The 2011 President’s Report, released by the College of William and Mary administration Nov. 8, lauded the accomplishments of students and faculty while also highlighting the challenges that the College faces in the near future.

In the opening message, entitled “State of the University,” College President Taylor Reveley struck a positive tone regarding recent developments at the College, including the achievements of students and alumni, faculty research and the expansion of the College in both population and educational reach.

“I believe this century is going to be the best in the College’s long life,” Reveley said. “The main reason for optimism is our people … and the pervasive sense that what we are doing at the College is vitally important, that we are changing lives for the better, that we are developing bold, creative, imaginative leaders who will make a difference no matter what field they enter.”

The financial section, which addressed the College’s budgetary constraints, was perhaps the most significant. State support has dwindled from 27.8 percent in 2000 to 14.8 percent in 2011, and the trend shows no sign of stopping.

“I don’t think it’s because the state puts a low priority on higher education,” James Golden, the College’s vice president for strategic initiatives, said. “I talked to the leaders in Virginia, and the governor has expressed this directly, that they understand the important role of higher education and would like to do more to support it. But you also have to face the fiscal reality, that there will be continuing demands on the state … to provide services that are becoming more and more expensive and absolutely essential.”

The College’s budget has become a serious issue in the past few years, with the reduction in state support offset by increases in student tuition and salary freezes for faculty and staff. Privatizing the College is one of many options thrown around to alleviate the financial situation.

“The short is answer is ‘absolutely no’,” Golden said in regard to privatization. “We all recognize the important place that William and Mary plays in the system of higher education in Virginia, and we welcome the role that we play as a public university. There are a spectrum of schools that have different functions within the system, and we think our special niche is to provide in Virginia access to Ivy League-quality education, in the context of a liberal arts school, an all-residential campus, [and] a solid ratio of students to instructors and professors.”

Golden cited the capital support provided by the state in the renovation of campus buildings such as St. George Tucker Hall, as well as the recent construction of the School of Education, as key benefits of remaining a public university.

The report also showed that the revenue the College received through its funding sources increased by over $19 million from 2010 to 2011, while total expenses increased by a smaller margin of just over $6 million. Expenses devoted to student financial aid fell during that period from $21.1 million to $12.8 million, raising questions as to how the College can continue to attract the best and brightest students from a variety of backgrounds.

“Our top priority going forward for this next biennium on to the next six years is to move our salary levels up to the point where we can continue to attract the outstanding faculty and staff that we need,” Golden said. “Costs are going to be driven primarily on the salary side, that is going to mean some tuition adjustments, and as we do that we’re going to have to make sure that we continue to provide access to students based on their need and make sure that we meet all of the established need for in-state students.”

The report also mentioned the College’s high rankings for undergraduate education, improvements to campus facilities, the numerous accolades and awards College faculty have received in their respective fields, the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) championships Tribe athletic teams have won, and the response of the College community to events at home and around the world.

In a time when the words “college” and “alcohol” have become practically inseparable in some people’s minds, researchers have published a study suggesting that alcohol-related risk factors might not be college students’ biggest threat.

The study showed that on an observed annual basis, 3.37 students die in alcohol-related vehicular accidents out of every 100,000 students. Suicide, with a rate of 6.18 deaths out of every 100,000 students, topped the list of most common causes of college student deaths.

During the 2009-2010 academic year, the University of Virginia’s Director of Student Health James Turner asked 1,154 college institutions for their statistics regarding the causes of student mortality. Only 157 of those schools responded. This was the first study on college student mortality conducted since 1939.

“Everyone is having a hard time believing the study because alcohol was relatively low on the list,” Turner said.

The study is potentially misleading, critics say, because when alcohol-related vehicular accident deaths are combined with vehicular accident deaths not involving alcohol, the mortality rate is 6.88 out of every 100,000 students, which is higher than the suicide mortality rate.

“[It’s important that] we understand the data that’s being shared,” Senior Assistant Dean of Students at the College of William and Mary Donna Haygood-Jackson said. “I hope that people don’t jump on the bandwagon and think that that’s the actual correct information.”

The fact remains, however, that more college students die due to suicide than alcohol.

“[Colleges need to] refocus [their] attention on mental health issues,” Turner said.

Administrators at the College emphasized their efforts to constantly improve the school’s mental health facilities.

