p. College President Gene Nichol’s future will be decided this spring, and students have the opportunity to provide input, according to a college-wide email penned by Michael Powell, rector of the College’s Board of Visitors.

p. Nichol’s contract expires June 30, and Powell said he has received numerous inquiries about whether or not the BOV would renew the presidency. Powell said that the BOV has a rigid review process in place, which it will implement in the coming months.

p. “Pursuant to the terms of the President’s contract, the review will examine achievements as measured against goals and objectives presented by the President to the Board as well as other metrics,” Powell wrote. “Additionally, our appraisal will include a 360 degree review, which is a feature of the best appraisal systems. Once this process is complete and we discuss the matter with the President, a final decision will be made solely on the best interest of the College.”

p. Powell also said that the BOV has established an email account—BOVevaluation@wm.edu—for public input.

p. Powell emphasized, however, that the decision was “not a public referendum.”

p. “There is no purpose served by petitions or mass volume mailings, he wrote. “We will give consideration to thoughtful, well-reasoned and respectfully expressed opinions.”

p. While Nichol’s fate remains unknown, Powell said that the BOV will continue to support his efforts.

p. “President Nichol remains the leader of this College and he has our support as we collectively tackle challenges and chart the course of the future of William and Mary.”

__Kyrios ’09 wins in a landslide for vacated senate seat over Dunn__

p. The event began with Student Assembly President Zach Pilchen ’09 and Vice President Valerie Hopkins ’09 introducing newly elected Freshman Class President Jazmine Piña, taking off the blindfold Piña was wearing when she arrived.

p. Before the meeting, Hopkins and Pilchen conducted a mock initiation of Piña.

p. “They took me to the woods,” Piña said in jest.

p. “I think we’re all hoping to unite the class,” Piña said. “There are some things I want to attack, but I want to listen to the class first.”

p. Piña said she was eager to change the meal plan policy and is considering an effort to have dinner hours expanded. Unlike most of her peers, Piña did little campaigning, placing no posters around campus. On the “Vote Jazmine Piña for 2011 president” Facebook group, Piña summed up her platform, “As your class president, I will organize events for our class predicated on YOUR input and ideas, not my own agenda.”

p. Elections were also held for junior class senator. Alex Kyrios and Cliff Dunn competed over the vacated seat of former senator Sean Sheppard, who no longer attends the College. Sheppard endorsed Dunn for his seat vote.

p. Most freshman winners were reluctant to talk about their agendas, but had uniformly positive opinions of student government.

p. “I just want some freshman unity, a nice arms around each other campfire sing-a-long,” said freshman secretary Chrissy Scott.

p. During the reception Scott called her father to tell him about the election and was heard saying, “No, this is not a paying job.”

p. “I didn’t expect it,” said Vice President of Advocacy Sarah Owermohle. After being unable to attend most of the meet and greets Owermohle had been considering dropping out of the election, but at the advice of her father she stayed in.

p. Hannah Armentrout was elected Vice President of Social Affairs in the closest election of the race, receiving 50.3 percent of the vote.

p. Yael Gilboa ran unopposed for Treasurer and was elected with 83.9 percent of the vote.

p. Ronnie Wang, Michael Douglass, Brittany Fallon, and Ben Brown were all elected senators with 50, 47.38, 46.07, and 34.10 percent of the vote, respectively.

p. When asked about his priorities for the year Brown said, “Hearing and acting on our class’s concerns.”

p. Wang said, “Get more bang with Wang,” when asked for a few words for the freshman class. “My strategy was really to talk to people in all the freshman halls,” Wang said, adding that she relied on her close network of friends from her home in Northern Virginia to get the message out.

p. “I am so excited to get working on safety concerns,” said Fallon.

p. Although unable to attend the meeting, Douglass ran the most directly political campaign, sending out e-mails to all students in the “Michael Douglass for Student Senate” facebook group. The e-mails regarded Douglass’s opposition to the current meal policy, “Since we paid over two thousand dollars for our food, it seems that we should get what we paid for and what it healthiest.”
Douglass brought up the issue of extending dinner hours to 9:30 p.m. to specifically help out athletes who are forced to eat either before practice or not at all.

p. “It’s going to be a roller coaster, but they’ll enjoy it,” said junior class president Kevin Dua ’09.

