raising grant or contract funding in this area. Main funding in the area tends to come from the State or other States. Contracts are typically small, by direct tendering, and F&A rates offered are typically only up to 20%.
• Some of the challenges include the requirement that Cornell owns all data. Cornell cannot own health data. Similarly, Cornell requires universal publication rights, but publication of analyses of health-related data most likely requires approval by the partner. There is also a lack of clarity regarding the potential requirement for IRB in analyses of public health data.

These and similar issues were raised by a number of faculty in different colleges and appear to be frequent and it is possible that a number of faculty may just not pursue these opportunities, do the work without requesting any funds, or do it as part of their consulting. All of these alternatives would result in lost revenue for Cornell, loss of the prestige associated with earning these contracts, and the loss of educational opportunities.

After the round table discussion, invited faculty left the meeting and the FPC charted a course of action:

• Continue gathering as much information as possible from different units.
• Meet with VP Van Vliet to get interiorized about OSP.
• Coordinate with other avenues being pursued to resolve these issues.

Friday, January 24, 2-3 PM

The January 24^th meeting was dedicated to discussing and analyzing the ongoing issues regarding compliance faced by Cornell faculty in their attempts to raise grant and contract funding and paying for services, as well as collaborating with researchers in other institutions, particularly overseas. New cases of challenges resulting from compliance issues were raised by Faculty of a number of Colleges or units, which were presented for discussion.

• Main topics discussed were:
  • Challenges have been identified in grant and contract submission, paying for services, establishing collaborations, in particular requiring exchange of personnel and reagents, technology agreements, risk assessments, transfer of reagents to Cornell by recently hired faculty, and other areas.
  • Several strengths were noted, including available information in the web, and the RASS system, which also can create some challenges.
  • OSP is the intermediary between faculty and all compliance related offices, including legal, safety, and others. Faculty interact with OSP, not directly with compliance when submitting grants or signing contracts or NDA/MTA.
  • It is not clear if the staffing levels of OSP are keeping up with the increase compliance requirements.

Friday, February 23, 2-3 PM

Continuing with the focus on the compliance issues faced by Cornell Faculty, the February 23 meeting had the participation of the VP Research and Innovation, Dr. Van Vliet. This meeting was focused in gathering a perspective of Cornell’s financial administration of the research endeavors.

After the introduction of the participants, Dr. Van Vliet provided a global vision of Cornell Research and Innovation.

• Research expenditures have increased by 47% in last 5 years. The last years Cornell has ranked around 12-15 in this metric in the Nation. Research expenditures are a measure of the volume of the research enterprise but not necessarily an appropriate measure of impact.
• Cornell excels in earning extramural funding from NIH and NSF, but not so much in DOD, DOE and others; there is room for expansion in the latter areas.
• Sponsored support is about twice as high as internal support.
• The growth in research expenditures has brough some challenges as well. For example, staffing at OSP and other units involved in managing the research and innovation enterprise has not grown at the level of the growth of the research expenditures. Of note, no indirect costs go to Research and Innovation, they go to the Colleges and other Units instead, and therefore the funding of Research and Innovation is not coupled to the level of research expenditures. Research Innovation allocation comes from the provost’s office.
• OSP structure and operations were discussed. The OSP director responds directly to the VP research and innovation. The research administration at Cornell is widely considered a national leader to the point that many other entities model themselves after Cornell. Of importance, OSP turnover is lower than national average.
• OSP has different structures in different units. Three colleges have Unit specific models, CALS, CVM and CHE, and do not participate in the Pro-team pre-award support model.
• As in most other Universities, OSP was built around federal grant funding, and its approach to risk assessment is influenced by this main focus.
• One area for growth is translation impact. Increasing translation impact will result in further success at raising funds and in strategic engagements.

The presentation was followed by a general discussion focused on some of the challenges Faculty face regarding raising funds and paying for services and goods.

Friday, March 24, 2-3 PM

The internal March FPC meeting was dedicated to discussion the compliance issues faced by Cornell Faculty, and in particular the input provided by Dr. Van Vliet regarding the issue. The second part of the meeting was dedicated to preparing for the upcoming meeting with Provost Kotlikoff.

The FPC members were most impressed with the meeting with Dr. Van Vliet. There was a general consensus that some of the questions will require a later follow up to get full clarifications. The FPC discussed how to proceed next, considering the possibility of proposing a Faculty survey. The FPC was of the general opinion that the current challenges may be in part a result of the approach to risk management currently used by Cornell. The potential implications of the current challenges regarding Faculty retention and recruitment were considered.

The FPC also decided on the issues to discuss with Provost Kotlikoff at next meeting, and issues for future meetings, including inviting CFO Ken Miranda next term again to continue the discussion about Cornell endowment.

Friday, April 26, 2-3 PM

The scheduled meeting with Provost Kotlikoff on April 26 had to be cancelled at the last minute due to the ongoing developments in campus demanding his immediate attention. The meeting was thus re-scheduled for May.

Friday, May 19, 1:45-3:30 PM

The May meeting was extended to accommodate the re-scheduled meeting with Provost Michael Kotlikoff and the previously schedule meeting with VP Laura Syer.

Provost Mike Kotlikoff presented a brief summary of Cornell’s financial situation and discussed some financial headwinds, including Medical School operating losses and debt, a financial aid challenge, and the post-COVID developments. Later in the meeting, he also added graduate student unionization.

The financial aid challenge resulted from the timing of a rapid but planned increase in the number of students enrolled with financial aid and slower receipt of gifts to fund that increase. Although there are enough pledged gifts, they are not in-hand yet. The plan for this year is to cover the temporary shortfall with funds from the center, protecting the Colleges.

Although during COVID Cornell did better than anticipated, and the worse case scenarios did not materialize, there has been an increase in personnel post COVID19, which has not been accompanied by an increase in revenues, so the surpluses have dwindled.

Graduate student unionization is expected to increase costs, which may cause challenges for the Colleges. Different units will have different approaches to address the challenge according to their different revenue sources and expenditure; some might might have to reduce the number of graduate students. The main priority is that discussions do not encroach on academic issues involving graduate students.

The plan to build a central contingency fund continues being implemented with $5 million added per year. The units also have reserves, which are a mixture of reserves with planned uses and pure contingency funds. They are trying to discourage individual faculty from accumulating and keeping large reserves with no plans for their use.

Over the past several years there have been improvements in compliance, specifically regarding the protection of intellectual property. Faculty can be frustrated when they see opportunities that are difficult or impossible to pursue.

After about 45 minutes, the Provost had to leave for another meeting and the committee met with VP Laura Syer. VP Syer presented detailed updated information about the current fiscal year budget and the 5-year plan, which were then both discussed with the committee.

2022-23, 2021-22, 2020-2021, 2019-2020, 2018-2019, 2017-2018, 2016-2017, 2011-2012,  2010-2011, 2009-2010, 2008-2009, 2007-2008, 2006-2007, 2005-2006, 2004-2005, 2003-2004