Jim Aumiller, the Whiting School’s associate dean for finance and administration, discusses how key decisions have put Whiting on a path to fiscal success.
Considering the economic climate, how has the Whiting School fared?
The last few years have not been easy for anyone. At Whiting, we joined together to cut costs and made difficult decisions while making certain we never sacrificed the quality of our research and education programs. We instituted salary and hiring freezes. Senior management took a voluntary pay cut, and the savings realized from this were used to augment financial aid. Departments cut nonessential administrative costs, and some capital projects were delayed. We are proud to say we have come off this economic downturn with a balanced budget and small reserve.
How does the budget look for FY2011?
Our FY2010 budget was roughly $160 million. For FY2011, we expect strong revenue growth, at 8 percent, due in part to an infusion of research dollars. If we continue to control costs, we should end the year with another small reserve. Our income comes from tuition (55 percent), grants and contracts (35 percent), and philanthropic gifts, endowment payouts, and aid (10 percent). We’ve seen tremendous research growth, averaging 10 percent annually over the last decade, particularly in Bioengineering. That is a tribute to our faculty. The quality of their work attracts this infusion of research money.
How is the university working to make a Johns Hopkins education affordable?
We have a goal of need-blind admissions. That means we want to attract the brightest and best students, regardless of ability to pay. Our endowment and other gifts do not provide enough income to pay for this goal so we have to bridge the gap with school operating funds. This year, we increased our financial aid commitment from operating funds by 10 percent to $15 million. That’s not the total amount of financial aid available to students, but it is our portion to meet the need-blind goal.
How will the school stay on an upward trajectory?
It is philanthropic gifts that give us the flexibility to make major investments in faculty, students, and facilities. These gifts come from alumni, generous benefactors, and innovative industry partnerships. We depend on them. Unrestricted gifts, in particular, enable us to chart the school’s future. We have used these funds for exciting projects such as turning existing wet labs into state-of-the-art cancer research space. The dean has invested in interdisciplinary centers such as the Institute for NanoBioTechnology, which, in turn, attracted $15 million in federal funds for pioneering cancer research. Creative industry partnerships have paved the way, too. One example is the Whiting School’s da Vinci surgical robot. It would have cost $1.5 million if we’d purchased it. But it arrived through the generosity of alum Richard A. Swirnow, BS ’55, and a unique partnership between the Whiting School and Intuitive Surgical, Inc. Overall, our future is bright.