University President Wallace Loh has said he will attempt to negotiate an exit fee lower than the ACC’s fee of $50 million. The conference raised its exit fee from $20 million in September, and Loh expressed “legal and philosophical” objections to the hike.
This university lags behind many Big Ten institutions in fundraising and will have to ramp up its efforts to better fit into the conference in time for its July 2014 move, a president’s commission found.
The 22-member group, which university President Wallace Loh formed in December to study the university’s integration to the Big Ten and Committee on Institutional Cooperation, has until June to present Loh with policy recommendations. The group is crafting ways to tap into new areas for fundraising and is comparing this university’s major sporting venues to those of Big Ten schools.
“[Fundraising’s] an area that we need to think about,” said Linda Clement, co-chairwoman of the commission and student affairs vice president. “We’re not as competitive in those arenas as the schools that we’re going to be with.”
The commission has been meeting monthly since January, driven by four working groups that cover academics and the CIC; Terrapins athletics; communication, fundraising and marketing; and finance.
All of the fundraising working group’s research and policy recommendations have been driven by one central question, Clement said: “How does the fundraising for the athletic department integrate into the fundraising for the campus as a whole?”
Because Big Ten schools are spread across the Midwest, a region the university has seldom traveled to as part of the ACC, officials are optimistic alumni in those regions will be more inclined to support the university.
“We certainly see an opportunity to engage our alums in Big Ten markets,” said Brian Ullmann, the commission’s spokesman and the university’s marketing and communications assistant vice president. “Whether that means that they just come to games or whether or not that means they might be prospects for major gifts, we don’t know that.”
Additionally, the commission found Byrd Stadium to be one of the conference’s smallest football stadiums, which could place the university at a revenue disadvantage even if football games fill the bleachers after 2014. However, Comcast Center is the second-largest arena in the conference.
“The comparisons are all over the place,” Clement said. “It varies.”
The breadth of the group’s work has proven challenging, Clement said, enough so that the commission has had to postpone looking at which of the seven athletic teams cut can be brought back until one of the commission’s final three meetings.
But the group has also already seen the beginning of collaborations with other Big Ten members, such as joint research efforts and a comprehensive library digitization program.
“I think we’re realizing that there are going to be an awful lot of benefits for us,” Clement said. “They’ve already become evident.”
This university’s structure, Ullmann added, is similar to those of many of the flagship, land grant and research institutions in the Big Ten, noting many of the universities were founded on the “same mission.”
“We can see how we compare to these other large public flagship campuses, and that’s amazing,” Clement added. “You’re just seeing what the enormous possibilities are, and I don’t even think we’ve seen them all yet.”
On April 8, the commission will hold a community forum in Stamp Student Union, where members will offer progress updates and take feedback and questions.