__Endowment grows at market average__

The College’s endowment grew 19.2 percent in the 2006 to 2007 fiscal year, from $491.7 million to $585.9 million — the largest growth since 2000. Chair of the William and Mary Foundation Howard Busbee said that the investment trust grew 19.5 percent.

The investment trust includes only the endowment funds invested in assets and does not count funds acquired as gifts or funds paid out from the endowment to be spent. In the 2005 to 2006 fiscal year, the investment trust grew 13.7 percent.

p. “As stewards of these important funds, the William and Mary Foundation takes a great deal of pride in this exceptional rate of return,” Busbee said in a College press release. “As a result of this investment performance, all of the important programs and priorities of the College will be even stronger in the long term.”

p. In an interview during a break at the Board of Visitors meeting yesterday, Busbee said the increased rate of return results from two decisions of the foundation: moving assets away from pure stocks and bonds and into partnership investments and hiring a chief investment officer, Brian Hiestand, who Busbee says brings additional expertise to the foundation.

p. According to Bloomberg.com, foundations with endowments of more than $1 billion grew 18.1 percent during the 2006 to 2007 fiscal year. Over that time period, the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index grew 20.6 percent, including dividends.

p. According to the press release, the total endowment growth results from new contributions to the endowment, growth in the investment trust, growth in the funds held in trust by others and increases in the College’s real estate holdings.

p. “Thanks to a sophisticated investment strategy and the heartening support of alumni and friends of the College over the past fiscal year, this is terrific news for all who love this College,” President Gene Nichol said in the press release. “This growth in our endowment will continue to cement the long-term financial health of this historic institution for generations to come.”

p. The state budget cuts and the minimum wage hike have caused several problems at Swem Library, including the abandonment of longer hours and a hiring freeze.

p. Dean of University Libraries Connie McCarthy said that the budget problems will not affect current hours and that no employees will be let go.

p. McCarthy said that the recent priorities of the library were to extend hours during the week. This was accomplished several years ago when the weekday closing time was changed.

p. “We have run comparisons with our peer schools and it was data such as this that helped us make the case to expand regular hours to 2 a.m.,” she said. “Previously we closed at midnight, only extending hours during exam time. With that regular increase of 10 hours, that brought us more in line with other libraries.”

p. During the hours of midnight to 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, two campus police officers patrol the building. The extra 10 hours per week costs about $13,500 per year, according to McCarthy.

p. A study performed by The Flat Hat found that when Swem’s weekly hours were compared with the nation’s top schools and other public Virginia universities, the hours were approximately the same. Swem is open 103 hours per week. Some of the nation’s top schools — Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Stanford, University of California – Los Angeles, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale — averaged 104.8 hours per week. The public Virginia universities examined — the University of Virginia, George Mason University, James Madison University, Mary Washington University, Old Dominion University, Radford University, Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Military Institute — averaged 104.3 hours per week.

p. However, when the hours of the College’s peer schools, as determined by U.S. News & World Report rankings, were examined, the average number of hours per week at Brandeis University, Lehigh University, New York University and the University of Rochester averaged 109.8 hours per week — almost seven hours more per week than Swem.

p. Prior to the budget cuts, Swem had been planning on extending its weekday hours.

p. “The second priority — we heard this not only from students but from graduate students and faculty — is to open later [on] Friday and Saturday nights and certainly Sunday,” McCarthy said. “We always had crowds ready to get in at 1 [p.m. on Sundays] and people want to get in earlier than 1 p.m. So that still is something we want to be able to do, but given the budget crunch and the frozen positions, we’re not able to do it right now.”

p. Had the extended hours been enacted, Swem would have been open 112 hours per week, more hours than most of the universities examined.

p. The recent minimum wage increase has also affected the library budget. Currently $5.85 per hour, the minimum wage will increase within the next two years to $7.25.

p.“What [the minimum wage increase] means is that we are able to hire fewer students or students are able to work fewer hours,” McCarthy said. “So far that hasn’t impacted our hours, but it has impacted the number of students we’re able to hire.”

p. McCarthy said that she hopes to have an increase in funding that will allow her to begin filling vacant positions and extending library hours further within the next few years.

p. “I’m not sure I would call [the current hours] satisfactory,” she said.

