At the May 19 briefing on the state of the campus, top UCSB administrators found many achievements and much reason for gratitude in the past year while touching on the darkening financial clouds on the horizon for the coming fiscal and academic year.

Chancellor Henry Yang told the Corwin Pavilion audience that student academic quality and minority enrollment increased in recent years. He predicted that within a few years UCSB would become a federal government-certified “Hispanic Serving Institution” (HIS). Under Department of Education rules, a nonprofit educational institution in which Hispanic/Latino students compose at least 25 percent of the student enrollment can be certified HIS and becomes eligible for certain grants.

The chancellor thanked retiring Athletic Director Gary Cunningham, women’s basketball head coach Mark French, and volleyball head coach Ken Preston for their decades of service and enviable records.

While the Campaign for UC Santa Barbara continues to do well in raising endowment funds—it was reportedly closing in on its $500 million target—the chancellor conceded that the picture is not as bright with state funding. “We are facing a significant budget challenge next year,” he said. However, there will be no across-the-board cuts for campus divisions.

Executive Vice Chancellor Gene Lucas delivered more financial and projected budget news. He spoke of successful searches to fill faculty positions and of increasing student study load averages within the last two years. “We were previously not getting all the state money we should have gotten (for the enrolled students), but that has started to turn around,” he said.

The planned addition to Davidson Library “is on track,” Lucas reported.

Citing Assistant Chancellor Todd Lee’s figures, Lucas indicated that after the governor’s May budget revision the UC system still faced about a $250 million gap between what the Regents had budgeted for 2008-09 and what the state said it could provide. The Legislature has yet to examine and vote on the new budget.

Vice chancellors Donna Carpenter, administrative services; Michael Young, student affairs; and John Wiemann, institutional advancement reported on achievements in their divisions.

Academic Senate Chair Joel Michaelsen shared the general results of local housing cost comparisons and what UCSB might have as its housing prices when units are eventually built, particularly on North Campus. He estimated that the UCSB units’ prices “would be between 50 percent and 60 percent of comparable adjusted market prices” for local housing.