President Eighmy provides update on looking ahead and financial planning

APRIL 17, 2020 — Editor's note: The following message was sent via email today from President Taylor Eighmy to all faculty and staff:

Now is perhaps as good a time as any to share my thinking with you about our path forward and financial planning as we look beyond summer and to this coming academic year.

There is still great upheaval globally, in our country, in Texas and here in San Antonio regarding our health, well-being and prosperity. Higher education is especially vulnerable as we work through this tragic pandemic and come to some kind of new normal.

The long-term effects of the pandemic are still unknown, making it challenging to plan for the future. We should expect this uncertainty to continue through this calendar year and perhaps into 2021—or until antiviral therapies or vaccines become widely available. It is hard to imagine how society fully gets back to work until these remedies are accessible to all who need them.

There is much discussion at all levels about balancing public health and reopening our economies. What this will look like here in San Antonio is still to be shaped, but planning will soon be initiated.

Decisions around the fall semester will be informed by our local public health situation, our city and state governments, and the perspectives of the Board of Regents and UT System. In the meanwhile, we can and must start to plan for the future so that we can come through this challenging period ready to fulfill our mission and serve our community.

While our clear desire is to return to a fully residential campus this fall, we will need to model a variety of scenarios that range from a fully open campus (perhaps with yet-to-be-determined public health practices in place) to a fall semester delivered online. We will also need to model enrollment projections for these scenarios. Each will have potentially significant financial implications that will inform our path forward.

Texas’ economic condition—including adverse effects to the oil and gas industries—will most definitely have an impact on UTSA. Our state appropriations are funded by the General Revenue Fund, which is already seeing declining revenues. There is a very real possibility that we will need to return state funding in this current biennial period, as was done in 2003 and 2011.

The infusion of nearly $30 million in CARES Act funds—split more or less equally between our students in need and institutional cost recovery—will be most welcome when it becomes available, but it will not be sufficient to address likely significant revenue shortfalls beginning this fall.

Given all this, fiscal prudency is essential and the time to act is now. We are not alone. Many of our sister institutions in the UT System and other universities in Texas and across the nation have already begun similar planning exercises. Soon you will receive more information from Senior Vice President for Business Affairs Veronica Mendez that lays out our plans for how we will manage the balance of this fiscal year while advancing our academic mission.

At the same time we must look further into the horizon to visualize how UTSA will continue to serve as a port in the storm, weathering the crisis of today to come out stronger on the other side. How does UTSA—as an essential educational and research institution for San Antonio, Texas and our nation—pivot under these significant challenges in order to continue what we do best?

As we develop our strategies, you will hear more from me about our plans for FY 2021 and beyond. In the meanwhile, know that we are diligently working to position UTSA for success in the new normal. We will chart the course forward using these guiding principles: 1) maintaining the health and well-being of our community, 2) ensuring the academic success of our students, 3) focusing on fiscal stability, 4) supporting our research enterprise, 5) adhering to our mission, vision, core values and cultural identity, and 6) embracing flexibility and creativity in our effort to become an exemplar for strategic growth and innovative excellence.

Finally, I want to thank you for being resilient. It is a testament to all of you that we were able to pivot to offering 4,600 courses online and having 6,500 faculty, staff and student employees telecommute. This gives me great faith in UTSA’s capacity to endure and thrive through challenging times.

Thank you for being a wonderful community. I wish you and all of your loved ones health and wellness.