__Investment Club uses $25,000 fund to practice trading, returns__

The rate of return on the Investment Club’s portfolio each year has been less than that of the market average. Overall, the club has seen a 5.7 percent annualized return on their investments since 2002. The greatest increase occurred from 2002 to 2003 with a 19.92 percent change. From 2004 to 2005, there was a -0.60 percent change. The data comes from Caleb Piatt ’09, the club president.

p. However, the club has to pay transaction fees of $80 to $100 every time a stock is bought or sold, according to Piatt. The stockbroker who handles the transactions is also the alumnus who donated the money, so “to attempt to move the money to an online account where transactions would be much less [expensive] would not be a very nice way of showing our thanks,” Piatt wrote in an e-mail to The Flat Hat. With these transactions fees excluded, Piatt calculated that the annualized return on the club’s investments since 2002 would be 7.9 percent.

p. The club’s portfolio began with “roughly $20,000,” Piatt said. In the early 1980s, Aubrey Mason, an alumnus of the College, donated [the] money to the business school, according to Investment Club faculty advisor Prof. James Haltiner.

p. “A student investment fund was established … students in the MBA Investments class in successive semesters researched stocks and made recommendations that were then acted upon. Some of the funds were spent on other activities like speaker forums or the like,” Haltiner said in an e-mail. Haltiner also wrote that after the funds went unused for several years, about $20,000 was given to the Investment Club.

p. Matthew Sass ’10, vice-president of the club, wrote in an e-mail to The Flat Hat that the club “was started with a large donation back in the early 90s, so we are technically an endowment fund. Money has been pulled from the club at various periods, leaving us with about $25,000.”

p. According to Piatt, the club holds weekly meetings at which there is a market update, discussion about the club’s portfolio, and opportunities for members to make presentations on stocks that they would like the club to invest in. PowerPoint presentations will include information on competitors and different variables. According to an e-mail from Malika Mukhamedkhanova ’09, co-treasurer of the club, all members decide which stocks to buy and sell at the end of the semester.

p. Members are divided up into different industries that then report on to the whole club, and the club recently added a game in which members “gain points by correctly predicting weekly and monthly stock price movements. As a member accumulates more points, [his] vote will have higher weight when it comes time to make portfolio decision,” Sass said.

p. Currently, the club is investing in eight stocks: Celgene, CURD, Wachovia, Noble Energy, Toyota Motors, Google, Oracle and Zicorp. According to Sass, the majority of the club’s money is invested with about $7,000 held in cash. About $2,500 to $3,000 is invested in each of the club’s stocks, according to Sass’s e-mail.
Mukhamedkhanova joined the club because she wanted to learn more about the stock market outside of the classroom. Nicholas Patin ’09 began investing during his sophomore year.

p. “I have actually done really well and I owe a lot of that to the officers during my first year. It’s always great being able to make money without having a job in college,” Patin said. “The things I have learned in the club will definitely help me down the road to retirement.”

p. Beyond the world of business, the Investment Club may soon play a role in the political arena of the College, according to Sass. “I am currently undersecretary for investment for the Student Assembly and am working with Caleb on expanding the role of the Investment Club to provide recommendations to and/or a partnership with the SA in [its] investment decisions, should [it] elect to pursue investment of excess funds in the future,” Sass wrote.

p. “Investing is more of art than a science,” Sass said. “The beauty of investing arises from the innovation in being able to see what other[s] can’t or haven’t yet, and profiting from it.”