“I’d be upset if someone said their campus was successful [in regard to suicide prevention]” Haygood-Jackson said. “I think we should always strive to do better, whatever that is. You should never think everything is great … because lives are at stake.”

Director of the Counseling Center Warrenetta Mann echoed these sentiments. However, she said she was skeptical of the study and does not believe in change for change’s sake.

“Until we have more data, I don’t know if there are any implications [of the study] at this point,” Mann said. “Until we know what needs to be changed … it would be kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. It would really just be doing stuff to say we’re doing stuff.”

Student deaths due to suicide are a sensitive topic at the College. In 2010, three suicides occurred in the span of eight months.

“I wouldn’t say there is truth to the statement that we are a suicide school,” Vice President of Student Affairs Ginger Ambler ’88 Ph.D. ’06 said. “I’m not sure why that myth persists … Myths and stereotypes are difficult to break. William and Mary is not an outlier. That being said, one suicide is too many.”

When such incidents occur, the campus community is often left wondering how they could be prevented.

“It’s a preventable thing, but it isn’t completely preventable,” Mann said. “I don’t know if we’ve changed anything. We’ve always been very cautious and careful. I don’t think these particular incidents have pointed to anything needing to be changed.”

Even if the suicides in 2010 have not caused the College to change its mental health services, administrators are constantly working toward removing barriers that prevent students from seeking help.

“What I hope is that our students know about the resources on campus. What I fear is that there’s still a stigma,” Haygood-Jackson said.

Haygood-Jackson emphasized that the campus needs to focus on mental health issues.

“I think alcohol-related deaths aren’t a problem. I think alcohol absolutely is a problem,” Mann said. “Just because people aren’t dying from it, we shouldn’t see that as our bar.”

Turner said he suspects that the relatively low numbers of alcohol-related deaths could be due to the safety net of resources on college campuses, as well as the fact that college students are less likely to be driving at all, let alone while under the influence.

“Students who live on residential campuses can socialize relatively close to their school,” Turner said. “I’m not saying that alcohol’s not important at college campuses … but apparently it’s not rising to the level of actually killing them.”

Chalked messages and thumbtacked posters dotted campus last week advertising a newly created website, www.CollegeCambio.com, the brainchild of two freshmen.

One day, while working out at the Student Recreation Center, two students from Yates began tossing ideas around for new ways to help College of William and Mary students, landing on an idea put forth by Joseph Laresca ’15.

“Why don’t we start a site for students at the College to buy and sell textbooks from each other?” Laresca said. “This could be a place where students could also find and offer rides, and other services, like tutoring, or post about campus events.”

Eventually, this idea became CollegeCambio, a marketplace exclusively for students at the College and formed by co-creators Laresca and Matthew Sniff ’15. Registering for the site requires an email.wm.edu address, which is provided only to students attending the College. This feature allows students to speak plainly and openly without influence from professors or administrators.

“Our main goal is to benefit the students of William and Mary,” Sniff said. “We hope that William and Mary students will embrace the idea and fully take advantage of it. Ideally, we would love for the site to one day be used by all colleges around the country.”

While the site’s purpose sounds similar to the original mission of Facebook, Laresca dismisses the similarities between the two sites. Instead, he says CollegeCambio is returning to the original roots of Facebook as a purely collegiate site.

“We’re not trying to be Facebook,” Laresca said. “We want to make [CollegeCambio] exclusive for college students … You’re just dealing with William and Mary students. It’s not supposed to be a social network.”

However, the similarity between CollegeCambio and the original version of Facebook may draw students of the College to the site, just as college students were originally drawn to Facebook.

“You had to have a William and Mary email to sign up. It reminded me of ‘The Social Network’ when Mark Zuckerberg explains that what sets Facebook apart is exclusivity,” Jake Lewitz ’13 said. “CollegeCambio reminded me of that, so I signed up.”

While innovative in many of its ideas, CollegeCambio follows in the footsteps of other sites for College students, specifically The Student Information Network, which closed in 2010, and HARK, a new initiative pursued by Student Assembly President Kaveh Sadeghian ’12. Despite the similar purposes between these three sites, Sadeghian approves of CollegeCambio and the initiative of Laresca and Sniff.

“I think it’s really cool that it’s a student initiative,” Sadeghian said. “It says a lot of good things about the College and the initiative of its students.”

Overall, Sadeghian feels the sites offer distinctly different services, despite the similarities in their makeup. HARK will utilize the existing College usernames and passwords, whereas in CollegeCambio students create their own usernames (similar to Twitter) with their College emails linked to it. HARK will also be institutionalized through the College rather than acting as an independent student-run site like CollegeCambio.

