At the first in a series of six public forums that address selected strategic planning task force reports, the co-chairs of the student enrollment task force presented their findings yesterday and discussed with the audience how Cornell could host the additional hundreds of students should the University decide to increase enrollment to alleviate its strained budget.

The report suggests that the University could feasibly draw in more money by taking in more students, but the increase in revenue would come at the expense of students’ experience at Cornell. Based on analysis of student perceptions of their college experience, the task force report confirms that increased enrollment will have a decidedly “not positive” effect, stating that “increasing enrollment will have a negative or insignificant impact on key indicators of reputation and student experience.”

The task force report on student enrollment is one of 20 strategic planning task force reports that have been made available for public review since Nov. 6 in a move toward greater transparency in the “Reimagining Cornell” process. Yesterday’s forum attracted an audience of about 50 students, staff, faculty, administrators and community leaders in Goldwin Smith Hall’s HEC Auditorium at noon yesterday.This much: Vice President for Student and Academic Services Susan Murphy ’73 and Deputy Provost David Harris present the findings of the student enrollment task force yesterday.

David Harris, deputy provost, and Susan Murphy ’73, vice president for student and academic services — both co-chairs of the student enrollment task force — presented the task force findings prior to opening up the discussion to the audience.

The report explores two scenarios in which the financial target — a net, recurring revenue of $20 million — could potentially be reached: increasing only undergraduate enrollment, or increasing both undergraduate and graduate enrollment. In the first situation, the University would need to accept an estimated 309 additional freshman students each year; in the second, it would need to bring in 154 additional freshman students per year and increase the masters student population by a total of 467 students. These numbers would be on top of the current target enrollment of 3,150 incoming freshman students per year.

Tuition revenue from graduate students would come primarily from masters students and less from Ph.D. students, whose positions as University research assistants and teaching assistants render their contributions to tuition revenue negligible, according to Harris.

“Though our motivations were financial, our deliberations were not restricted to financial considerations,” Harris said, explaining that the decisions were considered with the University’s best interests in mind.

A particular issue of contention during the discussion was the issue of housing for the additional undergraduate students. In presenting the recommendations of the task force report, Murphy mentioned that Hasbrouck might be made available to additional undergraduates who would need housing.

The task force report “[recommends] looking at opportunities ... for new students in the existing residences on north campus, and limiting the transfers and upperclass students who are currently occupying beds in those facilities.”

It also “[recognizes] that this move [of displacing graduate students to house undergraduates] goes against a principle of the Graduate Community Initiative, but we believe that the needs for graduate housing can be met in a more varied manner.”

“The housing experience for first-year and second-year students was deemed [by the task force] to be perhaps of greater value than having on-campus housing for [graduate students],” Murphy said, acknowledging that not everyone would agree.

Mike Walsh grad did just that — he disagreed with Murphy’s statement. He noted not only the sense of community that Hasbrouck creates for the graduate student population but also the incompatibility that Hasbrouck seems to have with undergraduate students, who — according to Walsh — generally are not looking for the quasi-family style residential units that Hasbrouck provides. He also said transfer students in the past had seen Hasbrouck as less than ideal when compared to the West Campus residences.

Murphy said that there could be a variety of ways to approach the issue of housing for the additional undergraduate students.

“You might take your juniors and seniors, have them be in Hasbrouck, and then take some of your junior and senior spaces that are in some of the other residences and give those to transfer students,” she said. She also said that the task force did not go into much detail in how the housing would be allocated in particular.

Murphy also admitted that the recommendation was controversial. “If I was a graduate student, I wouldn’t like it either,” she said.

Ellen McCollister, City of Ithaca alderperson-elect for the third ward, expressed concerns over the potential impact that increased student enrollment might have on the larger community.

“I would have great concern about unleashing an additional 300 undergraduates in the third and fourth ward,” she said, citing the potential long-term strains that such a demographic change in the community might have.

Harris addressed McCollister’s concerns with little elaboration, stating that the task force had indeed discussed the issue. He also said Ithaca College has had temporary housing issues in the past, when their freshman enrollment exceeded expectations.

In response to another audience question about whether the net $20 million could be obtained by increasing tuition instead of increasing enrollment, Murphy said a tuition hike would be a less viable plan. Harris added that both increasing tuition and reducing financial aid eligibility would be difficult to execute politically; moreover, they are inconsistent with President David Skorton’s “four pillars” that hold up Cornell — classical and contemporary inquiry, innovative thinking, student access to education and public engagement.

During the presentation of the report findings, Murphy reminded the audience that, despite the task force conclusion that the net $20 million goal was attainable with increased student enrollment, the steps to bring more students to Cornell would be seen as a next-to-last resort.

According to the task force report conclusion, an increase in student enrollment “will place significant strain on the core of the University.” Murphy clarified that the “core of the University” refers to the educational experience of Cornell students. Consequently, she explained that the task force recommended that the administration do everything possible to reduce costs before considering increasing student enrollment — with one caveat.

“If we find ourselves having to reach our budget adjustment by significantly reducing faculty, then [we are] having the same negative impact on the student experience as [we] would be in increasing student enrollment — plus you have lost faculty who invest in your research enterprise, both financially and reputationally,” Murphy said. “So if we find ourselves having to balance our budget by reducing faculty, we would [then] go back and look at the growth of student enrollment, because that [would] probably [be] the lesser of two poor choices we would have to make.”

David Devries, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, agreed that increasing student enrollment should take a backseat to alternative methods of reducing the University’s budget deficit.

“I think there’s sentiment that [increasing student enrollment] should be one of the last things that we do, and it’s a very sound and correct sentiment,” Devries said.