Greenville College Annual Report 2001-02

Message from the President

It goes with the territory! Corporate CEOs, and especially college presidents, are expected to put their best foot forward! Readers of annual reports year after year squint a little and smile. So what is one to do when the report is wonderfully and uniformly positive? At Greenville College, we can only state the evidence and give God the praise!

The highest total giving in our history! $6.3 million during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2002, in what some say is the second worst recession in 100 years.

The highest restricted giving in our history! Including a wonderful grant of $1 million from the State of Illinois, and an anonymous gift of $2 million, the total restricted giving last year was $5 million!

Highest enrollment in our history! 1248 students this fall, including 970 traditional students (949 FTE) and 280 adult and graduate students.
Dramatically exceeded the operational budget! Careful controls on finances put us nearly $1 million ahead of budget projections with a significant surplus.

Retention increase of 9%! Above the CCCU average and ahead of our strategic goal one year ahead of time.

Completed the first new general education curriculum in over 20 years! With the launch of the team taught Senior Seminar this fall, our innovative integrative core courses received their “Capstone.” The senior class is focusing on the real-world issue of “Terrorism” this entire year.

Launched “Greenville in Africa!” 18 students in Mozambique & Zimbabwe. Dream for further integrative and character building education come to fruition.

“Settled an historic old debt” Through the magnificent sacrifices of our own board of trustees, by May we received their written commitments to cover $2.74 million of our internal debt. An annuity in hand is expected to cover the remaining $1 million.

Further improved campus facilities Purchased and refurbished new Art Center, remodeled Marston classrooms, reconstructed the Tech Center on Hogue Hall first floor, purchased the Ayers Field Station, completed energy conservation project, improved ADA access, campus landscaping and lighting, and more.

Laid groundwork for the future

• Our Steps: Following “First Steps” made by the trustees, our employees have joined the upcoming comprehensive effort by pledging more than $170,000; well over the goal!
  
• Greenville in St. Louis: With surprise gifts from two foundations and two individuals totaling $100,000, we have purchased and are refurbishing the new site of Greenville in St. Louis. This project, in cooperation with the Free Methodist denomination, is the second significant such partnership, adding to our ongoing oversight of the new Free Methodist university in Nairobi Kenya.
  
• Future Music Center: By mid-fall we had signed a formal purchase agreement with the local Free Methodist church to acquire their 38,000 square foot facility for our burgeoning music program.
  
• The New Millennium Commission process this year has assessed progress and is making revisions to the four major goals we have been pursuing now these past three years:
  
  1. Sharpen our focus on liberal arts,
  2. Develop our historic human resources,
  3. Increase traditional age enrollment to 1000, and
  4. Assure our fiscal vitality.
  
• New Graduate Programs. Greenville College is excited to be launching two new masters degrees in education, one designed for current teachers and one for second career teachers. We were delighted that our reputation expedited the approval of these new programs in the past few months, to begin operation in late spring.

Greenville College is a special place. Our distinctive calling we believe is to raise up young men and women, transforming them in ways not understood at most institutions of higher education. Our focus on a seamless curriculum and co-curriculum in and out of the classroom, aimed at traditional age students in an intimate residential environment is increasingly rare. Our passion for the character development essential to personal growth and even to good citizenship demands that we stretch our students while nurturing them too! New ventures in Africa and inner city St. Louis testify that we mean business.

Likewise it is our conviction that the very best practical preparation for graduates today is not in narrow vocational training but rather in learning to approach the challenges of the work world integratively. So our new graduate programs in education, well-respected regional adult programs, ProTools enhancements in our nationally recognized music program, innovative crossovers in art, music, computer science, media, business, & music, together with emerging plans for invigorated student research in the sciences along with the new off-campus programs already mentioned, demonstrate Greenville’s practical preparation is second to none.

So I hope this gives you a taste of the energy, the momentum, the confidence, and the excitement at Greenville College today. None of us has any illusions that our success is assured or that our own efforts are decisive. This year’s wonderful, yet unexpected gift of $2 million made this point very clear. But “without a vision the people perish!” And “except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” We believe God continues to use Greenville College for His purposes. “He who began a work in us, will see it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ.”

Last updated: January 16, 2003