Parents and Family Weekend 2007 begins today, with approximately 1,000 families registered to attend. That number matches the participation of past years, according to Ginger Ambler, assistant vice president of Student Affairs.

p. “More than just seeing their sons and daughters, the weekend is an opportunity [for parents] to live the William and Mary experience,” Ambler said. “They meet their child’s roommates and friends and get a flavor of campus life at [the College].”

p. Patrick Donaldson ’08, who coordinated the student volunteers for the weekend with co-chair Laura Sauvain ’09, echoed the same sentiments.

p. “Parents want to be a part of their students’ lives. This weekend offers a two-day look into everything that [the College] has to offer.”

p. The history of the College will be displayed through lantern tours of ancient campus, starting at the Wren courtyard and lasting from 9:15 to 10:15 p.m. Friday. Also, an open house at the student house in Colonial Williamsburg is scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday.

p. “It has been a pleasure to have a place off campus this final year at [the College],” Dean Edwards ’08, one of two students living in the home this year, said. “The location is very beautiful and house itself is fairly comfortable.”

p. With respect to how he feels about opening his “dorm” to a sea of parents, Edwards described his philosophy as, “Go right ahead, come on in.”

p. Saturday morning, members of the faculty will give lectures covering a range of intellectual subjects in the panel series. In addition, the seventh annual Homerathon, a marathon reading of epic poetry, will take place in the Crim Dell Amphitheater Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., representing the College’s intellectual side.

p. In the name of community service, families are invited to register and participate in the 5K “Marrow-thon” Sunday morning. All proceeds will benefit the Alan Bukzin Memorial Bone Marrow Drive.

p. “The Drive’s ultimate goal is to register more than 1,500 people in the National Marrow Donor Program,” Shannon More ’10, member of the steering committee said. “But in order to register as many students as possible and save lives, we host fundraising events like the 5K to cover the cost of registration.”

p. The Family Weekend Concert, featuring the Women’s Chorus, William and Mary Choir and Wind Symphony and Orchestra, will take place in William and Mary Hall at 8:00 p.m. Friday. At the same time and location Saturday, all of the College’s a cappella groups will combine their talents for the “William and Mary Sings!” concert.

p. Finally, student athletes will be showcasing their talents. The women’s soccer team takes on Drexel University Friday at 7:00 p.m. and University of Delaware Sunday afternoon, while Tribe football, hoping to maintain an undefeated record against the Tigers, faces Towson University in Zable Stadium Saturday at 1:00 p.m.

p. Although tickets for the game are still available, sales indicate a high potential for reaching the sell-out mark of 12,259 according to Spencer Milne, the director of Ticket Operations. “The Family Weekend game has turned into one of the better-selling games because of all the parents that come in,” Milne said.

p. Student volunteers have become vital to the overall success of Family Weekend. According to Ambler, interest in volunteering increased this year as the Office of Student Affairs saw “an overwhelming response from students wanting to welcome families.”

p. Donaldson described the various responsibilities of the students that he and Sauvain assembled. “There will be 98 student volunteers, participating in roles such as parent registration greeters, student ambassadors at faculty/parent receptions, lantern tour guides, ushers at the William & Mary Sings! concert, and Lecture Series introductory speakers for our participating professors.”

p. “The students that volunteer for Parents Weekend each year take a lot of pride in the campus community here at William and Mary, and want to show off all that we have got to offer,” Donaldson said.

p. A full schedule of events can be picked up at check-in Friday and Saturday and is also available on the Family Weekend website.

A second test of the emergency alert siren Wednesday was successful. During the test, the 120-decibel alarm sounded across campus for one minute.

p. “We are very pleased that the siren system worked as expected this morning,” Vice President for Student Affairs Sam Sadler told W&M News. “It is important for this campus and members of the local community become familiar with this sound and that they are educated about what to do in the event of an emergency at the College.”

p. The administration decided not to test the messaging system, in which students and others are contacted by phone and e-mail with information, because that part of the system worked both previous times.