“I think HARK is a little bit different. It’s something we were going to use to run our elections through and for Student Assembly,” Sadeghian said. “They end up serving different approaches.”

Sadeghian said HARK is expected to launch by next semester, filling the void of the Student Information Network as a College-sponsored student site.

CollegeCambio officially launched Nov. 3, and in one week acquired about 600 members and logged 49,500 page views. Laresca has invested about $700 into the site, putting most of the funds toward the domain name. However, he ensures users that they will never have to pay for the site, and as of right now, advertising is not an option for the co-creators.

Freshman class President Drew Wilke ’15 sent an email to the Class of 2015 encouraging them to take a look at the site.

“I really think it’s just a great resource for students to use in terms of online interaction … It allows organizations to come in and place everything in one condensed area,” Wilke said.

CollegeCambio also works to erase middlemen, like Amazon, and in theory save students money and time.

“Think of CollegeCambio as William and Mary’s iPhone,” Sniff said. “Your iPhone has everything in one place. Our goal is for CollegeCambio to put William and Mary in one place.”

According to Wilke, the site’s current membership is predominately freshmen, as it was heavily promoted in Yates, where both Laresca and Sniff live. They hope to eventually get the entire student body on board, but some upperclassmen have qualms about the impact of CollegeCambio. Many do not see themselves utilizing the site regularly enough to experience its benefits.

“There’s a difference between having people sign up and having people use it,” Justin Miller ’13 said. “Though I will not use CollegeCambio, I admire the ambition and drive of Matt and Joe.”

Members of the site realize activity must increase for it to have the success that Laresca and Sniff predict.

“I think in general I encourage people to at least go and check it out,” Wilke said. “Right now the idea is out there and it has a lot of potential … it’s just a matter of people going out and using it.”

Aspiring college students will have yet another tool at their disposal when they investigate their potential alma mater online. To provide clearer financial aid information for prospective students, U.S. President Barack Obama mandated that all colleges that receive federal aid to post a net price calculator on their websites by the end of October.

“We see this as an educational tool, and one which can help families,” College of William and Mary Associate Provost for Enrollment and Dean of Admission Henry Broaddus said.

In a time where economic recovery remains stagnant, the cost of attending a particular university is a guiding — if not the most significant — factor in choosing a college. The aim of the NPC is to give families a more accurate assessment of what they could be asked to pay, allowing them to make more informed decisions — and in the eyes of many, make more options available.

The idea is not a new one. The Higher Education Opportunity Act, signed in August 2008 by President George W. Bush, required colleges participating in Title IV student aid programs to make available a net price calculator on their financial aid websites.

While the College’s admission staff is quick to emphasize the beneficial potential of this calculator, its financial aid experts are not yet convinced. This springs from the fact that the NPC is simply a means of estimation, not a final analysis.

“The jury’s still out on the net price calculator,” Director of Financial Aid for the College Ed Irish said.

The College elected to use a calculator designed by the College Board, the same company responsible for the SAT and Advanced Placement programs. They maintain, as does the federal government, that this system will better inform those who use it by emphasizing gradually increasing net tuition prices instead of rapidly rising sticker tuition prices.

“It can help you widen your college choices beyond those institutions that you think you can afford,” the College Board website states. “It is possible that your net cost will be lower at a college with a high sticker price or higher at a college with a lower sticker price. You may find that some colleges you thought were financially out of your reach may be very affordable.”

College officials were not hesitant in pointing out flaws in the NPC system, as well as in the wider financial aid sphere as a whole.

“The problem is that, in so many states, higher education is so decentralized that in order to equip families to make comparisons, it must be standardized on some level,” Irish said. “Generally [the calculator] is accurate, but when it is off, it is way off — thousands of dollars off.”

The crux of the device’s potential problems is its estimating error. Users are cautioned to treat the appraisal provided by the program as simply that, and not to think of it as a final offer from that particular college.
Many factors go into considerations of financial need, which in the end determine the size of the award.

Both Irish and Broaddus firmly stated that the NPC should be given only a slight degree of importance when incoming students view colleges.

“It is a tool, but only one of many,” Irish said.

However, College officials still support the program in its intent to better educate potential students and their families.

“A college degree is a good investment in any economic situation,” Broaddus said.