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The range of research activities at UNH is important to undergraduates as well. UNH prides itself on the opportunities it offers for students to work directly with scientists and scholars who are recognized leaders in their fields. A host of programs encourage undergraduates to pursue original research on campus, in the community or abroad, and UNH now has one of the largest undergraduate research conferences in the country, with hundreds of students participating in a week-long symposium.

Auxiliary operations, which account for about 26 percent of the UNH budget (about $126 million), also offer opportunities for increased revenue through more intensive and efficient use of existing facilities. Among the initiatives that are currently being developed or explored: introduction of a three-week "January Term"; additional summer programming, both for UNH students and for outside groups; development of new or larger graduate-degree and certificate programs for professionals; and online education to reach more nontraditional students. All of these initiatives are in different stages of development, according to Proulx, but at least one—January Term—will start this winter with a few offerings and expand in 2011. "The message is that we need to adapt to the marketplace and do so in a way that can generate additional revenue," he says.

Finally, the university is determined to build a broader base of support in the private sector. Gifts and endowment income account for about 5 percent of revenue (more than $24 million), but most comparable public universities have been more active and consistent in their fundraising efforts and have built substantially larger endowments.

"Our needs are so great for financial aid, and for targeted investments that can leverage the strengths of the university, that all private dollars make a difference," says Mark Rubinstein, vice president of student and academic services and interim vice president for advancement. As examples of targeted investments he cites sustainability, undergraduate research and business education, each of which represents an area of institutional strength that has been—or is in the process of being—magnified through "transformational philanthropy."

Huddleston has made it clear that increasing private support has to be one of the university's top priorities. "UNH needs to create a culture of philanthropy," he says. "Although a number of farsighted people have exhibited extraordinary generosity, we have not had a sustained history of significant private giving."

The president points out that UNH is ranked only 11th in the value of its endowment out of the 15 public universities in its standard comparator group—public institutions with which the university is thought to be competitive. "Six of those comparators institutions have endowments at least twice as large as ours, and at least two of them have endowments in excess of a billion dollars," he observes. "That's where we have to head."

UNH is trying to develop all of these potential sources of new revenue—and any others it can identify—as quickly as possible. The president's image of the diverging lines on the wedge-shaped graph is etched into everyone's mind. And the rising cost of higher education is a problem—for students, for the state, and for the nation—that we cannot afford to ignore. ~

Jake Chapline is a freelance writer in Middlebury, Vt.

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